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Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

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Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#111

Post by elbelcho »

briandear wrote: post #106
viraptor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting case of one area trying to stay independent and deregulated, then failing in basic areas like low costs, and maintenance, leading to serious issues in recent winters. With certain media trying to turn the management failures into an anti-wind campaign thus not making things better. Honestly it's an interesting trainwreck to observe from far away. Shame that it affects real people locally. In case…

Those failures didn’t happen until they started shifting to so called “green” energy. And compared to California’s power woes, Texas is a model of efficiency. With natural gas and nuclear, there would never be a power shortage in Texas. But for some reason people are obsessed with ugly, bird killing windmills and giant solar farms.

That's factually incorrect. They've been suffering severe power outages due to poor maintenance and planning as far back as at least 2011 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/texas-power-...

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#112

Post by mrep »

dx034 wrote: post #78
a-user-you-like wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was part of those. Sometimes living in CA feels third-world, and due to completely preventable maintenance items.

As a European, it always baffled me that power outages are such a common phenomenon in the US. I've heard stories about rolling blackouts due to heat/cold from people in all areas in the US. Whereas in Europe, I cannot remember a single instance rolling blackouts were used because of a gap in supply. Sure, Europeans pay more for electricity, but maybe that spare capacity and inter-connectivity is worth it.

The only power outages I have had in Chicagoland have been due to trees and those get resolved in a few hours. I'm pretty sure TX and CA are the outliers.

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#113

Post by rjmunro »

OliverJones wrote: post #93

I wish this were available for my power grid vendor. They send me emails in hot weather begging me to turn off my oven and ac. I know they send similar emails to much bigger power users too. It would be very nice if they had this data available, so big power users could plan. Sometime in the next few years, power grid vendors will start to understand they're in the real-time information business.

Which vendor is that?

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#114

Post by [deleted] »

epistasis wrote: post #27
dvasdekis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Makes sense if it's being built as fast as possible given the number of workers available for installation.

Solar is actually super super hard to install right now, because tariffs are in an uncertain space, so nobody knows if, should they import, if they are are going to get a bill in the next 12 months for past sales that's 1x-2x the cost of the import (I forget the exact factor). This sort of protectionism isn't even buying us a bunch of local solar panel production, unfortunately. I'm not a free-market purist, and am i…

[deleted]

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#115

Post by viraptor »

briandear wrote: post #106
viraptor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting case of one area trying to stay independent and deregulated, then failing in basic areas like low costs, and maintenance, leading to serious issues in recent winters. With certain media trying to turn the management failures into an anti-wind campaign thus not making things better. Honestly it's an interesting trainwreck to observe from far away. Shame that it affects real people locally. In case…

Those failures didn’t happen until they started shifting to so called “green” energy. And compared to California’s power woes, Texas is a model of efficiency. With natural gas and nuclear, there would never be a power shortage in Texas. But for some reason people are obsessed with ugly, bird killing windmills and giant solar farms.

Here's a fun and well sourced video about the source of failures: https://youtu.be/PmYvkCXXI4E

Or if you don't like fun: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/17/texas-energy...

> These failing sources largely included nuclear plants, coal plants and thermal energy generators. Frozen wind turbines were a factor, too, but Woodfin said wind shutdowns accounted for less than 13% of the outages.

That's ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin. So no, it definitely would've happened with just gas and nuclear.

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#117

Post by viraptor »

repler wrote: post #94
ravedave5 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the most slanted site I have read in quite some time. Should not be trusted.

I noted that as well, but it did give context for why it’s worth looking at this data right now. For me it was relevant to answer “oh that interesting, someone posted this ERCOT data I wonder what’s going this week” Kind of weird my comment was downvoted so heavily - but whatever. The dashboard was posted to Reddit over a year ago during DIFFERENT issues for ERCOT so it seemed relevant to find out what’s going on thi…

Well, it could have something to do with right wing weirdos slamming wind farms as the reason for all failures of Ercot. And the article bringing up the winter issues when mostly the gas/thermal plants failed. And not mentioning the fact Ercot decided out to be a part of a bigger market that could help the situation by trading the energy with other states. And the capacity planning issues.

Instead it effectively says: look at this graph, wind doesn't solve all our issues, so we're going to call it the reason instead. It's a shallow opinion piece not a serious article.

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#118

Post by TrueSlacker0 »

OliverJones wrote: post #93

I wish this were available for my power grid vendor. They send me emails in hot weather begging me to turn off my oven and ac. I know they send similar emails to much bigger power users too. It would be very nice if they had this data available, so big power users could plan. Sometime in the next few years, power grid vendors will start to understand they're in the real-time information business.

I'm on the Texas grid and we have been getting the same emails from our electric provider the last few weeks.

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#119

Post by epistasis »

pjc50 wrote: post #103
toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s about 100GW of solar generation in ERCOT’s interconnect queue at the moment. If there is uncertainty, utility scale developers aren’t signaling it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071998 > As of 30 September [2021] developers had 100.3GW of solar capacity in the queue, 42.4GW of utility-scale battery storage, 22.5GW of wind, 13.5GW of natural gas and minor amounts of other technologies such as biomass.…

> 100GW of solar generation in ERCOT’s interconnect queue at the moment. This seems mad - is that built and not connected, or just awaiting permitting?

Interconnection listing is one of the first stages for a project; but that doesn't mean that all of these projects will go through.

It does give a good sense of investor sentiment between relative technologies, however.

Re: Datadog dashboard for the Texas power grid

#120

Post by NelsonMinar »

Neat! The California ISO grid has a really nice web and mobile app showing similar data. The site is complicated and has a lot of different views, it's not as nicely organized a dashboard, but the data is great. Example view: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx#secti...
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