What went wrong with the Texas power grid? • Hacker News Board

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#441

Post by StillBored » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #43

vondur wrote: post #4

Maybe having more nuclear power plants instead of wind would have helped? It sounds unrealistic for the energy generators to sell electricity at a loss over a 10 year period. It would be nice to see some of the data that the professor is referring to.

Nuclear tripped too, just like gas, because of a pump failure in the cold. In the 2011 cold snap, the problem was all about frozen lines like the pressure sensing line that caused a problem yesterday for the nuclear reactor. Likely similar things are causing problems for natural gas. The answer is weatherization of all these sources. Wind turbines work great in other settings with icing wind, you just have to have th…

As I got heavily downvoted a month or so ago for saying. In TX the wind backup is NG plants. The storage is really only there to cover tiny glitches, and its quite expensive. Which I why I keep pointing out that the price of wind conveniently ignores the storage costs and NG generators required to back it up.

At least part of the problem here seems to be the fact that the NG plants can't start due to lack of gas because the supply is frozen.

The other problem is of course that backing up wind with NG means that its not actually "green" anymore. Its reduced the carbon footprint, but at the growth rates in TX its only slowed the increase in CO2 output, not decreased it.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#442

Post by blake1 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

txlpo78 wrote: post #204

mike_d wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. Because the Texas grid is isolated, the frequency is not synced with the two other major grids and cannot import electricity at any meaningful capacity. (See http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/frequencymap.html ) Frequency conversion is a costly and difficult to scale problem. If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for ex…

Nothing I said in my comment is incorrect. Texas has 5 different connections with the other grids and can import/export through them. But they are irrelevant right now because the other grids do not have enough spare capacity to send to Texas. >If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for example. Texas also could have contributed to h…

AC transmission absolutely does work over large distances. It’s just not a point-to-point system.

Imagine four cities in a row, all connected with AC. City A generates extra power, which gets sucked up by city B, whose power goes to the next city down the line, to city Z.

Sure, it’s not actually that simple, but when was the last time NY literally had no power? They benefit from being highly connected.

TX is paying for being isolated.

Their handful of DC interconnects do not have the capacity to power their mini grid. They’re short 35GW of generation, and I assume the DC ties are at capacity.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#443

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

cavisne wrote: post #431

gregw2 wrote: post #117

What went wrong is that the Texas legislature which owns Texas-specific grid process to avoid interference from the Feds didn't figure out how to also ensure Texas generator companies got compensated for weatherizing (and ensuring it was done). How many of the 24+6 recommendations from the NERC/FERC review of last time this happened in Texas (hint:2011) were taken up by the legislature or those at ERCOT they delegate…

It's hilarious to look back on this HN post and the top comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14630650 Exactly the same thing happened in South Australia in 2016 1) Renewables % of generation mix grows (wind + solar) 2) Base generation sources get pushed out by economics and regulation (coal) 3) Peak generation sources get squeezed by the economics of wind + solar over summer (lots of wind, lots of sun) and b…

Yeah, but none of that appears to actually be what happened.

Renewables are down from their peak capacity in Texas, but they're actually performing above what the grid thought they'd do. So it's not like ERCOT got caught with their pants down when it comes to renewable generation.

Instead the issue appears to be that thermal (gas, coal, and nuclear) plants all over Texas are failing in the face of cold weather, and because Texas has its own grid it can't shift enough power from nearby states in order to cover the demand.

And it's not like these plants were off and everyone is surprised that they didn't turn on; Texas gets most of its power from natural gas most of the time. More to the point cold weather specific recommendations from back in 2011 weren't followed with sadly predictable consequences.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#444

Post by pault » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #293

svnpenn wrote: post #20

Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment. Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".

Indoors??

Yes, there were sub zero temperatures in Dallas last night.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#445

Post by sithadmin » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #400

mythrwy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No electricity = no heat, regardless of natural gas supply." For the furnace yes. The gas fireplace and gas ovens/stoves though probably don't need electricity.

I haven't seen a gas oven that can work without electricity. A gas stove, yes, you can simply turn on the gas and quickly use a kitchen lighter to ignite the gas manually and hope not too much poisonous gas escaped the stove. But ovens? How?

Many gas ovens (and stovetops) work just fine without electricity thanks to pilot lights.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#446

Post by throwanem » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #253

ip26 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas furnaces need power for the circuitry & blower. My experience with fireplaces is that the house winds up net-colder, but you can warm yourself with radiant heat while it burns. Freestanding wood stoves on the other hand are very capable of warming a large space.

A tight wood stove in the hands of an experienced user is a remarkable thing. The amount of heat that can be extracted from a large oak log is nothing short of remarkable. Sadly, most wood stoves are not tight, nor are most users experienced.

What's a good place to learn the art, do you know? I'm not in Texas, but I have two woodstoves now, and my one experiment with them thus far has taught me only that I have a lot to learn.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#447

Post by bbreier » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

cavisne wrote: post #431

gregw2 wrote: post #117

What went wrong is that the Texas legislature which owns Texas-specific grid process to avoid interference from the Feds didn't figure out how to also ensure Texas generator companies got compensated for weatherizing (and ensuring it was done). How many of the 24+6 recommendations from the NERC/FERC review of last time this happened in Texas (hint:2011) were taken up by the legislature or those at ERCOT they delegate…

It's hilarious to look back on this HN post and the top comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14630650 Exactly the same thing happened in South Australia in 2016 1) Renewables % of generation mix grows (wind + solar) 2) Base generation sources get pushed out by economics and regulation (coal) 3) Peak generation sources get squeezed by the economics of wind + solar over summer (lots of wind, lots of sun) and b…

I think you might have missed this important line:

> Most of the power knocked offline came from thermal sources, Woodfin said, particularly natural gas.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#448

Post by sjg007 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

s0rce wrote: post #313

tpmx wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, the way abnormal situations like these are handled in northern Europe is that the grid suppliers have agreements with the very large industrial consumers (think aluminium smelters) who agree to shut down immediately when the grid frequency goes below a certain trigger level. The way I understand it, this is useful both in time-critical emergencies (like keeping the grid at 50 Hz when a nuclear plant suddenly g…

Isn't it immensely difficult to restart an aluminum smelter? Also, my vague memory of these is that in North America most of them are in areas with abundant hydro power.

They can probably run at lower power? I imagine you slow everything down. After all you just have to melt it again.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#449

Post by StillBored » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #156

Not much discussion here of the fundamental problem: why is Texas so energy intensive? In the last decade ERCOT energy generation has expanded 20%, which is much faster than the population of Texas has grown. Why? Just gigantic, detached houses for everybody? I think this is why people say the California housing crisis is such a calamity for the environment. A person in Texas consumes 150% more energy.

Large energy intensive businesses have been moving to TX too because our governor(s) runs around telling people TX is open to lax regulation. Heavy industry is frequently also very energy intensive.

So its not just a statement of per capita consumption. Toyota, Tesla, Samsung, etc moving their factories are not insignificant.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#450

Post by p1mrx » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

hotsauceror wrote: post #289

gregw2 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: All 7 developers in my Houston team (semi-geographically scattered in the city) lost power; half for >24 hrs (it's 10-25 degrees F here for the last 2-3 days). Most lost water for some stretch of time and some still don't have it. I don't think any completely lost heat (most have gas) but at least one person found their gas fireplace they were hoping would heat them up when out of power didn't really work t…

We had an incident early this AM and of the eight people we paged, only one had power. I’ve been without power, heat, internet, water, or septic more than 90 minutes at a time for two days. My house was 44 degrees this morning when I woke up. Sunday night we were without power or heat for seven and a half hours. Our DR plan didn’t really account for all of our staff being on the same power grid!

What does "without septic" mean?