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> Some of these tactics have proven controversial with consumers. One program that pays big power users like cryptocurrency operations millions to conserve, has come under particular scrutiny, as Texans have been asked to conserve voluntarily for months. This is... amazing. Not in a good way.
I mean, if that's not a good way to funnel money from the lower classes to the rich, I don't know what is.
A map of power outages over the last few years with TX, CA, LA, WA and MI in the lead: https://www.fixr.com/articles/power-outage-solutions Maine is a headscratcher with HydroQuebec across the border.
Wait, so instead of charging their crypto mining customers more, they are paying them not to mine? WTF? You have to love their "free market" energy grid /s
> Some of these tactics have proven controversial with consumers. One program that pays big power users like cryptocurrency operations millions to conserve, has come under particular scrutiny, as Texans have been asked to conserve voluntarily for months. This is... amazing. Not in a good way.
Maybe they can just price electricity at different tiers of use. Or home vs business rates. Charge crypto farms more, especially if the grid is struggling.
> Some of these tactics have proven controversial with consumers. One program that pays big power users like cryptocurrency operations millions to conserve, has come under particular scrutiny, as Texans have been asked to conserve voluntarily for months. This is... amazing. Not in a good way.
is this what they mean by privatizing profits and socializing losses
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like they're dancing around what may be a social issue; ERCOT sent an email asking people to "conserve", within 30 minutes they saw a negative impact. Is it possible some recipients saw the email and took the complete opposite action?
It wouldn't surprise me if after an email telling them to lower their consumption, consumers would anticipate the worst and instead decide to recharge any electrical appliances reliant on batteries (Power banks, EVs, etc...) "just in case". Bank/toilet paper rush style.
While may be cathartic to muse how certain political ideologies tend to do the exact opposite when asked to conserve, Texans' don't trust the grid and they have valid reasons to not trust it.
The article states that the sharp drop in reserves was being “investigated,” and that it is “suspected” that a large power plant stopped working. Is observability of Texan infrastructure so poor that the _power company_ doesn’t have a comprehensive view of _which power plants are operational_?
Don't worry, Texas is just helping the crypto miners rather than their citizens again. "The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) paid a bitcoin miner $31.7 million in energy credits in August to not mine bitcoin. During the August heat wave, ERCOT issued eight calls for voluntary energy conservation. People were asked to adjust home thermostats or delay doing laundry during the energy call."
I think I have to set up shop in Texas with some space heaters and claim my bitcoin energy credits!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_origina...
What's stopping power companies from ramping up energy production? They know in advance there will be problems. What stopping them from just producing more? I realize there are some peculiarities of the Texas grid, but this is obviously a problem beyond Texas, as California and east coast has blackouts as well. I'm asking about all these cases. I imagine maybe this requires some additional infrastructure that simply…
Building and connecting takes time. Texas has added several state's worth of energy to the grid in the past few years. The peak hit at the 2021 winter storm was 76GW, far higher than any normal time historically. This summer, just two years later, Texas is going >85GW of power demand every day.
For comparison, New York's projected peak demand is only 32GW for this summer. So Texas' demand grew by an additional 1/3 of New York's entire demand in just 2 years. That's a massive amount of growth!
The article states that the sharp drop in reserves was being “investigated,” and that it is “suspected” that a large power plant stopped working. Is observability of Texan infrastructure so poor that the _power company_ doesn’t have a comprehensive view of _which power plants are operational_?
It sounds like they're dancing around what may be a social issue; ERCOT sent an email asking people to "conserve", within 30 minutes they saw a negative impact. Is it possible some recipients saw the email and took the complete opposite action?