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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

#291

Post by jonatron »

londons_explore wrote: post #263
Scoundreller wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Basically this. Few individuals pay the actual price of electricity. At best, they'll pay time-of-day rates that might change schedules 2x/year. Otherwise, everyone pays the average cost, and couldn't care less if noon-time electricity costs 10x on Monday vs. last…

The real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing, or paying extra for the privilege of an "unlimited plan" or something. That could be achieved for example by instead of setting your space heater to "low heat", "Mid heat" or "high heat", you could just hit the "$1/hour of heat", "$2/hour of heat", or "$3/hour of heat" settings. The heater itself can look at the minut…

Half-hourly electricity pricing exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ I'm considering switching to it actually.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#292

Post by deepstack »

peter_retief wrote: post #147

I am blocked from the site? Access Denied Error 16 www.ercot.com 2021-02-15 05:18:28 UTC

Looks like internet is going to be partitioned one way or another. The time where any (non-loggedin) web site are accessible are coming to an end. Thanks a lot of scrappers and DDOS attack guys. Alway takes a few bad apples to ruined it for rest of us.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#293

Post by monkeydust »

jonatron wrote: post #291
londons_explore wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing, or paying extra for the privilege of an "unlimited plan" or something. That could be achieved for example by instead of setting your space heater to "low heat", "Mid heat" or "high heat", you could just hit the "$1/hour of heat", "$2/hour of heat", or "$3/hour of heat" settings. The heater itself can look at the minut…

Half-hourly electricity pricing exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ I'm considering switching to it actually.

Interesting offering. This is where you want a battery (electric car counts as one). Costs need to come down first.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#294

Post by sjwright »

joosters wrote: post #272
londons_explore wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing, or paying extra for the privilege of an "unlimited plan" or something. That could be achieved for example by instead of setting your space heater to "low heat", "Mid heat" or "high heat", you could just hit the "$1/hour of heat", "$2/hour of heat", or "$3/hour of heat" settings. The heater itself can look at the minut…

The real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing This is insane. Do you really believe that individuals are going to be monitoring the energy prices like a rabid day-trader, making 'rational' decisions between "oh good, power is cheap now" and "power is expensive, I guess I'll just freeze"?

I do this today. My energy provider bills me based on live fluctuating rates. It’s no big deal, on most days prices fluctuate less than they would on a regular peak/off peak pricing scheme.

Some days there are short periods of high demand that cause price spikes, I’m given ample warning and can choose whether to adjust my behaviour during that spike. That might mean being more gentle with AC during a heatwave, or pre-cooling the house before the spike hits. (Price spikes can be 10x or even 100x typical rates.)

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#295

Post by jonatron »

monkeydust wrote: post #293
jonatron wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half-hourly electricity pricing exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ I'm considering switching to it actually.

Interesting offering. This is where you want a battery (electric car counts as one). Costs need to come down first.

I actually don't have a battery. I have a large hot water tank with immersion heaters, heated overnight. I'm already on "economy-7", which is where the price is cheaper for 7 hours overnight.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#296

Post by godtoldmetodoit »

enraged_camel wrote: post #275
atian wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in North Texas (Oncor) and my place just got hit by the rolling blackout 3 minutes ago (1:44am). See http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/main/currentDayForecastSyst... for dramatic shedding of load. Edit 1:54am - First blackout lasted exactly 10 minutes. They got this down to a tee. Edit 2:37am CT - Second blackout started. Edit 3:00am - Second blackout ended. Edit 3:17am - Third blackout started.

I lost power at 2 am. It’s 2:48 am and still no power...

Same here, been an hour and a half with no power in Austin.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#297

Post by namibj »

dmurray wrote: post #278
namibj wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage to freeze natural gas pipelines? It isn't even liquid at the near-surface air low-temperature record (-89.2 C/-128.6 F).

Methane can't realistically freeze in the pipes, but unrefined natural gas has plenty of impurities which can. Note they're talking about "pipelines and wells" freezing in a gas production context, not residential gas mains.

Understandable. As long as it remains available, the price hike seems to incentivize operators to expend energy on manually thawing them. I'm assuming they could rig up makeshift natural gas burners/heat lamps to keep critical sections above freezing.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#298

Post by joosters »

austincheney wrote: post #290
joosters wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, the poorer people will be the ones going to 68. So your grand plan is to let the poor freeze while the rich stay warm?

We normally operate our thermostat at 67 during the winter but have put it down to 60 given the power crisis. If people are crying about going way down to 68 I have no sympathy.

68 = they deserve the pain, 67 = all ok?

It's not about the absolute numbers, they were presumably just picked out of a hat. It's the general concept. Why is there so little empathy on here?

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#299

Post by ev1 »

jonatron wrote: post #291
londons_explore wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing, or paying extra for the privilege of an "unlimited plan" or something. That could be achieved for example by instead of setting your space heater to "low heat", "Mid heat" or "high heat", you could just hit the "$1/hour of heat", "$2/hour of heat", or "$3/hour of heat" settings. The heater itself can look at the minut…

Half-hourly electricity pricing exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ I'm considering switching to it actually.

Texas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26138767

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#300

Post by londons_explore »

jonatron wrote: post #291
londons_explore wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing, or paying extra for the privilege of an "unlimited plan" or something. That could be achieved for example by instead of setting your space heater to "low heat", "Mid heat" or "high heat", you could just hit the "$1/hour of heat", "$2/hour of heat", or "$3/hour of heat" settings. The heater itself can look at the minut…

Half-hourly electricity pricing exists in the UK: https://octopus.energy/agile/ I'm considering switching to it actually.

Notice that it's pseudo-realtime pricing... The price for a given half hour is set the day before. That means the price can't adjust for unpredictable events like a power station failing.
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