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Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

blog.gridstatus.io

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Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#51

Post by chardz »

strivingtobe wrote: post #43
MBCook wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you can't get more in under 5m, then if the demand goes up that much in under 5m you hit the point of load shedding to protect the grid right? The graph showed it increasing fast just before. Is it so unthinkable it could jump again? Or is that they could get more (non-SCED) in time, it would just cost a ton so it's avoided if at all possible?

My understanding is that it's the latter. "in SCED" basically means they have pre-planned availability that is cheap. The "Physical Response Capacity" in that graph is the amount of capacity actually available, but it's not part of SCED. However it doesn't say anything about the timeframe it would be available in. Given that ERCOT didn't call for conservation, I would have to assume it was capacity that was "quickly…

Being in SCED just means that the resource bid into the real time energy market (which clears every 5 mins), it does not necessarily mean that the resource is cheap to dispatch. The confusion here might be caused by the differences of the ancillary market (PRC) and the energy market (SCED).

Your second paragraph may be answered by this: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/gridconditions. PRC units are available in real time, immediately on request.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#52

Post by xnyan »

486sx33 wrote: post #26
gre wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rush hour went off yesterday afternoon and the temp rise made me doze off and i woke up sweating with it set to 80 degrees. I'm in the process of canceling, it's not easy. I used the chat and someone is going to send me an email (which says it's canceled?) within 24-48 hours. Harder to turn off than anything else in recent memory. If anyone has a pro tip on an easy way to cancel let me know.

Just connect the wires manually To turn on the fan and AC, you'd connect R and Y (or R, G, and Y on systems where the thermostat controls the fan).

Don’t do this, a cheap non-programmable thermostat is a better option and inexpensive.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#53

Post by esaym »

MBCook wrote: post #11

So the day peaked at 85 GW of load, and they got down to only 130 MW of spare capacity. Just 0.15% from running out. And they never asked for conservation? Is it normal to go that close to the edge without trying to cut load?

Not sure where they are getting all the numbers, but 85GW is no where near the "max": https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/supplyanddemand

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#55

Post by Nursie »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #54
baldeagle wrote: post #36

What I want to know is how much we spent kicking crypto miners off the grid for a couple hours.

Do miners run in Texas?

Yes, and there's a fair amount of controversy over it, particularly the noise levels - https://time.com/6982015/bitcoin-mining-texas-health/

And the fact that in some time periods it seems the miners made more money from downscaling energy demand during peak loads than they did from mining activities.

Plus residents in some areas are up in arms that these companies got a variety of tax exemptions and sweetheart deals, jobs never materialised (because how many people do you need?), and what they seem to get in return is more expensive power bills.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#56

Post by shagie »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #54
baldeagle wrote: post #36

What I want to know is how much we spent kicking crypto miners off the grid for a couple hours.

Do miners run in Texas?

They were. https://earthjustice.org/feature/cryptocurrency-mining-texas

Though the data centers are pivoting to AI. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/18/bye-bye-bitcoin-hello-ai-tex...

Though it's still significant. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/10/texas-bitcoin-mine-n...

The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-e... ( Published April 9, 2023; Updated Jan. 3, 2024 ). It's a well done presentation.

And they are shocked that this is driving up electrical prices. https://x.com/LtGovTX/status/1800968003636408657 (June 12th, 2024)

> ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas and others gave shocking testimony today in the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce that within only six years (that’s only three legislative sessions), our power grid needs will grow from about 85,000 to 150,000 megawatts. That is much higher than the 110,000 megawatts they previously projected. The 110,000 megawatts was already a big increase, which is why the Senate pushed our incentive plan to build more dispatchable power last session. 150,000 megawatts is almost double the megawatts we now have on the grid.

> Later testimony said the growth is due to the increases in population, normal business growth, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, crypto miners and data centers will be responsible for over 50% of the added growth. We need to take a close look at those two industries. They produce very few jobs compared to the incredible demands they place on our grid. Crypto mining may actually make more money selling electricity back to the grid than from their crypto mining operations.

> Texans will ultimately pay the price. I’m more interested in building the grid to service customers in their homes, apartments, and normal businesses and keeping costs as low as possible for them instead of for very niche industries that have massive power demands and produce few jobs. We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild Wild West of data centers and crypto miners crashing our grid and turning the lights off.

> The Senators asked why this had not been disclosed before today. #txlege

---

The theory is/was that Texas grid works "best" (the market runs most efficiently) when its running at the most capacity (everyone with something that can generate power is making money - this is better than conserving and asking polluting or less efficent sources to spin down when the demand isn't there ... in theory) with the ability to have things that can't pay for the increased price (in theory, that was supposed to be crypto) scale back their use when other demand goes up.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#57

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

dylan604 wrote: post #24
sounds wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summarizing from the article, this link [1] shows that there were more sources of generation that ERCOT didn't ask to come online. Specifically, all the capacity that could come online with 5 minutes was online except for a tiny 130 MW of generation. [1] https://blog.gridstatus.io/content/images/2024/08/ERCOT-Reca... Instead of calling for something that needed more than 5 minutes, ERCOT relied on all the batteries o…

> Probably the daytime temps in Texas right now drove the high solar production and high demand. Probably? > High temps usually mean clear, sunny days and everyone huddling near an air con. Or all of those mandatory RTO forcing large open spaced cubicle farms to run AC in a building made of glass. Not sure of the image you have in your head being the reverse of homeless huddled around a barrel fire.

Higher temperatures mean less efficient panels. The best day for solar is very bright and very cold.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#58

Post by mjevans »

They should 'ask'.

After background thought for an hour, they should ask. Their load projections and needs should be fed out to the network somehow, and it should be opt in for the customer to help support the projected load shaping IF they desire and can. It should never be forced upon the customers.

The incentives and potential for abuse of the billing provider to provide data that negatively shapes the customer's use into more expensive use is an issue that should be avoided.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#59

Post by danans »

hmcdona1 wrote: post #2

If I'm reading this right, my thermostat's "rush hours" seem to be scheduled for gross load peak. They then seem to usually end (and kick my AC back to a desired temp causing a ton of usage) right around net load peak...which this is now reporting is when energy prices go through the roof. So basically the "rush hour" program has likely been costing me more money than if I just ignored them to begin with up to this p…

> If I'm reading this right, my thermostat's "rush hours" seem to be scheduled for gross load peak. They then seem to usually end (and kick my AC back to a desired temp causing a ton of usage) right around net load peak

Either you are not reading it right, or there is a problem with your thermostat's demand response schedule, because the only way demand response makes money (hence rewards for users) is by reducing demand during net load peaks, because that completes with the high marginal cost of fossil spinning reserves.

Re: Breaking down a record-setting day on the Texas grid

#60

Post by Salgat »

strivingtobe wrote: post #41
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a state that should basically be peppered with residential rooftop solar. Of course, there's zero chance of any sort of state governmental policy to help incentivize it in deep red state land. But if recent history has shown anything, I would consider it a primary feature of any home in Texas to be relatively grid independent with its own generating capacity and storage.

Texas has a lot of incentives for residential solar. I'm not sure where you live, but in my DFW suburb, my neighborhood _is_ peppered in rooftop solar. https://www.gosolartexas.org/available-incentives A lot of the incentives are from local power companies like Oncor, but one notable state-wide incentive is that solar installations are exempt from property tax by state law. I dunno why people act like Texas is staunc…

Here just north of Austin, PEC implemented one of the most regressive solar programs in the country. Their argument in their study was that they make less money off solar since they can't sell as much power.
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