91–100 of 597 posts
Weird.. you'd think with the AC demand in the summer they'd have enough capacity for winter..
I think the problem is that homes are also designed to cool, efficiently, which is why many a/c and heater units are in the attic with vents in the ceiling. This means that they tend to heat homes more inefficiently than in places that are used to very cold weather.
Texas 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…
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A windmill is basically a inverse airplane - and airplane wings don’t like icing. I assume you could heat the blades but at some point you’re consuming more energy than you’re making.
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.
Weird.. you'd think with the AC demand in the summer they'd have enough capacity for winter..
Currently the wind turbines are down over 50%, due to icing.
Solar is out during snow/fog and night time.
Winter peak demand is night/morning (solar supply is out/minimum), versus summer peak demand is afternoon (solar supply is at a maximum).
i'm in Dallas, power has been stable so far but i made sure i got ye'olde generator out, checked the oil, and got plenty of gas. My house is really old and the cold just slowly creeps in. By Tuesday i bet i can't get it over 60 inside. All of my furnaces run on gas at least but if the power goes they'll probably turn off. I have a little bit of firewood for the fireplace but not enough to heat the whole house that's…
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$0.05 to $0.10/kWh seems like normal pricing. Average US house uses ~1100-1200 kWh (I don't actually know this, based on googling, assuming most places in Texas are standalone houses) per month. If prices are $3000-9000 per MW, then ~40 to 60 kWh/day (let's be generous, people are explicitly turning on heat for this extreme cold) for a week... Even $2/kWh (which was exceeded days ago) would demolish peoples' budgets.
Those prices are far below normal prices. Normal is 28-50 cents in places like San Diego ( https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s... ).
$0.098 per kW-h, with $15 a month connection fee.
Wind farms can't operate in icing conditions.
Some wind farms can't operate in icing conditions
(https://www.windpowerengineering.com/the-cold-hard-truth-abo...)
Texas 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…
I'm on a fixed rate plan and my provider just offered me $150 to change, but I had to do it by tomorrow and the rates available now aren't close to what I'm currently at.
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$5k?!?!? How?!
My house normally uses 70kwh/day. We have an electric heater and with this cold weather we were on track to use 150-200kwh day. At $5/kwh for 5 days of 200kwh due to the cold puts me at $5,000.
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"...lays fallow most of the time." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/tesla-battery-expande...
Batteries solve a different problem. They can smooth over daily shortfalls, but aren't so great when you have a week-long aberration. To fix that, you need significant overprovisioning or alternate means of generation. That is, if you depend upon wind and wind is screwed up for a week... batteries aren't going to let you stretch limited solar all night long.
These could still freeze and stop becoming viable sources of energy, but they are a non-lithium source for energy storage. If they could be kept warm enough to flow in these conditions, they could provide generous storage capacity.