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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#171

Post by tmotwu »

ckemere wrote: post #77
jdkee wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels don't work well under a foot of snow.

The people down the street from me in Houston are currently powering their house with their solar panels, actually. They were able to loan their generator to their neighbor. We had to abandon our house.

Last year, I went on vacation to Alaska. Me and my friends airbnb'd an off-grid home/cabin in Talkeetna, about several hundred miles north of Anchorage. It was powered entirely on solar panels on the roof and right by the house. Water from the rivers. Granted, it had a wood stove, like most cabin/homes are in the north. Just want to chime in and say that renewables are absolutely very prevalent in colder, remote climates.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#172

Post by jeffbee »

favorited wrote: post #79
jdkee wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels don't work well under a foot of snow.

Solar panels provide less than 1.5% of Texas electricity generation, so the fact that they can't be used under snow isn't the cause of the deficiency today.

Texas is pretty large and their solar resources are way the hell out in Pecos County where it hasn't been snowing. This is actual ideal to have your solar power plant far to the west of your population centers, to handle the evening load peak. If Texas had California-scale solar power installations, they would be warm and happy right now.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#173

Post by [deleted] »

ausbah wrote: post #146
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #127

A social political decline is what happened and continues to happen. When California encountered power issues, it was easier for Texas politicians (and many of their followers) to espouse malicious soundbites about Commifornia than to empathize, offer support and self reflect on what lessons can be learned and applied locally. Now that Texas is reaping its own fruits of decades of anti-"other side" politics and polit…

the weather patterns induced by climate change are novel though

[deleted]

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#175

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

gregimba wrote: post #48

Currently in ATX we haven't had power for over 24 hours, wood fireplace is saving the house from completely freezing but the whole city of Austin needs to evaluate how they setup their critical infrastructure to allow for rolling blackouts instead of having parts of the city with power and parts without for the entirety of an outage.

I had my wood fireplace going for the first time this weekend when the daytime temperatures were around -12F. It can easily raise the temperature of my living room, dining room & kitchen (one open space) to 80+ but that's with electricity to power the circulation fan.

How are you keeping the whole house warm if you can't circulate the air? I'm genuinely curious.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#176

Post by toast0 »

gruez wrote: post #107
falcolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which confuses me, as it follows a statement about how energy has been deregulated. Of course, deregulation would also reduce some of the incentives for maintaining preparation for "100 year winter" storms. Much like how hospitals reduced the number of beds based on their average case loads, not the uncommon-but-not-unheard-of peaks.

Or maybe it hasn't been deregulated enough? From the article >Wholesale electricity sold are near the $9,000-per-megawatt hour maximum in power markets across the state Monday as the system struggled to meet demand, according to ERCOT. Why bother spending millions on preparing for a once in a century event when your upside is capped? This is further compounded by the wholesale rates not being passed to consumers, whi…

> Why bother spending millions on preparing for a once in a century event when your upside is capped? This is further compounded by the wholesale rates not being passed to consumers, which removes a lot of backpressure from the system. If turning on the heater costs $100/hr to run you're going to find alternatives (eg. co-habiting with your inlaws).

If it's a once in a century (or once every 10 year) event, consumers aren't going to pay $100/hr to run their heater. They're going to refuse to pay the bill.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#177

Post by okcwarrior »

gred wrote: post #164
gregimba wrote: post #48

Currently in ATX we haven't had power for over 24 hours, wood fireplace is saving the house from completely freezing but the whole city of Austin needs to evaluate how they setup their critical infrastructure to allow for rolling blackouts instead of having parts of the city with power and parts without for the entirety of an outage.

ATX?

Austin, TX

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#178

Post by fastball »

gruez wrote: post #120
soulofmischief wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: I live in Texas and have 100% renewable energy, so I feel sidelined by such comments.

>Also: I live in Texas and have 100% renewable energy Are you living off the grid, or living on the grid but paying for a "100% renewable" provider? If it's the latter it's likely that you're only being 100% renewable on a net annual basis, and still using non-renewable sources during peak hours. https://energy.stanford.edu/news/100-renewables-doesn-t-equa...

Seems like an unnecessary quibble. If everyone was using a "100% renewable" provider, would non-renewables be consumed?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#179

Post by redisman »

jdkee wrote: post #69
i_am_proteus wrote: post #63

Lots of folks in these comments seem to want to use this event to litigate wind vs. solar vs. gas vs. nuclear vs. coal, but it seems like, across the board, power generation facilities in Texas were simply unprepared to operate in such low temperatures. All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates.

Solar panels don't work well under a foot of snow.

Natural gas plants also had to shut down. This was a systematic failure to plan for cold weather,

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#180

Post by thehappypm »

rtx wrote: post #47

America stop heating your houses, buy thik blankets and sweaters. Earth can't take it anymore.

I get the sentiment but it’s just not useful to tell people not to heat their homes. Fly less. Go veg. Downsize. But asking people to freeze? You sound like a lunatic.
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