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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

#421

Post by macintux »

jabl wrote: post #270
jeffbee wrote: post #130

The main difference between this and California rolling outages last August is the conspicuous lack of ten-thousand-word think-pieces about how it was the inevitable consequence of a failing one-party regime. Climate change is going to result in local excursions in heating and cooling demand. It's just stochastic bad luck.

I'm sure you'll find the usual blowhards explaining how Biden is personally responsible for this.

Nah, but I’m sure they’ll be shouting about how wonderful coal is vs that unreliable renewable power.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#422

Post by rini17 »

ubermonkey wrote: post #412
tgtweak wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - m…

Greetings from Texas. Yeah, all that is true. You build based on how things usually are, or at least usually WERE when the dwelling was built. I live in Houston -- very close to downtown, so I'm only about 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. This makes it VERY FUCKING WEIRD INDEED that my entire yard is covered in snow, and it is 16F outside. This is NOT Houston weather. It's almost unprecedented -- it's certainly neve…

For open spaces an IR radiative heater - the kind with glowing elements - is better. It won't save much energy, but for comfort - you can actually point it toward your body and warmup it that way without having to heat everything around you first. The fireplace does this too.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#423

Post by tonyedgecombe »

pfdietz wrote: post #125
shiftpgdn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My house normally uses 70kwh/day. We have an electric heater and with this cold weather we were on track to use 150-200kwh day. At $5/kwh for 5 days of 200kwh due to the cold puts me at $5,000.

It would make sense for you to turn off your water, drain all the pipes, turn off the heat and go somewhere else for a few days.

and go somewhere else for a few days

Or put a tent up in the living room.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#424

Post by tolien »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #413
tolien wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when acres directly correlate with the amount of energy being generated. The Sahara has very few people but would be ripe energy-generation space.

I think far-off deserts aren't nearly lofty enough in the context of which nations are furthest ahead in renewable energy generation... Why not set the baseline with Mercury? That's an entire planet with much more solar capacity than any measly desert!

I mean, if we're going for complete absurdity why not build a Dyson Sphere?

Getting back into the real world (and the original point, although accidentally I think you've made my point that energy generated per-capita isn't relevant) and putting aside that there are actual thoughts to build a solar farm in the north Sahara [1]...

Texas has lots of surface area currently used by agriculture so while it's cute to suggest cornfields don't need electrical power there's a conversation about whether there's space which could productively generate power and send it over the grid which the rest of the state (and through HVDC interconnects, the rest of North America) is connected to?

1: https://theconversation.com/solar-panels-in-sahara-could-boo...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#425

Post by lizknope »

ashkankiani wrote: post #219
rayiner wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I replaced all of the frequently used lights in my house with LEDs. Now I actually have a stockpile of incandescent bulbs for things like the closets, laundry, and guest rooms where those lights may be on for less than a minute a day.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#426

Post by Reason077 »

Browsing from the UK, I got:

"Access Denied Error 16 www.ercot.com 2021-02-15 14:23:49 UTC

If you believe you have a valid business reason for accessing ERCOT resources, please contact the ERCOT HelpDesk at 512-248-6800 or 1-866-870-8124 (USA) or HelpDesk@ercot.com.

Your IP: 148.252.xxx.xxx Error code: 16 > This request was blocked by the security rules"

Using a VPN with a US IP address, I was able to view the ercot site.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#427

Post by lotsofpulp »

ubermonkey wrote: post #412
tgtweak wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - m…

Greetings from Texas. Yeah, all that is true. You build based on how things usually are, or at least usually WERE when the dwelling was built. I live in Houston -- very close to downtown, so I'm only about 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. This makes it VERY FUCKING WEIRD INDEED that my entire yard is covered in snow, and it is 16F outside. This is NOT Houston weather. It's almost unprecedented -- it's certainly neve…

> The first problem is just distribution. Our house has a modern 'open' style floorplan, with soaring ceilings in the middle (living) floor. Heat, of course, rises.

This style of house made so that people can feel rich and high status while wasting enormous amounts of energy to heat and cool is an affront to our future generations.

And it’s almost inescapable unless you’re interested in custom building or buying an old house.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#428

Post by ubermonkey »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #427
ubermonkey wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings from Texas. Yeah, all that is true. You build based on how things usually are, or at least usually WERE when the dwelling was built. I live in Houston -- very close to downtown, so I'm only about 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. This makes it VERY FUCKING WEIRD INDEED that my entire yard is covered in snow, and it is 16F outside. This is NOT Houston weather. It's almost unprecedented -- it's certainly neve…

> The first problem is just distribution. Our house has a modern 'open' style floorplan, with soaring ceilings in the middle (living) floor. Heat, of course, rises. This style of house made so that people can feel rich and high status while wasting enormous amounts of energy to heat and cool is an affront to our future generations. And it’s almost inescapable unless you’re interested in custom building or buying an o…

You seem nice.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#429

Post by ubermonkey »

rini17 wrote: post #422
ubermonkey wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings from Texas. Yeah, all that is true. You build based on how things usually are, or at least usually WERE when the dwelling was built. I live in Houston -- very close to downtown, so I'm only about 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. This makes it VERY FUCKING WEIRD INDEED that my entire yard is covered in snow, and it is 16F outside. This is NOT Houston weather. It's almost unprecedented -- it's certainly neve…

For open spaces an IR radiative heater - the kind with glowing elements - is better. It won't save much energy, but for comfort - you can actually point it toward your body and warmup it that way without having to heat everything around you first. The fireplace does this too.

Yeah, hence the fireplace in the very open main room.

The radiator in my office -- which is a normal shaped room with maybe an 8 foot ceiling -- does very well.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#430

Post by throwaway9870 »

bombcar wrote: post #399
throwaway9870 wrote: post #390

What I don't understand is that it sounds like the utilities were unprepared for the cold because the windmills and gas lines froze up. But the same tech is used in Canada fine because it sounds like they plan for the cold and have equipment options designed to deal with ice, etc. So, you might immediately think - ah, climate change strikes again! But then I hear this is only a low temp in the last 30-40yrs. Who does…

People may claim to prepare for a once a century event but since it only happens once a century it’s hard to determine if it’s actually prepared for. Half the houses don’t even have gas heat - because it’s never been needed. What we have here is asking to a earthquake hitting the Midwest - sure it’s known it could happen and there are plans for it - but they’ve never been tested.

I just saw something that said these are the lowest temps in the last 30 yrs. That isn't once in a century!
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