111–120 of 215 posts
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.
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I think I have to set up shop in Texas with some space heaters and claim my bitcoin energy credits!
Unfortunately not how it works. The reason that Texas is paying miners to load shed is because they are being paid to supply a constant load to the grid. They shut down in order to dump capacity into the grid because that is less expensive than attempting to bring new capacity online to meet demand and then later bring that capacity back down when it is no longer needed. Because of the way miners can ramp up and down…
> 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 would imagine that the crypto operations also pays a lot of money for generation services - so knowing how much it purchases for electricity vs how much it conserves would add a lot of context. Stating that they get millions (loose numbers) from DM/DR programs is pretty soft reporting and they are providing a grid stabilizing service.
The argument that retail consumers can't get money from DR programs i'm not sure is accurate though don't know what ERCOT currently offers for residential consumers. I know of services that allow consumers to cash in through smart thermostats etc (OhmConnect). Also its a lot cheaper to get a couple large consumers to reduce their usage then aggregating over a large group of houses.
Now if you are trying to argue that this use case for the electricity is wasteful thats another argument or that Texas handling of the grid has been challenged especially the natural gas fiasco - also another argument.
Just a few months ago on HN there was a thread discussing the upcoming summer. Was surprised just how many 'free-market' advocates came out to say how great things were, how the market has created additional supply, and all this was just lib panic. They are paying 'crypto-miners' to temporarily stop running? That is absurd. So I could make money just by moving a mining operation to Texas, and wait for a shutdown. How…
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_?
[1] https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2018/09/28/902NPRR-01_ERCOT...
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…
Out of curiosity, what did those graphs look like to you on previous years?
It would have had blackouts if it didn't build all those bitcoin mines. The bitcoin mines encouraged power infrastructure development, and they can just be taken offline when high heat causes power demand spikes for air conditioning.
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…
I don't live in TX, but if I didn't have 1day battery storage, coupled with solar capability to charge that battery to full in a single day, with a generator as backup, every ounce of effort would be going to that.
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I think the news is that they paid bitcoin miners to sit idle. The only other choice was to charge them more for power usage.
right, they save that second option for regular consumers.
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I actually think it’s the only somewhat good thing about Texas’ grid. What better way to ensure Island configuration works than running that mode all the time?
I mean I guess - but there is no getting around that it concentrates risk...