Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid • Hacker News Board

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#591

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

bouncycastle wrote: post #587

CydeWeys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not at these prices. You'd be losing huuuge amounts of money continuing to mine when electricity prices have shot up 10-100X. If you really want that Bitcoin it'd be much cheaper to turn your miners off and then just buy it at market price those few days while electricity prices are insanely high.

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

This comment seems unconnected to the present situation in Texas.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#592

Post by vel0city » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #590

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…

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.

Can't edit, but I was wrong on that number being production, that was peak capacity. That was peak capacity. However from my understanding there isn't a ton of interconnect capacity, so I have a hard time believing peak production was only 54% of peak capacity. Do you have a source for your numbers? It seems extremely low.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#593

Post by gwbas1c » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

mmglr wrote: post #262

gwbas1c wrote: post #105

FWIW: I have a Powerwall and solar. My electric company offers no incentive for me to use my powerwall, or to feed into the grid during high demand.

in these conditions would it make a difference?

Yes.

It's in the grid's best interest that I store power generated during daylight and trickle it back during the night.

Texas's problem has to do with its electric plants inability to operate in cold weather. Fortunately, domestic solar doesn't have that kind of limitation.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#594

Post by 8note » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

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?

There's non heating reasons to use electricity too.

Canada is north. In summer, the sun can set round 11PM and in winter at 330PM

That's a lot of hours of electrical light vs natural

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#595

Post by freetime2 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

brobdingnagians wrote: post #250

supernova87a wrote: post #83

Problem is that: 1) People's use of energy is relatively insensitive to price, or they don't know the price, or few people care about the price when it comes time to need it 2) When you need the energy, it's too late to make the equipment/house more efficient, and when you don't need it, people don't think it's important to make it more efficient 3) Mandating that people upgrade their equipment is unpopular, they vot…

My parents live in Dallas and rarely use the heating because of cost; instead they wear scarves and mittens inside. They are running it now, because it is the coldest they've ever seen. When your alternative is to freeze to death, you pay. Finding fault with people because of that is insensitive and lacking in empathy. They know the cost, they also know what the temperature outside is. Resilience is an important prin…

Shutdowns of natural gas plants made of the majority of the shortfall, not wind turbines[1].

[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#596

Post by jhayward » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

tgtweak wrote: post #532

jhayward wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Texas had peak electrical production capacity of 37,600MW for it's population of 29M Texas delivered a peak of over 60GW last night , before an unprecedented falloff in generating capacity due to weather and grid conditions.

Majority of the difference between consumption and generation is imported. ERCOT is operating at 52,000MW right now, with 37,600 of it being generated on-grid.

No. Texas does not have 15 GW of import capacity.

Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

#597

Post by kevinventullo » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #160

kevinventullo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid $.36 last month living an hour north of SF.

Average or marginal? Most PG&E customers have a “baseline allowance” with a higher marginal cost as you draw more energy over the month.

Marginal. I was doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation about getting an EV and realized that the $/mile cost to charge it would be about the same as paying for gasoline on a car which gets 30 mi/gallon.