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Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

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Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#81

Post by esotericimpl »

somehnguy wrote: post #67
scientifik wrote: post #17

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?

I wouldn't doubt that at all. During covid it became clear to me that there is a large part of the population that does the opposite of what any authority figure tells them regardless of how much sense it makes, just to be spiteful & show how 'uncontrolled' they are.

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Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#82

Post by vel0city »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
vel0city wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ERCOT is not "the power company". They're the marketplace where many power companies exchange. And they probably do know a bit of what happened but aren't going to share preliminary information until deeper analysis is complete.

The power marketplace company should actually have better information on questions like “did a powerplant selling into the market go offline” than anyone except the plant operator, and should have more information about the impact than anyone.

And we don't know if they do or don't have that information, they haven't said either way. So its a bit early to complain about them not knowing something when we don't know if they know or not.

If they truly don't know, then that's a problem. If they do know but are waiting to release information until they know all the facts, that's probably fine.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#84

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

itsoktocry wrote: post #48
probablyexists wrote: post #3

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."

> The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) paid a bitcoin miner $31.7 million in energy credits Politicians are utterly useless. They all herded to the crypto grift frenzy as if this was going to do anything for the local economy. Wonder how it's turning out? The 2021 fad has subsided, now they are paying customers to mine coins? Beyond stupid.

Did they all get in on the crypto grift frenzy? I know in Canada there's a certain political slant (up to and including the leader of our official opposition who spoke highly of bitcoin) that seemed more enamored with it than the rest.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#85

Post by pseg134 »

karmajunkie wrote: post #22
gyanreyer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not from Texas so genuinely asking, is there hard proof that anyone specifically invested in power infrastructure because of bitcoin mines in a way they wouldn't have otherwise?

i live in texas and no, there’s not. because it didn’t happen.

My family has lived in Texas for 100 years and I monitor all utility construction that occurs in the state. I can confirm that it didn’t happen.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#86

Post by bombcar »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
vel0city wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ERCOT is not "the power company". They're the marketplace where many power companies exchange. And they probably do know a bit of what happened but aren't going to share preliminary information until deeper analysis is complete.

The power marketplace company should actually have better information on questions like “did a powerplant selling into the market go offline” than anyone except the plant operator, and should have more information about the impact than anyone.

It depends on how they're joined to the "grid" - if a company running multiple plants is providing 10 GW and later is providing 9900 MW did a plant go offline? Did clouds obscure solar? Did the wind die down?

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#87

Post by bombcar »

nonethewiser wrote: post #63
vel0city wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're already running at full tilt, how are you going to ramp up energy production? You then need to build more. 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…

So essentially its high growth in energy demand? And probably it not making sense financially to overbuild.

The demand is there, the building is there, but if you overbuild you can get screwed very hard, so the power companies have (very complex, mind you) models that they use to determine if a plant will make sense to bring online.

Those models may have been wrong, or based on assumptions about temperatures that turned out incorrect.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#88

Post by esotericimpl »

dylan604 wrote: post #53
mempko wrote: post #27

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

we pay farmers more to not grow something as well. there's a lot of WTactualF moments in where the government spends money.

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Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#89

Post by kentonv »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #51
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #4

> 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.

So... start a "cryptocurrency" business and get paid to not use electricity. 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.

You joke but in August the biggest Bitcoin mine in North America got paid 3.5x more by the utility to turn their rigs off than they made in actual Bitcoin mined -- and they say openly that collecting credits is core to their strategy.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/texas-paid-bitcoin-miner-rio...

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#90

Post by drewchew »

no_wizard wrote: post #66
lukev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea behind this is sound. Because production and consumption must net to ~0, from the grid's perspective cutting load is just as valuable as providing generative capacity. Imagine you own a factory that typically runs 24/7 and is part of the system's base load. There is a material cost for you to shut down production. These structures were set up to make it economically viable to have these types of ins…

I have a friend who works in the energy industry specifically targeting power grid management. It is far easier for power companies to manage power loss for things with consistent power usage (low variance) than high variance / inconsistent power loads. Businesses tend to be very consistent, even if their power draw is high, like manufacturing or hospitals etc. Residential power tends to be more variant and harder to…

Would it help if the state were to provide tax incentives for in home battery backups?
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