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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

#131

Post by Aloha »

phonebanshee wrote: post #79
ev1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$0.05 to $0.10/kWh seems like normal pricing. Average US house uses ~1100-1200 kWh (I don't actually know this, based on googling, assuming most places in Texas are standalone houses) per month. If prices are $3000-9000 per MW, then ~40 to 60 kWh/day (let's be generous, people are explicitly turning on heat for this extreme cold) for a week... Even $2/kWh (which was exceeded days ago) would demolish peoples' budgets.

Those prices are far below normal prices. Normal is 28-50 cents in places like San Diego ( https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s... ).

I'm paying 8.5-8.3 cent kWh on a fixed contract.

Power is very very very cheap in Texas.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#132

Post by chipsa »

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.

Freezing rain usually occurs when you have an inversion aloft, resulting in above freezing temperatures over sub freezing temps, along with precipitation. The snow that falls melts, then chills down as it goes through the cold near surface layer. So when it hits an object, it freezes on contact.

For this to occur, you need temps to be pretty close to freezing, as if it's too warm, or won't refreeze, and too cold, it never melts to rain.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#134

Post by Aloha »

chasd00 wrote: post #85

i'm in Dallas, power has been stable so far but i made sure i got ye'olde generator out, checked the oil, and got plenty of gas. My house is really old and the cold just slowly creeps in. By Tuesday i bet i can't get it over 60 inside. All of my furnaces run on gas at least but if the power goes they'll probably turn off. I have a little bit of firewood for the fireplace but not enough to heat the whole house that's…

I'm in FW right by DFW, and my apartment is cold even when its warm right now.

Similarly, I dug my cold man lanterns out and fueled them, just to be sure.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#135

Post by jeffbee »

xxpor wrote: post #112
phonebanshee wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those prices are far below normal prices. Normal is 28-50 cents in places like San Diego ( https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s... ).

CA power is hilariously expensive compared to the rest of the country. 10c is much closer to average.

The weighted average price is 10.54¢ per kwh. In California it's 16. Both 5 and 35¢ are pretty poor estimates.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#136

Post by bombcar »

austincheney wrote: post #122

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.

They blackout on a home to home level? In CA it was whole towns

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#137

Post by bombcar »

xxpor wrote: post #123
bombcar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The wind turbine spins because of an analog of lift - without “lift” it won’t spin.

There’s also the issue of balance.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#138

Post by gregwebs »

Do power saving recommendations given out here to reduce consumption such as "don't use the oven" help in the winter given that wasted electricity ends up as heat? Or is this given by the electricity company hoping that they have natural gas to heat their house with instead?

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#139

Post by rtpg »

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.

"Netflix" is not even 10% of a heater. Heating is so much more energy-costly than basically anything you do in your home.

Granted, seems like if you're driving ~40-60 miles a day, then you're looking at needing 4kW during the evenings. Not insignificant, but it's like... electric heating for one big room, basically.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#140

Post by tnorthcutt »

hourislate wrote: post #34
jweir wrote: post #22

ERCOT is the only energy market not to have a capacity market. Combine this with a large dependency on wind(unreliable) and you see problems. This is not the first time has happened. Summer of 2019 saw a heat wave with no wind that lasted a week. Energy prices were way up. https://cpowerenergymanagement.com/why-doesnt-texas-have-a-c... Ps - I just checked the prices for northern Hub - day ahead was over $6,500 and re…

From what I understand, it's not that there is no wind. 50% of the Turbines have been shut down do to icing. The also have some NatGas suppliers that suffered freezing damage. So it's a combination of things that are adding up. I'm in North Texas and I can't remember temps this low in the last 30 years. It's about 13 degrees (- 10 C) at the moment and it looks like it is going to get a lot colder in the coming days.

The forecast looks to be warmer after Monday, no?
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