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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

#371

Post by mmaurizi »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #353
adrianN wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy loss is strongly supralinear in the temperature gradient, so it's probably a lot more than that.

Energy usage is superlinear below a certain point. As I recall, about 25% of homes in Texas use heat pumps. but below 30-ish degrees, heat pumps don't work and they have to switch to resistance-based heating So, demand will start rising a whole lot faster.

There are newer heat pumps that work below 30 degrees, but they're more expensive and not typically used in Texas for obvious reasons.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#372

Post by austincheney »

joosters wrote: post #298
austincheney wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

When we are facing record snow and temperature low with possible grid collapse that could result in numerous deaths then yes... my sympathy for first world comforts softens.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#374

Post by freetime2 »

protoman3000 wrote: post #286
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…

Ahh, yes, the center of Neoliberal logic. Widespread rip-off is acceptable if the individual has technically a choice to not get ripped-off and if the fineprint of the contract had a size of at least 0.000001pt.

Can you elaborate further on why you think the parent is in favor of ripping people off or deceitful contracts? I didn’t read anything in their comment to suggest that, so I am genuinely curious how you came to that conclusion.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#375

Post by tgtweak »

jcranmer wrote: post #185
supernova87a wrote: post #83

Problem 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…

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.

Seems to be a combination of many things (a perfect storm...):

• Dwellings are not insulated to the same level as their northern counterparts. Over 60% of houses in Texas have single pane glass.

• Texas seems to rely substantially on heat pumps for residential heating, with fallback to resistive heating. At 10°f very few heat pumps can supply sufficient heat to keep even a decently insulated house properly heated - my guess is that many are using 2-3x less efficient resistive heaters at night.

• Heating peak demands tend to be correlated with the longest time since the sun was last shining... This bodes poorly for solar supply and also self generators - even those with battery backup.

• Texas typically imports from neighboring states... Most of which are in a similar irregular climate.

• Heating requirements for a building vs exterior temperature is non-linear, as are heat pump efficiencies. This is especially pronounced with poor insulation factor.

To put it into context, Quebec has ~46,000MW of peak electrical production capacity for a population of 8.4M. during cold winter days (-30°f) it uses all of that capacity and becomes a net-importer. In Summer months, it uses 1/3 of this.

Texas had peak electrical production capacity of 37,600MW for it's population of 29M.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#376

Post by kgermino »

tolien wrote: post #313
nyokodo wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas has 5X the population of Denmark and 5X the wind energy generation. That doesn’t sound like a great justification for your smug comment. Also, that is current generation as the rate of increase of wind and solar appears to far outstrip Denmark on a per capita basis. If the WSJ is reliable, Texas is supposed to add an additional ~17GW of solar by 2023, reaching 21GW![1] If they reach that it’d beat Denmark’s 203…

Per capita doesn't seem like the most useful measure here unless you're expecting people to spin the turbines by hand. Texas has (by GP's numbers) 16 times the land area and 2.5x the annual sunshine hours [1,2] (given Texas's proximity to the equator relative to Denmark, I'd be shocked if those hours didn't confer significantly more power too) but "only" 5x the generation? Edit: Of course, it's 5x the wind power. For…

> Per capita doesn't seem like the most useful measure here unless you're expecting people to spin the turbines by hand.p

“Percentage of energy generated” is probably better, but per-capita is better than per-acre. Broadly speaking, people use power, not cornfields.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#377

Post by [deleted] »

supernova87a wrote: post #83

Problem 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…

[deleted]

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#378

Post by merpnderp »

jodrellblank wrote: post #302
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?

While I agree with your outrage, 68F is 20C, that’s a hot summer day in the UK; check this historic weather data for Heathrow Airport[1] for example, 5 months recorded a temp over 20C in 2020 and usually 4 or 3 in earlier years. That isn’t a temperature you can reasonably describe as “freezing”. I’m not used to having a thermostat that high even in winter, it’s getting hot and stuffy that warm. [1] https://www.metoff…

You must have much higher humidity. Because 68F at 0 humidity is a little chilly even in a sweater. Right now it is -8F and my heater just clicked off set at 60F and I’m cold even under my electric blanket with a sweater on.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#379

Post by mncharity »

namibj wrote: post #277
eigenvector wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the central european grid, there is actually a market where companies can offer frequency stabilization service to the grid, which exists in both directions. It doesn't matter if the combat a lack of power in the grid with shedding loads or spinning up another generator. This exists on a few different timescales, and the faster-responding contracts trigger at higher frequency deviations. Primary operating reserve…

Curious that the map doesn't match its legend. Powerplants are drawn as substations. Ah, a PDF matches the legend.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#380

Post by ece »

makomk wrote: post #354
ChrisIsTaken wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy loss through an insulator is exactly linear to temperature. The problem is that people who would have otherwise tolerated 50F temperatures without heating by putting on a sweater are pulling their old oil column heater out of the storage.

One other problem is that one of the ways people have been making their heating more efficient is by using heat pumps, and their efficiency gain drops off with lower temperatures until they become no more efficient than the resistive heaters they replaced during the kind of unusually cold weather Texas is apparently seeing. This makes the peak to average power usage problem even worse.

More modern heat pumps can be efficient at up to around -10 degF[1]. Higher efficiency federal/local rebates are not bad across the US, so I wouldn't be surprised if these were installed in some TX homes. It's still a capacity problem if average use is 10hr/day instead of 2hr/day and your house has no gas furnace heating. I would guess most TX (Dallas/Austin) homes probably do have a gas furnace, but maybe not in coastal/south TX (Houston).

[1] https://daikincomfort.com/go/aurora/

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