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Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

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Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#131

Post by gcr »

bombcar wrote: post #87
nonethewiser wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially its high growth in energy demand? And probably it not making sense financially to overbuild.

The demand is there, the building is there, but if you overbuild you can get screwed very hard, so the power companies have (very complex, mind you) models that they use to determine if a plant will make sense to bring online. Those models may have been wrong, or based on assumptions about temperatures that turned out incorrect.

From the incentives, having blackouts is more financially desirable than overbuilding. This situation isn’t surprising.

It sucks if you’re like, you know, a person living there, but in terms of finance incentives, it’s close to the best possible outcome, right?

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#132

Post by pjc50 »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #51
gray_-_wolf wrote: post #4

> 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.

So... start a "cryptocurrency" business and get paid to not use electricity. I mean, if that's not a good way to funnel money from the lower classes to the rich, I don't know what is.

Clearly I need to start Big Resistor Inc. It's just a big connection across the grid that wastes megawatts of energy, but I can get paid for turning it off.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#133

Post by kentonv »

Retric wrote: post #95
lukev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea behind this is sound. Because production and consumption must net to ~0, from the grid's perspective cutting load is just as valuable as providing generative capacity. Imagine you own a factory that typically runs 24/7 and is part of the system's base load. There is a material cost for you to shut down production. These structures were set up to make it economically viable to have these types of ins…

You achieve similar results by simply charging such customers current market rates. Nobody is going to be mining Bitcoin while paying 2.50$/kWh. That’s the objection, it’s simply a waste of money.

It's so weird because I thought the whole point of ERCOT was to be a market and use market forces to solve everything.

So why are they paying bitcoin miners to turn off, rather than just charging them market rates at all times and letting them decide for themselves?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#135

Post by bcrosby95 »

briffle wrote: post #98
wonderwonder wrote: post #71

This is politics in a nutshell. People keep voting for the same politicians so they keep the same problems. Power infrastructure is poor? Keep voting for the same people that made it that way. Lots of violent crime in your city? Keep voting for the people that release criminals back into society immediately. Politics is so binary and broken in this country that we are just making fixable issues into permanent hardshi…

I understand your point, but if I let the $OTHER party get control, they will work against my beliefs on Abortion and Guns, which are the only 2 beliefs that the parties have together taught me matters...

Have you been under a rock the last few years? It's way more than just abortion and guns these days.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#136

Post by refurb »

Retric wrote: post #95
lukev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea behind this is sound. Because production and consumption must net to ~0, from the grid's perspective cutting load is just as valuable as providing generative capacity. Imagine you own a factory that typically runs 24/7 and is part of the system's base load. There is a material cost for you to shut down production. These structures were set up to make it economically viable to have these types of ins…

You achieve similar results by simply charging such customers current market rates. Nobody is going to be mining Bitcoin while paying 2.50$/kWh. That’s the objection, it’s simply a waste of money.

You don’t get the same outcome.

Consider the payment as the cost of maintaining demand during periods where you don’t want it.

It's like a factory that can only produce 100 widgets each week, nothing more or less. Ideally you want to always sell 100 widgets each week (supply = demand). You could build a smaller factor that only makes 60 widgets, but the cost per widget would be 50% higher and at market rates you can't make enough money to justify the investment.

So what you do is build the 100 widget factory and you sign up a customer who will always buy 40 widgets each week, and the remaining 60 widgets you sell to smaller customers.

If suddenly the demand from smaller customers hits 90 widgets one week, you don't want to just cut off the 40 widget customer and say "tough shit", because they may not come back and you're stuck with 40 widgets each week you can't sell.

So you pay them money in exchange for accepting a lower supply of widgets that week.

Even with the payments, net-net you’re better off because during the 50 weeks per year when smaller customers only buy 60 widgets, overall your set up is more efficient.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#137

Post by vel0city »

gcr wrote: post #123
backendanon wrote: post #94

According to my Google foo, around 1000 people per day have been moving to Texas in the last three years alone. Put anywhere between a half million to three quarters of a million additional people on the power grid in a three year span and the grid is bound to have issues. Also, really like how the majority of the comments sound like Reddit /r/politics's far left, adult man child, ignorant insights.

are you implying there’s been zero construction on the grid to increase supply _for three years?_

There's been lots of construction, but growth in demand is 7x higher than previous years. It takes time to build and connect plants.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#138

Post by tr3ntg »

gcr wrote: post #116
tr3ntg wrote: post #110

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…

isn’t it normal for supply to only barely exceed demand? That’s what’s most efficient. Out of curiosity, what did those graphs look like to you on previous years?

I didn’t live here in previous years, but I think it’s abnormal that multiple days in a week demand is estimated to be above supply.

And yes, it’s most efficient to keep supply and demand close. But based on this article and our recent trends, it seems like there’s some trouble / concern with unlocking the extra energy needed to supply everyone lately.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#139

Post by bluGill »

xwdv wrote: post #102
kentonv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke but in August the biggest Bitcoin mine in North America got paid 3.5x more by the utility to turn their rigs off than they made in actual Bitcoin mined -- and they say openly that collecting credits is core to their strategy. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/06/texas-paid-bitcoin-miner-rio...

Well that’s it then. I will startup a small crypto mining company, threaten to mine bitcoin and get paid out not to.

You have to make a creditable threat first. My guess is even though bit being paid not to mine bitcoin is where the money is, they would still lose money overall if they didn't mine bitcoin at the time when they were not paid to not use power.

That is you need to buy servers and keep them functional in order to get the subsidy. The subsidy isn't enough pay for the servers on its own. Probably bitcoin itself doesn't pay enough for the servers/power/space it needs anymore, though that requires analysis that I can't perform.

Re: Texas just got closer to blackouts than it has since 2021. What happened?

#140

Post by pjc50 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #21

What's stopping power companies from ramping up energy production? They know in advance there will be problems. What stopping them from just producing more? I realize there are some peculiarities of the Texas grid, but this is obviously a problem beyond Texas, as California and east coast has blackouts as well. I'm asking about all these cases. I imagine maybe this requires some additional infrastructure that simply…

Permitting and transmission lines.

There's a queue of companies who want to build power plants in Texas, but can't because the lines aren't there. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/25/texas-renewable-ener...

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