Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

ercot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 597 posts

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#511

Post by jodrellblank »

merpnderp wrote: post #378
jodrellblank wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Must be; it's 16C (61F) indoors and I've a window open to get a cooler breeze in because it's fresh outside.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#512

Post by nikisweeting »

lighttower wrote: post #491
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…

Why does Quebec use more electrical power in winter if most (nearly all) of their heating is natural gas/oil based?

Power is super cheap in Quebec ($0.04/kwh USD) and gas is not, so many people heat their homes to 16-19ºC with gas, then have electric space heaters in their rooms to bring it up to 21-23ºC.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#513

Post by qayxc »

merpnderp wrote: post #378
jodrellblank wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you have that backwards. Cold air with low humidity doesn't feel nearly as cold as cold air in high humidity.

20°C isn't cold at all unless you're soaking wet or there's some serious draft going on in your house.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#514

Post by nikisweeting »

themoop wrote: post #121
jcampbell1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a tradeoff. The only place in the world doing a significant amount of long distance transmission is China. Their wind and coal resources are in the west, and demand is in the east, and transporting coal by rail just further increases air quality problems in the east. Based on what they are implementing, HVDC make sense at 800km+, and AC for shorter runs. I think it comes down to HVDC requires less condu…

Hydro-Quebec is also doing at least one 1500km hvdc to the US and multiple 1000+km lines to the dams in the north. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec%27s_electr...

If anyone is curious about this HVDC line and the Quebec grid in general I gave a small talk about it ;)

https://github.com/pirate/quebec-power-grid-talk

It's one of the only multi-terminal HVDC lines in the world, most of the others are just point-to-point.

They also literally short out the power lines with DC to warm them up and melt the ice off during ice storms, pretty crazy stuff.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#515

Post by rpeden »

lighttower wrote: post #491
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…

Why does Quebec use more electrical power in winter if most (nearly all) of their heating is natural gas/oil based?

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but every source I've seen indicates that the majority of heat in Quebec is electric.

This matches my experience, FWIW. When I lived in Ottawa, I occasionally looked at houses and apartment across the river in Quebec and nearly all of them had electric heat.

More data: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-402-x/2007/1741/ceb17...

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr... (see Electricity heading)

https://www.ivey.uwo.ca/energycentre/blog/2019/06/a-closer-l...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#516

Post by svnpenn »

RNanoware wrote: post #408
svnpenn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, were at 1210 mw right now

1.21 gigawatts? Do you have any idea how much energy that is? The only power source capable triggering that kind of energy is a bolt of lightning. It would have to be a real wall-shaker, big enough to stop a clock! (I mean this as purely a bit of comic relief. Texas is in dire straits right now, and I wish the people and infrastructure all the best in this time.)

Yeah, real fuckin funny. I've had no power for 8 hours and it's 9 degrees outside.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#517

Post by fencepost »

phonebanshee wrote: post #86
jounker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re just looking for emergence power you can get honda e2200i generator with a gas adapter for around 1500 USD.

Most people around here (Pacific Northwest) do propane. No one wants to store large quantities of gasoline on their property.

To consolidate and clarify a few comments:

You can get a non-fixed portable generator modified to run on propane or natural gas fairly inexpensively (the "gas adapter" mentioned above). That can be hooked to either a large fixed propane tank or be used with the smaller tanks often used with gas grills (or be permanently connected to natural gas, but then just get a fixed install generator). Advantages of propane are that it's stable (gasoline and diesel degrade), readily available, you can simply be well-prepared for a heavy grilling season if you don't need to use the generator, and because it's stable and stored you can be somewhat insulated from price swings.

There are calculators available to determine appropriate sizes and approximate runtime based on generator size, load, etc. but a simple rule that I saw was that a 3000 watt generator would likely run for 45 minutes to an hour on a 20-25 pound tank depending on load and inverter setup.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#518

Post by eatmyshorts »

tgtweak wrote: post #375
jcranmer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - m…

I was agreeing with your points....until I got to the bit, "Texas typically imports from neighboring states". Not with power. ERCOT is an isolated grid.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#520

Post by fredophile »

lighttower wrote: post #491
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…

Why does Quebec use more electrical power in winter if most (nearly all) of their heating is natural gas/oil based?

Another thing that takes electrical power to heat in the winter is vehicles. In many Canadian cities in the winter it is very common to plug in your car over night so the engine won't be frozen solid in the morning. Forgetting to do this means your car won't start after a cold night.
Post reply on HN