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Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

ercot.com

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Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#321

Post by bombcar »

Scoundreller wrote: post #228

Now at level 3: Situation Critical: "has declared an EEA 3. Energy conservation is critical. Rotating outages are underway to reduce demand on the electric system. We urge Texans to put safety first during this time. Traffic lights and other infrastructure may be temporarily without power. 01:25:40 150221" https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO "Rotating outages primarily affect residential neighborhoods and small businesses…

Look at the projected capacity graph on the main page - they expect to be 10 GIGAWATTS short by 9 AM!

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#322

Post by stdbrouw »

whatever1 wrote: post #316
jcranmer wrote: post #185

Earlier 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.

But on the other hand there are only so many hours in a day to run your HVAC/space heater. So from 8 hours per day, it can go worst case to 3x.

Hm, heating is either switched off/on depending on a thermostat ("bang-bang") or in more sophisticated systems is regulated according to need (modulating control). It might be on 24/7 regardless of whether it's hot or cold, but it's not going to use the same amount of power.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#323

Post by joosters »

sjwright wrote: post #294
joosters wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why does this make sense to do on an individual level? If there is ample warning of price spikes, shouldn't we be expecting the power companies to do the energy hedging? Why make thousands of people do the job instead of the one single entity?

If we are trying to make the energy system smart, shouldn't the power companies be the ones trying to add smarts to the system? (e.g. better energy storage for peak usage, etc)

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#324

Post by bombcar »

nottorp wrote: post #315
Scoundreller wrote: post #228

Now at level 3: Situation Critical: "has declared an EEA 3. Energy conservation is critical. Rotating outages are underway to reduce demand on the electric system. We urge Texans to put safety first during this time. Traffic lights and other infrastructure may be temporarily without power. 01:25:40 150221" https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO "Rotating outages primarily affect residential neighborhoods and small businesses…

> "Rotating outages primarily affect residential neighborhoods and small businesses and are typically limited to 10 to 45 minutes before being rotated to another location." I don't understand. Here they shut down a couple large factories (that have agreed beforehand to emergency shutdowns) when there are capacity problems. Those eat so much power that it usually solves the problem. They don't shut down power to resid…

They've already done that - that is EEA 1 and 2 (1 being voluntary shutdown, 2 being involuntary shutdown).

They've asked everyone who CAN go to backup generators (think: hospitals, datacenters) to do so. If short-term shedding of residential load doesn't work, the next step is to blackout commercial players - think Walmart, etc. Those usually occur for longer periods of time and have security risks involved.

Natural gas pipelines have some water in them, they can freeze if they're not buried deep enough.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#325

Post by symlinkk »

Unbelievable how fragile our society is. All it takes is a little push (COVID, ice, etc) and everything falls apart. I’d like to see less $ being spent on innovative chat apps in the future and more being spent on innovative food, water, power, and medical systems.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#326

Post by salawat »

karaterobot wrote: post #176

I'd guess the insulation in most of the homes down there isn't great? If so, please take a moment to turn on any faucets with pipes that run along an exterior wall. Just do it a tiny bit, so that it drips every few seconds. Otherwise when it gets warmer you may have burst pipes to worry about. Good luck Texas!

Yeah... Guess who woke to the rolling blackout tonight and found that the faucets weren't working? Time to get out the heat gun and go frozen pipe hunting I guess...

Though god knows how that'll go with PVC...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#327

Post by mypalmike »

joosters wrote: post #282
londons_explore wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People make similar choices all the time... Eg. "Oh, there's a queue at the gas station today. I'll drive on and get gas tomorrow instead." Thats them observing that the cost (to their time) of getting gas is high today, and that they can purchase later for a lower time cost.

You're comparing filling up the car to literally freezing. Find some humanity!

Imperfect economic analogy is imperfect. It doesn't mean it's unreasonable, and it doesn't imply the malicious intent you want it to.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#328

Post by bombcar »

bombcar wrote: post #309
milofeynman wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They blackout neighborhoods here I believe. My guess is that neighborhoods that largely heat with natural gas are spared, as they don't use a ton of electricity.

That makes sense - if you're going to blackout you want to start with the "highest loads" (perhaps per capita? per household?) so as to reduce the number of blackouts you have to cause. Better 10k people lose power than 50k. Though if 60% of Texas homes are electric heat then you have to consider that, too, and how long it takes a 60º house to get to 40 (any lower and you begin to risk health and water damage). I ass…

Ah, looking at the EEA 3 alert: http://www.ercot.com/eea_info/show/26464

In these situations, each utility is required to lower the demand on its system based on its percentage of the historic ERCOT peak demand. While each utility is responsible for determining how to implement the required demand reduction, most utilities use rotating outages for this purpose. Rotating outages primarily affect residential neighborhoods and small businesses and are typically limited to 10 to 45 minutes before being rotated to another location.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#329

Post by black_puppydog »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #319
black_puppydog wrote: post #310

> This request was blocked by the security rules I'd guess they have a geoblock for some fucked-up-BS reason or another?

Imperva seems to be offering a "solve GDPR compliance with this checkbox" solution that blocks the EU from accessing your web site.

That's pretty stupid. Oh well...
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