Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

edition.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 147 posts

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#121

Post by 6thaccount2 »

jabl wrote: post #113
6thaccount2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many energy companies would love (or at least not be opposed) to get a large amount of renewables and energy storage...etc. The problem is that doing so costs money (a lot of it) which means raising customer rates which are highly regulated. Many of those companies are still paying off coal assets and aren't allowed by regulators to retire those units until they're paid off even though they aren't economic an…

In deregulated power markets, which AFAIK covers a fairly large fraction of US electricity supply (including Texas) power generators are businesses like in any random industry. The transmission grid, otoh, is a natural monopoly and is tightly regulated (or outright publicly owned). In such markets, uneconomical units tend to be shut down fairly quickly. Which in the absence of a some type of price on carbon (be it a…

You're correct that most of the US is in a power market. I'd still call it regulated though. There are some regions like TVA, Colorado area, and BPA that do their own thing, but BPA is joining CAISO's secondary market (energy imbalance) which is a step towards a full day ahead market which does commitment and dispatch instead of just dispatch (commitment and the sharing of reserves is where the majority of cost savings occur).

The other parts of the US participate in either ERCOT, CAISO, MISO, SPP, ISO-NE, PJM, or NYISO which all do commitment and dispatch. ERCOT is a little unusual as they don't co-optimize reserves in their real-time 5-minute market. Each of these markets has an independent market monitor that looks for participant gaming and other market anomalies. FERC mandated this after some heavy abuse in the north east from a utility where the fine was divided up and went to funding the market monitoring groups. Either this group or sometimes the market software itself looks for instances of market power being demonstrated. For example, if you're unit is sitting right on top of a congested area and your offer jumps up a certain percent, the software pushes you back to the approved offer that the market monitor verified is your true marginal cost. So the market is deregulated, but there is still plenty of regulation of a sort.

In a perfect market, yes you would have uneconomical units shut down quickly, but this isn't the stock market and there are many reasons why this doesn't happen all the time. Maybe you need it for capacity reasons (markets have rules on how much you need to reliably serve load or they even have capacity markets) as wind and solar aren't as reliable as thermal generation.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#122

Post by 6thaccount2 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #115
6thaccount2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're hooking up your rural house to a turbine, your comment is misleading. The power going to your house will still be a mix of coal, natural gas, wind, solar, and others.

Electricity is fungible. It doesn't make sense to build out multiple entire electric grids, one per type of energy generation.

I most certainly did not advocate for that.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#123

Post by jabl »

6thaccount2 wrote: post #121
jabl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In deregulated power markets, which AFAIK covers a fairly large fraction of US electricity supply (including Texas) power generators are businesses like in any random industry. The transmission grid, otoh, is a natural monopoly and is tightly regulated (or outright publicly owned). In such markets, uneconomical units tend to be shut down fairly quickly. Which in the absence of a some type of price on carbon (be it a…

You're correct that most of the US is in a power market. I'd still call it regulated though. There are some regions like TVA, Colorado area, and BPA that do their own thing, but BPA is joining CAISO's secondary market (energy imbalance) which is a step towards a full day ahead market which does commitment and dispatch instead of just dispatch (commitment and the sharing of reserves is where the majority of cost savin…

In this case with regulated vs deregulated I meant whether there is some kind of open access scheme for generators, or whether there is a utility with both power generation and transmission in a monopoly position. Of course, even in such a deregulated market there are laws and regulations that apply to generators.

> ERCOT is a little unusual as they don't co-optimize reserves in their real-time 5-minute market.

ERCOT has their ORDC which IIUC they are happy with.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#124

Post by dreamcompiler »

johnohara wrote: post #81
danielecook wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the smell. Describe the smell for us.

Doesn't compare to the feedlots in El Paso which are easily 5x the size (or more), somewhat higher up from the river. The west Texas wind was blowing from the south/southwest at 15-20 mph. There was no detectable odor, even west of Amarillo when we stopped for fuel. Hot too. 103 degrees fahrenheit. Plenty of room to dissipate I guess. I was surprised however, by the amount of corn being grown. I don't remember seeing…

> There was no detectable odor, even west of Amarillo when we stopped for fuel.

I've driven by the Wildorado feedlot dozens of times, and I always put my A/C on recirc 5 miles before and after. The stench still gets into the car. Conditions must have been very unusual during your trip.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#125

Post by dreamcompiler »

mirimir wrote: post #30

> Texas produces and consumes more electricity overall than any other state. OK, why? From an article in Texas Monthly:[0] > More than half of the energy consumed in Texas is for industrial use, according to the EIA, while residential use—which in terms of sheer BTUs is the most in the nation, even as our per capita usage is relatively low—accounts for just over 13 percent. Transportation accounts for nearly a quarte…

Probably also has to do with Texas just being the geographically largest of the lower 48. (Alaska is much bigger but its population is very low so they don't use much power.)

Texas also has its own grid [0]. There are three separate grids in the lower 48: East, West, and Texas. This means the Texas grid doesn't need to stay in phase with the rest of the US. While they do move power to/from the other two grids, it's done with DC interties. Texas shares power with Mexico via high-voltage DC transmission lines [1].

[0] https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-...

[1] http://www.abb.com/cawp/seitp202/8192dccad527af33c125737f002...

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#127

Post by dinofacedude »

elamje wrote: post #56
mirimir wrote: post #30

> Texas produces and consumes more electricity overall than any other state. OK, why? From an article in Texas Monthly:[0] > More than half of the energy consumed in Texas is for industrial use, according to the EIA, while residential use—which in terms of sheer BTUs is the most in the nation, even as our per capita usage is relatively low—accounts for just over 13 percent. Transportation accounts for nearly a quarte…

Texas resident here. If you have ever driven by a refinery of any type you will see where energy goes. The shear amount of energy to convert oil to usable gas/plastics/etc. is pretty crazy. Texas has the biggest oil refinery presence in the US ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_Un... ) Refineries don’t just make gasoline, but plastic, engine oil, industrial lubricant. That being said, wiki wi…

This exactly. I lived in Lumberton near Beaumont for a few years and the paper mill made most of the town stink at the time. I moved to Mount Pleasant for another few years and the entire town's industry centers around the pilgrim's pride chicken factory. The entire town, coincidentally, smells like raw chicken.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#128

Post by Dylan16807 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #115
6thaccount2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're hooking up your rural house to a turbine, your comment is misleading. The power going to your house will still be a mix of coal, natural gas, wind, solar, and others.

Electricity is fungible. It doesn't make sense to build out multiple entire electric grids, one per type of energy generation.

The problem is that it's fungible in the other direction. Everyone buying generic electricity can end up with less wind, so your net impact is less or zero.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#129

Post by mirimir »

CydeWeys wrote: post #111
mirimir wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. That was my guess. I mean, I didn't think that aluminum production was big there. I wonder what the energy efficiency of petroleum refining is. From the US DOE,[0] I get: TBtu 3542 primary energy 2082 applied energy 1460 energy lost So ~59%. That's a lot of energy to blow off. 0) https://www.energy.gov/eere/amo/dynamic-manufacturing-energy...

This illustrates something that is curiously lacking from most ICE vs BEV energy efficiency calculations, namely: More electricity is spent just refining the gasoline used by an ICE than is used in total by a BEV to go the same distance.

Sure. But it can be generated on refinery sites, using solids and extremely nonvolatile fractions as fuel.

I suspect that using outside electricity is a purely economic issue. That is, when the value of additional products produced is greater than the cost of extra electricity needed. So in that sense, oil refineries are like aluminum refineries, in that they can store surplus electricity.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#130

Post by mirimir »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #125
mirimir wrote: post #30

> Texas produces and consumes more electricity overall than any other state. OK, why? From an article in Texas Monthly:[0] > More than half of the energy consumed in Texas is for industrial use, according to the EIA, while residential use—which in terms of sheer BTUs is the most in the nation, even as our per capita usage is relatively low—accounts for just over 13 percent. Transportation accounts for nearly a quarte…

Probably also has to do with Texas just being the geographically largest of the lower 48. (Alaska is much bigger but its population is very low so they don't use much power.) Texas also has its own grid [0]. There are three separate grids in the lower 48: East, West, and Texas. This means the Texas grid doesn't need to stay in phase with the rest of the US. While they do move power to/from the other two grids, it's d…

> Texas shares power with Mexico via high-voltage DC transmission lines [1].

It also sells to adjoining states. The Texan site that I referenced mentions that.

Post reply on HN