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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?

#101

Post by gcr »

vel0city wrote: post #82
dragonwriter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s a good point.

On a re-read, the article does mention that the speculation of power plant failure is coming from outsiders on Twitter, so we don’t know whether the observability is there or not

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

#102

Post by xwdv »

kentonv wrote: post #89
HumblyTossed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Well that’s it then. I will startup a small crypto mining company, threaten to mine bitcoin and get paid out not to.

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

#103

Post by MisterBastahrd »

print_goto_ten wrote: post #33
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?

Texans like their guns and demand freedom so probably.

[flagged]

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

#104

Post by usefulcat »

nonethewiser wrote: post #21

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…

They're already incentivized to do this because the price varies with demand. Providers that can vary their output (at least some natural gas and coal sources) already do this on a daily basis, which you can see here: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/fuelmix

The overnight low price is typically $20-$30/MWh. Yesterday during the shortage the price peaked at $5000/MWh, which I suspect might be an upper limit.

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

#105

Post by briffle »

tiffanyh wrote: post #83

EV's This will become a bigger issue for all as more EV's gain adoption. And with the reluctance to use nuclear, there's not many reliable options for clean energy.

Do you have any supporting evidence for that? becuase i have seen EV's power entire homes when the power is cut, which kind of sounds like the opposite. I have also seen most 'smart' chargers take demand into account when charging up your car.

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

#106

Post by photonbeam »

scientifik wrote: post #17
gcr wrote: post #9

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?

Gotta turn the AC way up if you think there will be no power soon

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

#107

Post by philwelch »

> The call came, the group said, as heat drove energy demand up and wind power was forecasted to be low.

Renewable energy is not reliable or stable enough to be as large of a share of the power grid as it already is. ERCOT is running into this first because it’s a smaller grid and has less margin for error, but the other two US grids are going to have the same problem in time.

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

#108

Post by toomuchtodo »

wombat-man wrote: post #15
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.

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.

Texas needs a capacity market, where generators are paid based on their must run status. They choose not to previously because of politics (prioritizing low cost over resiliency). The PUC is working to fix this ("performance credit mechanism").

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/01/texas-power-market-p...

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

#109

Post by Ajedi32 »

thetwentyone wrote: post #46

Currently also predicting more demand than capacity today: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand

So based on that[1], it looks like the issue is that solar and wind capacity is forecasted to dip right around the time demand peaks? And there's basically no battery storage available (4,835 MW of maximum storage output vs the 61,549 MW maximum combined output for wind+solar)?

[1]: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

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

#110

Post by tr3ntg »

I live in Texas and we’ve been dancing on the edge of energy availability for weeks now. If you glance at ERCOT’s public graphs that estimate energy supply and demand, every evening we’re barely eeking by. From what I’ve heard, this should be improving daily as temperatures ease, but I guess not. Surprising that we had an emergency episode in September rather than two weeks ago.

If Texas can’t supply enough energy in the summer, I have no hope for what our future winters will look like.

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