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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#461

Post by xxpor »

p1mrx wrote: post #450
hotsauceror wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you don't have sewer service, you'll usually have a septic tank instead. It's basically a mini waste treatment plant in your backyard, eventually the water will flow into the ground. Modern systems have pumps and such that depend on electricity to function.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#462

Post by qbasic_forever »

p1mrx wrote: post #450
hotsauceror wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sewer systems, i.e. toilets and waste water.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#463

Post by cavisne »

bbreier wrote: post #447
cavisne wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

backup generation (gas) is not working. As mentioned. When your only on-demand source of generation is only profitable in peak periods its a recipe for disaster.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#464

Post by quickthrowman »

aardvarkr wrote: post #145
txlpo78 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This current problems wouldn’t be fixed if Texas wasn’t on its own grid. The Texas grid does have connections to the other grids, and even right now is importing power from both the East and West interconnections. The problem is that this is a truly regional event and not just isolated to Texas. The entire central US is struggling right now. The SPP (which manages electricity for Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, and oth…

FYI the Texas grid runs on a different frequency than the other two grids and as a result incurs MASSIVE efficiency penalties for that hubris. If I recall correctly it has to be converted from AC to DC then back to Texas’ AC.

You recall correctly, and interestingly, the same method is used for variable-frequency drive motor controllers

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#465

Post by myko »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #149
danans wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of these technologies can and do work well in very cold climates. The technologies can work, but only if measures are taken to make them work that way, and those measures are expensive. Texas' grid, like most of the nation's grid, is optimized to keep prices low for consumers and profits steady for generators and distributors, and it's worked amazingly well at that. But "running lean" is great and everyone wins…

I've had power out for over a day and am fine. I would not pay any more money to avoid this once every thirty years, or even once a decade, for a few days. Mostly because paying the cost to prepare for one of these is reasonable, but preparing for all of them would be very expensive and I will trade cheap power for the occasional inconvenience.

People are dying because of this.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#466

Post by bluGill »

beerandt wrote: post #392
tw04 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think any 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 that well. I'm curious how they didn't lose heat. Any furnace built in the last 30 years, even gas, has an electronic control board in order to ensure it doesn't accidentally turn on the gas without a functioning pilot light and/or heating element (whi…

Being close to the gulf a lot of people have generators that are likely big enough to power at least their fridge and one or more window/portable AC units. (For hurricanes.) That size is usually big enough to run a blower and control board (and maybe a few other circuits), but it wouldn't come close to powering an electric heating element. But having a gas heater makes it all doable. That's what we do, anyway.

Though with a generator that big and some ingenuity you can plumb the radiator into the house and get heat from the engine. The more load on the genererator the more heat.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#467

Post by geoduck14 »

newbie789 wrote: post #415

Can somebody explain as if I were a kindergartner why exactly natural gas is down by such a large amount in the state? Did the pipes freeze? Does natural gas not burn efficiently in snowy conditions? How will raising the spot price dramatically help with these physical conditions of the pipelines/other power production/distribution apparatus in such a way that providing power becomes available more quickly (if at all…

Texan here!

This weather is CRAZY, I've NEVER seen something quite like this. I've seen it dip down to the teens, before, but I haven't seen: sub 20, with snow, for more than 2 days... across the entire state.

I'm not entirely certain why we are sucking hard at making electricity, but here is what I've heard: Nat Gas pipelines "close to the well" are "freezing" because they have a lot of impurities (like water) that are literally freezing amd clogging the pipes. I'm not sure why wind is down (maybe bad lubricant???). I'm also not sure why the power plants designed to run on oil (or Nuclear!!!) aren't sufficient.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#468

Post by askvictor »

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.

Some designs can be stopped and started easily; others get into big trouble if they're shut down abruptly.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#469

Post by ratsmack »

p1mrx wrote: post #450
hotsauceror wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you have a pressure fed (septic) sewer system, you need electricity for it to work. Usually if you avoid excessive water use, your holding tank has a bit of reserve.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#470

Post by samfisher83 »

justinzollars wrote: post #436
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houston right now, haven't had power, nor water since yesterday. My room is sitting at 20ish degrees and has been all day. I've quite literally been snug under a load of blankets with my wife all day just to stay warm. My office back in Dallas which is not normally open offered to let people stay the night since they happen to be on the same grid as a hospital and I seriously considered trying to make it there today

dude, go to the office. Its too cold to sleep in those conditions.

Roads have ice so you might get hurt getting there
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