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Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

ercot.com

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Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#541

Post by ubermonkey »

usefulcat wrote: post #526
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…

Do you close off the vents in the upstairs rooms? Seems like that would help a lot in the winter.

There are 3: one in the bedroom, one in the vanity area, and one in the actual bath/wc room. We close all the ones except the one in the bath/shower/wc tiny room, bc that is the place where we are often both naked and wet. :)

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#542

Post by commandlinefan »

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…

The roads here aren’t designed for snow either. My heat went out on Friday and I can’t even get the heater replaced because the trucks that deliver heaters can’t get through the roads.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#543

Post by fastball »

throwaway9870 wrote: post #430
bombcar wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Depends on when you start counting your century. Once a century does not mean literally once every 100 years. These are certainly the lowest temps of this century so far.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#544

Post by fastball »

foxhop wrote: post #403
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have anything else that can use a significant amount of power (e.g. electric stove/hotplate, kettle, gaming rig, bitcoin miner), it's just as efficient as a space heater. This also means that if your alternative is running a resistive heater, there's no meaningful extra cost to e.g. mining cryptocurrencies with your GPU (assuming you have decent cooling so your components don't get damaged from overheating).

Thats a terrible idea. Get traditional light bulbs and warm your body and a small room.

Why is that a terrible idea?

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#545

Post by commandlinefan »

joosters wrote: post #298
austincheney wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We normally operate our thermostat at 67 during the winter but have put it down to 60 given the power crisis. If people are crying about going way down to 68 I have no sympathy.

68 = they deserve the pain, 67 = all ok? It's not about the absolute numbers, they were presumably just picked out of a hat. It's the general concept. Why is there so little empathy on here?

Ok just for the record you’re not going to freeze to death at 67. I know because I’m in Dallas and my heater is out entirely. It’s 52 in here and were cold and uncomfortable but we’re not going to freeze to death either.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#546

Post by carapace »

svnpenn wrote: post #516
RNanoware wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a quote from "Back to the Future": https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Jigowatt

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#547

Post by ncmncm »

sdflhasjd wrote: post #257
ideamotor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example? I'm not sure what you mean by "stolen" but I'm sure there's a ton of mining that is occurring at a statutory or downstream low-rate (as opposed to C&I based on peak or wholesale subject to the real-time market). In those cases, the electric providers should be able to pay them to curtail load but it's frankly a travesty on all accounts.

I think you're overthinking it. It's just regular stealing, something that would be more historically associated with Marijuana grow-ops. Bypassing your meter, tapping off your neighbours meter, street lighthing, mining in your employers basement without them knowing, etc. Basically using electricity that isn't "yours" without paying for it.

This is easier in countries with more retail corruption, and in some with wholesale.

The latter would include Russia, China, and the US; the former, Venezuela, UAE, Nigeria. Retail would tend to be petrochemical power. Nuclear power theft is easier to cover up, so would be preferred where it is common, e.g. Russian military sites and US commercial.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#548

Post by jillesvangurp »

bob1029 wrote: post #447
jillesvangurp wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That price volatility is an interesting thing. It could actually accelerate the transition to renewables in places like Texas. Gas for peaker plants becomes a lot less attractive when the price can jump by 100x when it is most needed. If that becomes a regular thing, people will want other options. And of course such options are readily available in the market now in the form of e.g. solar + battery that you can inst…

Battery storage is wholly inadequate for this current scenario. We need reliable baseload capacity for prolonged demand cycles like this. Texas being frozen over for days on end is not the same as dealing with the duck curve on an intraday basis in the summer. Running your AC on batteries for a few hours in the afternoon is a completely different ballgame than trying to heat your home for 72 hours straight.

You are right, it's not a solution by itself. But it does help smooth out the energy peaks. The more people do that the better it gets. And if you have an EV with vehicle to grid capability, that's another very capable battery that should be able to keep you powered for 2-3 days. A couple of million of those would go a long way in the next few years. But it does require a bit of planning and infrastructure to happen.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#549

Post by mschaef »

tgtweak wrote: post #527
eatmyshorts wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It imports from Mexico and neighboring grids. From ERCOT's own Q&A: ----------- EEA1 When the reserves drop below 2,300 megawatts, Emergency Energy Alert 1 is activated. That’s when ERCOT communicates to the public and to power generators that the situation is deteriorating. At this time, ERCOT will import power from other states and from Mexico. This regularly happens during peak summer months and is not new . But r…

The DC ties represent <1.7% of current load. About the size of a single large generating station. ERCOT, by policy (to avoid certain federal regulations), keeps it that way. I guess you're technically right that they can import power, but that is far from the design intent of the system. (Which is stark contrast to the eastern and western interconections, and their internal multistate ISO's.)

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#550

Post by o-__-o »

bearbin wrote: post #93
o-__-o wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planes have deicing boots. Holes in the leading edge of the wing that has a balloon on the inside. A non freezing gel is usually pumped in which expands the balloon out of the hole and causes the ice to crack. It then retracts and this process repeats keeping the wing clear of ice.

Not really usable for wind turbines though, the energy cost would be significant first of all (compare the blade area of a wind turbine to a plane!) The bigger issue is maintenance. Wind turbine leading edges are a very hostile environment compared to a plane and even normal materials get abraded very quickly, plus they are expected to last for many years without significant maintenance. Anti-ice systems would just n…

If you consider plane propellers, they do not have de-icers and must avoid known icing limits. The rotation of the blade causes the ice to fly off the blade up to a certain point. After that point, thrust will be impacted and altitude cannot be maintained. Dropping to a lower altitude will usually resolve the problem. Wing surface deformation is a larger issue for planes and probably not the solution here
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