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'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

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Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#41

Post by _heimdall »

the_gastropod wrote: post #36
_heimdall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only really holds true if disruptions in the carbon cycle are the fundamental root cause. Carbon seems extremely important no doubt, but I've never personally bought the idea that the health of the entire planet can be boiled down to a single, analytical metric. I've also yet to be convinced that, even if it truly is all about carbon, we understand the problem so completely that we know how to intervene precisel…

> I've never personally bought the idea that the health of the entire planet It’s not the health of the entire planet that’s at stake. It’s the habitability of the inhabited parts of the planet for humans . The earth will be just fine.

Sure, I'd still stand by my statement making that substitution. I don't think the ecosystem humans specifically depend on can be boiled down to a single metric.

We've leaned extremely analytical in modern times but doing so puts us at serious risk of missing the forest for the trees. We have a habit of trying to quantify everything and missing the fact that doing so loses context and greatly increases the risk of over confidence in our ability to understand and intervene with a complex system.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#42

Post by racked »

errantmind wrote: post #12

Some interesting facts: * ERCOT (Texas) has more renewables generation than every other ISO, including CAISO (California) * ERCOT is setting new renewables records almost every month, as new renewables sites come online. Source: https://www.gridstatus.io/home

I'm not seeing that at all on gridstatus.io. Although solar capacity is growing, ERCOT mostly and increasingly seems to use natural gas.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#43

Post by pfdietz »

yawaramin wrote: post #13

There is an unfortunate tunnel vision focus on renewables when the real goal should be deep decarbonization. The reason is obvious when you realize that people of a certain generation (who are in power now) don't like nuclear energy because 'nuclear' was the bogeyman while they were growing up. They are dragging the rest of us down with them into an era of unstable and unreliable power at huge expense.

The focus is on decarbonization, which is why the focus is on renewables, as they are the fastest, least cost route to decarbonization (along with efficiency).

Nuclear? Why would you want to slow down decarbonization and make the process more expensive? It's almost as if your words of focus on decarbonization are lies.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#44

Post by _heimdall »

Atotalnoob wrote: post #15
_heimdall wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will be a tough game to chase long term as batteries need to be removed and replaced regularly. Assuming the storage capacity needs continue to grow, CA would need to replace larger and larger stocks of batteries on the scale of 5-15 years depending on what kind of warranty the battery manufacturers are providing.

Batteries don’t have to be the traditional ones we use and think of. They can be things like pumping water up a hill and releasing it to spin a turbine or using rocks storing heat. The storage capacity can be added, it’s just don’t going to be banks of lead or lithium batteries

California isn't exactly known for water management practices, though sure there are storage systems that use kinetic potential as a battery. In theory that can be used at very large scales, if the water and elevation is available for use.

Is be really curious how the math works out with regards to how much water would be required for say 3 days of use in LA. That may even be an over estimate of storage needs given how few rainy days they get.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#45

Post by beepbooptheory »

Grain of salt but there is some bad precedent here with the state's messaging on these matters [1] This is from 2021, which if not catastropic, was pretty bad. But it's ok, because Texas residents will be paying off the losses there for the next 25 years [2]!

1. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis#Utilit...

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#46

Post by danans »

cranky908canuck wrote: post #22
zer00eyz wrote: post #2

If you're reading this and the cost prohibitive part of this story doesn't make sense you have to understand how far forward the Texas grid is when it comes to renewables. There have been many occasions where the cost of power in Texas has gone negative. (see: https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/understanding-negative-pr... ) For this to happen there are a lot of factors that come into play but it indicates a downward…

So this is where the right leaning (and quite reasonable, in the long term) observation should be: there's a business opportunity to build and deploy storage capacity with grid stabilization the top feature. That takes vision (which isn't always there), but also time. Perhaps also recognition in the regulatory ecosystem that this is needed, so that the business case (ie, build it and they will pay for it) is there.

That observation isn't (politically) right leaning, at least not in the American context.

Grid balancing storage is already being built out and operated in left leaning California, and already contributes significantly to supply during the evening demand ramp.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#47

Post by pixl97 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #31
hirsin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason grid storage reporting always seems to use a power metric instead of storage metric, which makes no sense to me. I've seen this in a half dozen stories, and found that even the government reports do this. I think it stems from someone reusing a column to represent both storage and power across generators and batteries.

Yep. It's a measure that makes perfect sense for conventional electricity production: 10,000MW of aggregated coal generation can hypothetically produce 10,000MW more-or-less indefinitely, as long as it keeps being fed things like fuel, water, and maintanence. But it doesn't make any sense at all, by itself, for energy storage: A net 10,000MW battery might be able to produce 10,000MW, but for how long can that output…

I mean during the great texas power outage natural gas plants ran out of fuel because of supply issues that were not typically supply issues it would be more honest if every power plant also listed it's on hand 'fuel battery'. Now I'm sure they may do this with ERCOT, but it's not something typically reported.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#48

Post by cranky908canuck »

singhrac wrote: post #33
cranky908canuck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is where the right leaning (and quite reasonable, in the long term) observation should be: there's a business opportunity to build and deploy storage capacity with grid stabilization the top feature. That takes vision (which isn't always there), but also time. Perhaps also recognition in the regulatory ecosystem that this is needed, so that the business case (ie, build it and they will pay for it) is there.

There’s plenty of battery being deployed for ancillary services in Texas (frequency response, 30 minute, etc). They are getting paid tons to do it and it’s been coming online for years.

This doesn't seem to be getting the exposure it deserves --- please give links, I'd like to see! You seem to be implying that "the featured article" [1] is not giving that exposure (which is my sense as well).

[1] looking for the shorthand for the original link that started the discussion, thinking that 'TFA' is correct, is this in the HN FAQ?

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#49

Post by deviantbit »

cranky908canuck wrote: post #22
zer00eyz wrote: post #2

If you're reading this and the cost prohibitive part of this story doesn't make sense you have to understand how far forward the Texas grid is when it comes to renewables. There have been many occasions where the cost of power in Texas has gone negative. (see: https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/understanding-negative-pr... ) For this to happen there are a lot of factors that come into play but it indicates a downward…

So this is where the right leaning (and quite reasonable, in the long term) observation should be: there's a business opportunity to build and deploy storage capacity with grid stabilization the top feature. That takes vision (which isn't always there), but also time. Perhaps also recognition in the regulatory ecosystem that this is needed, so that the business case (ie, build it and they will pay for it) is there.

One would think, but Biden is looking at imposing a 30% excise tax on crypto miners. This is directly targeted at Texas, to slow further development and growth in that state. Crypto has been one of the largest drivers for renewable energy in Texas, and now they want to put a dagger in it. Investors are watching closely at putting any money into the grid because of the Biden administration.

If that tax goes into effect, Texas will have far more energy production than it needs, possibly causing an energy-market crash in that state. I don't know, but it almost seems intentional. Texas can consume up to 8900 megawatts in the summer, average around 6500 MW, and crypto operations consuming up to 2500 MW.

There is a lot to think about.

Re: 'Catastrophic grid failure' a possibility for Texas solar/wind/battery storage

#50

Post by icegreentea2 »

racked wrote: post #42
errantmind wrote: post #12

Some interesting facts: * ERCOT (Texas) has more renewables generation than every other ISO, including CAISO (California) * ERCOT is setting new renewables records almost every month, as new renewables sites come online. Source: https://www.gridstatus.io/home

I'm not seeing that at all on gridstatus.io. Although solar capacity is growing, ERCOT mostly and increasingly seems to use natural gas.

ERCOT has way more wind capability (both absolute capacity and percentage) than CAISO. CAISO has more solar as a percentage of capacity, but even then the absolute capacities for solar between CAISO and ERCOT are actually quite similar.

For example, on April 22 at local noon, CAISO was generating 72% of its total capacity from solar with 18GW. ERCOT was generating 63% from solar+wind roughly split 50/50. Solar was at 30% at 13GW.

You're right that ERCOT uses a lot of natural gas (and infact today, April 28th looks to be anomalously high), but it definitely has very very meaningful amounts of renewable generation.

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