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Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

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Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#121

Post by themoop »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #51
martinald wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. As far as I'm aware HVDC links are more efficient than AC links (even with AC/DC/AC conversion).

It looks like a tradeoff. The only place in the world doing a significant amount of long distance transmission is China. Their wind and coal resources are in the west, and demand is in the east, and transporting coal by rail just further increases air quality problems in the east. Based on what they are implementing, HVDC make sense at 800km+, and AC for shorter runs. I think it comes down to HVDC requires less condu…

Hydro-Quebec is also doing at least one 1500km hvdc to the US and multiple 1000+km lines to the dams in the north. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec%27s_electr...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#122

Post by austincheney »

Rolling blackouts are in effect. What I have noticed is that if you drastically minimize your power consumption you drastically increase your odds of being spared from the blackouts. The observation is based upon neighborhood data posted by various homeowners to our community page.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#123

Post by xxpor »

bombcar wrote: post #49
throwawayboise wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the temperature per se, it's icing. I read it here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-free... “When wind-turbine blades get covered with ice, they need to be shut down,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin who focuses on energy.

A windmill is basically a inverse airplane - and airplane wings don’t like icing. I assume you could heat the blades but at some point you’re consuming more energy than you’re making.

That's because they lose lift though. For a turbine, that wouldn't matter (at least directly).

I have to imagine it's really the overall weight or the unbalanced weight not being good for the bearings and such. Not to mention a blade flinging a piece of ice off when it starts to melt...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#124

Post by xxpor »

bearbin wrote: post #93
o-__-o wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planes have deicing boots. Holes in the leading edge of the wing that has a balloon on the inside. A non freezing gel is usually pumped in which expands the balloon out of the hole and causes the ice to crack. It then retracts and this process repeats keeping the wing clear of ice.

Not really usable for wind turbines though, the energy cost would be significant first of all (compare the blade area of a wind turbine to a plane!) The bigger issue is maintenance. Wind turbine leading edges are a very hostile environment compared to a plane and even normal materials get abraded very quickly, plus they are expected to last for many years without significant maintenance. Anti-ice systems would just n…

Given they can generate their own electricity, wouldn't it make more sense to just heat the blades?

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#125

Post by pfdietz »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #62
slater wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5k?!?!? How?!

My house normally uses 70kwh/day. We have an electric heater and with this cold weather we were on track to use 150-200kwh day. At $5/kwh for 5 days of 200kwh due to the cold puts me at $5,000.

It would make sense for you to turn off your water, drain all the pipes, turn off the heat and go somewhere else for a few days.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#126

Post by toomuchtodo »

eckza wrote: post #81

It's curious that the current tide of public opinion reckons that we're all going to be in EVs in 10-15 years, when the grid nearly collapses under the weight of everybody plugging in a heater and turning on Netflix at the same time.

What is the cost to build power grids to support days of weather a geography doesn’t experience for decades at a time (it has been 30 years since Texas was this cold)? Would people pay more versus suffer through some power outages?

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#128

Post by txlpo78 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #78
grendelt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing ice is such a rare problem the turbines in Texas aren't equipped to handle it. Not that turbines can't de-ice themselves, right? Surely if they can operate in the North Sea, they can operate in West and South Texas, yeah?

Perhaps there is an unhappy middle temperature where ice forms more easily? I know some people from the northern US that moved to Texas and were mocking how slowly they drove in the snow. Until they had a close call and realized the barely freezing weather makes for worse ice sheets.

Central Texas has been getting a lot of freezing rain this weekend, as opposed to outright snow or sleet. I know this has caused a lot of power line and tree damage (because it causes water to cling to trees and freeze into ice, whereas snow doesn’t accumulate as much on trees). I would imagine freezing rain would have similar effects on wind turbines.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#129

Post by maxerickson »

sjg007 wrote: post #87
AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC air conditioning is generally less demanding because you’re ‘only’ trying to drop the temp by ~30F to get back into the 70s on a hot 100F day, whereas for heat you’re trying to increase by a much larger 50-70F on a cold 0-20F day. I’m sure wishing the house was better insulated today (Austin).

The insulation thing is weird because better insulation saves you in the summer too. I guess it's just the construction fixed cost. Electric heat seems like a weird compromise though considering the gulf of Mexico..

Electric heat is great if you don't use heat consistently. Relatively inexpensive up front, low maintenance, etc.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#130

Post by jeffbee »

The main difference between this and California rolling outages last August is the conspicuous lack of ten-thousand-word think-pieces about how it was the inevitable consequence of a failing one-party regime.

Climate change is going to result in local excursions in heating and cooling demand. It's just stochastic bad luck.

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