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Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

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Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#581

Post by namibj »

eigenvector wrote: post #499
namibj wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the central european grid, there is actually a market where companies can offer frequency stabilization service to the grid, which exists in both directions. It doesn't matter if the combat a lack of power in the grid with shedding loads or spinning up another generator. This exists on a few different timescales, and the faster-responding contracts trigger at higher frequency deviations. Primary operating reserve…

Yes, this function exists in some fashion in every grid (although the economic setup of how you're paid for that service differs widely). The problem in ERCOT is demand massively exceeding available supply over a period of days. You need to carry your primary operating reserve all the time, because you never know when a generator or transmission line may trip. When there's simply a lack of energy supply to meet deman…

Yeah, but part of our operating reserve is in form of industrial consumers. The slow (has 15 min to get to full power) tertiary reserve is partially provided by arc furnaces in steel mills.

Also, going beyond this, charging spot prices to consumers (both commercial and residential) serves to align incentives. Such as dis-incentivizing the use of resistive heating for extreme cold, as the prices are correlated with the extreme cold, making alternative heating setups for extreme weather more affordable in comparison.

Or, building houses so that extreme cold can be tolerated without damage by allowing pipes to be drained and the remaining sections to be heated separately, so the house as a whole can be unheated (and the people stay with friends).

Longer-term predicted loads can be billed at a fixed rate, but spiky loads, especially those correlated with ones at other customers of the utility, can't be.

You'd raise the prices until demand falls below the limits, instead of needing rolling blackouts. If people can't afford to take a hot shower right now, they just wait. At least in the absence of certain diseases, the human body is fine without showering for months. And as long as your building doesn't take damage, you'd gladly be payed a few thousand $ to put on really warm clothes for half a week.

And depending on the details, you'd even conclude it more economical to have to replace some pipes after water damage, than to keep that area heated.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#582

Post by mschaef »

mschaef wrote: post #549
tgtweak wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Following up on this, I checked ERCOT status this morning and none of the DC ties are moving energy (at a moment when you might expect they'd really like to):

http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_condi...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#583

Post by sjg007 »

tpowell wrote: post #364
AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC air conditioning is generally less demanding because you’re ‘only’ trying to drop the temp by ~30F to get back into the 70s on a hot 100F day, whereas for heat you’re trying to increase by a much larger 50-70F on a cold 0-20F day. I’m sure wishing the house was better insulated today (Austin).

As an FYI I’ve really enjoyed (Austin-based) Matt Risinger’s home building channel on YouTube [1] recently. He often discusses efficient building trends and materials. You think about your R-value much harder when it’s 9°F outside... [1] https://youtu.be/Ro3Tg9-PqFc

Yeah but it’s just crazy.. the higher R value materials are not that much more expensive and they work everywhere.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#584

Post by Schiendelman »

fogihujy wrote: post #274
unethical_ban wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? That EV conversion shouldn't be a goal? That because of a freak, instant spike in demand in 2020 means grids and production can't be more robust in 2035? A TV pulls what, 50-100 watts? A space heater pulls 1500W on high. Now think about many people who, for better or worse, are running multiple space heaters in their house. Now imagine millions of households doing that, on two days' notice.

Not the grandparent, but this is an actual concern. As you say, there is nothing preventing us from aiming for large-scale EV conversion while simultaneously improving the grid. The problem is that many seem to believe the second part will happen automatically, whereas in reality, it'll require large investments in renewing and improving current infrastructure. As a comparison, I live in the Finnish countryside. Cold…

If people start using more electricity, politicians will have to choose between improvements or dealing with mobs with pitchforks.

Worst case scenario there are some brown outs as they get their shit together. But it’s relatively easy to solve this with pricing or by subsidizing local solar or a lot of other things. And people will absolutely not tolerate their power going out, so those things will happen.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#585

Post by sokoloff »

PeterisP wrote: post #560
makomk wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other problem is that one of the ways people have been making their heating more efficient is by using heat pumps, and their efficiency gain drops off with lower temperatures until they become no more efficient than the resistive heaters they replaced during the kind of unusually cold weather Texas is apparently seeing. This makes the peak to average power usage problem even worse.

Are their heat pumps linked to outside if their efficiency is so affected? The models I see generally pipe underground, where the temperature is mostly stable and isn't affected by a week of unusually cold weather.

The overwhelming majority of heat pumps across the US are air-source (rather than ground-source), so "yes, overwhelmingly".

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#586

Post by giardini »

fotta wrote: post #230
Scoundreller wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit: Took 15 minutes to go from Level 2 to 3. "Energy conservation is critical. Rotating outages are underway to reduce demand on the electric system. We urge Texans to put safety first during this time. Traffic lights and other infrastructure may be temporarily without power. 01:25:40 150221" https://nitter.42l.fr/ERCOT_ISO/status/1361215084010352644#m (old stuff): They just went into Level 2: https://twitter.com/E…

Rolling blackouts in effect now. https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO/status/1361215084010352644?s=2...

Problem is they aren't "rolling": they shutdown specific parts of Texas and leave them down. We've been down for 36 hours. Meanwhile some parts of Houston never suffer "blackouts".

Likely it's the usual "who you know and who you blow (or pay)" that decides. But long term some people are going to get nailed over this situation; it is truly FUBAR.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#587

Post by bouncycastle »

CydeWeys wrote: post #50
bouncycastle wrote: post #36

I wonder how much this has to do with bitcoin mining?

Miners are being turned off at these electricity prices.

yeah, but there always will be someone who doesn't turn it off, especially when the prices are going up.

Also, they hold up the "floor price" for electricity and push it up, meaning that electricity prices will never be cheaper.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#588

Post by baq »

natch wrote: post #579
baq wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in this case texas is net short gigawatts. the largest grid scale battery ever built wouldn't last an hour. you'd have to have 20 to get through the night.

How many gigawatts we talking? The largest grid scale battery ever built will deliver 1.2GW per hour. I'd say 20 of those would certainly do the trick, and then some. Might be able to get by with 10 or so. They would save rate payers a bucket of money as well; the largest grid scale battery ever built that you mention is projected to offer cost savings of $100 million over its 20 year lifespan versus the alternatives…

my back of the napkin chart-to-eyeball calculations point to a 10-20 GW deficit.

i absolutely agree that not buying these batteries is just plain stupid, therefore the chance of them not getting bought is significant.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#589

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #191
evan_ wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an incandescent bulb phase out over several years that was supposed to end in 2020, but Trump blocked it because he claimed that LED bulbs were too expensive and made him look orange.[0] You pretty much can’t buy them anymore at stores except for specialty bulbs like oven lamps, but that might vary state-to-state. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/climate/trump-light-bulb-...

Typical LED bulbs have shit spectrum coverage, and have terrible flicker when used with dimmers. I’ve been stockpiling incandescents.

[deleted]

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#590

Post by vel0city »

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…

Texas hit a peak of 69GW of production, not 37. 37 is what we're able to do after a ton of natural gas plants froze over.
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