And Ercot [1] "has declared an EEA 1. Energy conservation is needed. There are no rotating outages at this time. 00:17:45 150221"
[1] https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO/status/1361197991659503618
Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
211–220 of 597 posts
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electric heat is great if you don't use heat consistently. Relatively inexpensive up front, low maintenance, etc.
Central air and a natural gas furnace are both on the same duct system and low maintenance.
Electric heat in the central air is low maintenance too.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’re just looking for emergence power you can get honda e2200i generator with a gas adapter for around 1500 USD.
Most people around here (Pacific Northwest) do propane. No one wants to store large quantities of gasoline on their property.
Gas adapters are for propane or natural gas. Gasoline doesn’t require an adapter.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#214Some time ago, I worked for a defunct energy company that provided demand-side relief in exactly this scenario - when total system load outstrips total system capacity, we'd begin taking actions on behalf of end users, not the utility. Lights would turn off, generators would spin up, fridge temperatures would be raised. ERCOT (Texas) is an interesting case in that it can't import power from other states as easily - i…
Preface: I know very little about power grids, but had a couple thoughts. In the UK, there is a system of load shedding that is tied to the grid frequency. My understanding is that some industrial users agree terms where they get cheaper rates but if the demand outstrips supply, they are first to be cut. This load shedding is implemented by components that monitor the grid frequency, and if it drops below a fixed val…
The technical term for what you're describing is under-frequency load shedding (UFLS) and it is part of most modern power systems around the world, including all of the North American grids. It is an important safeguard against system collapse, however, the goal of system operators is to avoid reaching this stage. In fact, resolving contingency events without interruption of "firm load" (that is, loads that have not previously agreed to be interrupted) is an important performance metric for any grid operator.
UFLS is mostly intended to buffer transient loss of power supply (for instance, tripping of several large generators). If the grid operator knows they are facing an inadequacy of generation supply and all resources have already been called in, they will start to shed load under manual operator action to avoid UFLS activation. Before doing this they will declare an emergency which, generally speaking, requires all generators to make best efforts to supply as much energy as they can to the system.
Think of it like automated emergency braking on a car vs driver braking. AEB is great, but if you can already see that you're gonna hit something, just hit the brakes right now instead of waiting for AEB. By the time UFLS kicks in, you're already in dire straits and have only moments before reaching an unrecoverable state.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just to add some numbers; we(Texas) have over 31,000MW of installed wind energy capacity. No other state comes close. Probably a lot of things people find shocking about Texas when compared to its reputation lol.
Texas is the state with the most wind energy in the US? 42,933km2 Denmark has 6GW wind energy capacity and 695,662km2 Texas has 31GW. That doesn't sound very impressive.
Texas' population is 29 million. Denmark's is 5.8 million. So the scale is remarkably equivalent.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#216Texas is shockingly green when it comes to power. The windmills have frozen and it is the winter when there isn't as much sun. Most people are on a contract with fixed pricing, but some startups like Griddy are hurting people's wallets. We will likely see some retail electric company bankrupcies. Some of the electric providers are paying customers to move to someone else on Monday. The Joke is all the Californians wh…
It'll be interesting, when the dust settles, to see how this event squares away with the regulator's risk modelling. My initial impression is there is a correlation between extreme power demand and renewable energy being unavailable that would not have been present for a nuclear or fossil fuel based system.
ERCOT is pretty good about releasing their event analysis after the fact.
I think the main issue with renewables is not inherent unreliability but that grid operators do not understand the potential contingencies as well as with conventional generation sources.
SPP has put out some good analyzes of recent max generation events there involving large amounts of wind being unavailable in cold snaps. It turns out no one at SPP bothered to ask wind turbine owners what temperatures they were capable of operating in and some wind operators didn't buy the cold weather package for turbines despite installing them in the Midwest. So generation availability forecasting didn't take into account the real capabilities of generators - a clear failure in operational planning.
This is more of a regulatory issue than a technical one. The machines can operate at -40 C, but someone has to actually spec that functionality and ensure that the associated subcomponents (heaters etc) are properly maintained.
There is a new NERC reliability standard in the drafting stage for this.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#217Problem is that: 1) People's use of energy is relatively insensitive to price, or they don't know the price, or few people care about the price when it comes time to need it 2) When you need the energy, it's too late to make the equipment/house more efficient, and when you don't need it, people don't think it's important to make it more efficient 3) Mandating that people upgrade their equipment is unpopular, they vot…
Texas has the equipment, but it's all frozen due to an extreme weather event.
1. The extreme cold is driving up demand to heat homes which is usually done in part by natural gas but
2. The cold has frozen natural gas pipes and wells, driving up the cost of gas 33x.
3. People are trying to heat their homes with electricity but
4. Wind turbines are frozen, limiting capacity, AND those sky high gas prices are limiting what gas power plants can output.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem here is the high tomorrow in Dallas is supposed to be about 10°F. The typical winter high for Dallas is a bit below 60°F. This means that the demand for heating is about 4-6× what it normally would be for winter.
Energy loss is strongly supralinear in the temperature gradient, so it's probably a lot more than that.
Time-dependent solutions to temperature change across a gradient are exponential decay functions that solve diff eqs based on Newton's law of cooling. It depends mostly on the insulation and the temperature difference.
While it is 10 F outside, the central heating system for my apartment in a 6-story building cannot maintain temperature. It is 66 F and gradually falling. I would guess it would be 2.5kW running 24/7.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an incandescent bulb phase out over several years that was supposed to end in 2020, but Trump blocked it because he claimed that LED bulbs were too expensive and made him look orange.[0] You pretty much can’t buy them anymore at stores except for specialty bulbs like oven lamps, but that might vary state-to-state. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/climate/trump-light-bulb-...
Typical LED bulbs have shit spectrum coverage, and have terrible flicker when used with dimmers. I’ve been stockpiling incandescents.
Stockpiling incadescent bulbs instead of spending time doing research to find LED bulbs with a better light spectrum?
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#220And Ercot [1] "has declared an EEA 1. Energy conservation is needed. There are no rotating outages at this time. 00:17:45 150221" [1] https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO/status/1361197991659503618
It’s now EEA 2