It is kind of weird and worrisome that such a large entity doesn't use https Look at the weird error message... https://www.ercot.com/ The rest of the site appears to be http only What's funny is that they do have a valid certificate for their error message page.
Encryption uses too much power
Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
61–70 of 597 posts
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. I was on track for a $5000 electric bill at the end of the week. I got switched over yesterday. Still going to be painful but not horrible.
$5k?!?!? How?!
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I understand, it's not that there is no wind. 50% of the Turbines have been shut down do to icing. The also have some NatGas suppliers that suffered freezing damage. So it's a combination of things that are adding up. I'm in North Texas and I can't remember temps this low in the last 30 years. It's about 13 degrees (- 10 C) at the moment and it looks like it is going to get a lot colder in the coming days.
Correct. The summer of 2019 was no wind. Today’s problem is ice.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#64Texan here. I tried, on Thursday, to buy a space heater; not only was the hardware store out, they told me a list of other places around town that were also out. Most homes use natural gas for heat, but I think a lot of space heaters are probably turned on right now. I also have to wonder how an everyone-videoconference-from-home society changes electricity usage? Not saying it has a significant impact, just wonderin…
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#65Texas is shockingly green when it comes to power. The windmills have frozen and it is the winter when there isn't as much sun. Most people are on a contract with fixed pricing, but some startups like Griddy are hurting people's wallets. We will likely see some retail electric company bankrupcies. Some of the electric providers are paying customers to move to someone else on Monday. The Joke is all the Californians wh…
Griddy literally emailed every customer yesterday and told them to switch providers asap.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#66Texas is shockingly green when it comes to power. The windmills have frozen and it is the winter when there isn't as much sun. Most people are on a contract with fixed pricing, but some startups like Griddy are hurting people's wallets. We will likely see some retail electric company bankrupcies. Some of the electric providers are paying customers to move to someone else on Monday. The Joke is all the Californians wh…
Wind turbines! :)
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Texas' weather is colder now than in the past 40 years. Yes. Thus "Extreme" weather. I was going to suggest it is likely due to climate change, but that is largely conjecture.
There likely is a climate change effect. Polar vortexes have been making deeper incursions into North America because of increased turbulence in the atmosphere, driven by the overall energy level. This about a pot, slowly boiling. As it gets hotter, it swirls more.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#68Texas is shockingly green when it comes to power. The windmills have frozen and it is the winter when there isn't as much sun. Most people are on a contract with fixed pricing, but some startups like Griddy are hurting people's wallets. We will likely see some retail electric company bankrupcies. Some of the electric providers are paying customers to move to someone else on Monday. The Joke is all the Californians wh…
Ouch, yet wow.
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#69Seems like this is where a generator and appropriate hookup for powering (primarily?) a gas furnace might not be a terrible thing. Unfortunately almost all homes regardless of source will lose heat if the power goes out because of fans and furnace control.
I was just looking at natural gas powered generators because of this. I've had an accumulative 24 hours of outages in the past month. They don't seem bad, the units themselves are around $6k. Definitely worth considering!
Re: Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
#70Weird.. you'd think with the AC demand in the summer they'd have enough capacity for winter..
This means that they tend to heat homes more inefficiently than in places that are used to very cold weather.