Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[Western]

Caught enough of the hearing on the news to know, no one is accepting responsibility, people resigning and others finger pointing.

Did get .86" rain last night, small hail from what it sounded like, need the moisture though.

 

[txdon]

How much capacity is drawn from solar and wind in the winter time? You should factor that into your statements of your assessment on the "base load".

Oh, I did not know the green energy production is lower in the winter, how inconvenient. I guess the people even further North are less dependent on green energy. That will change soon.

 

[Bearsixty7]

What I have gleaned from the news so far,
5 members of ERCOT that reside outside of Texas resigned "due to pressure"
Yes, no one is taking responsibility, rather they are saying some other entity was responsible for different aspects of the grid/distribution/capacity/winterization, etc.
FEMA is going to help with some of the damages.

I do think there will be some improvements so that this doesn't happen again or at least it will not fail this bad or for as long.

 

[riptides]

Oh, I did not know the green energy production is lower in the winter, how inconvenient. I guess the people even further North are less dependent on green energy. That will change soon.

How inconvenient? I think the inconvenience is attributed to poor planning, poor design and poor management. This is not the first time your grid has been under pressure.

But hey, knock yourselves out finding a good scape goat.

 

[txdon]

How inconvenient? I think the inconvenience is attributed to poor planning, poor design and poor management. This is not the first time your grid has been under pressure.

But hey, knock yourselves out finding a good scape goat.

While the other failures can be addressed the green energy cannot because it is inherently a bad source of energy in the conditions of last week.

 

[rswyan]

While the other failures can be addressed the green energy cannot because it is inherently a bad source of energy in the conditions of last week.

Yes ... but unfortunately, the same premise that is used to defend not cold-proofing Texas energy generation, can also be used to justify the use of renewables:

On balance, these events only happen rarely ...

:laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

They weren't installed with the proper systems/lubricants for the weather they may be expected to operate in.

Why Did Wind Turbines Freeze in Texas When They Work in the Arctic?

Also, Texas should have had 75% capacity even with total failure of wind and solar systems. Why didn't Texas coal, gas, and nuclear power plants work? Same reason the renewable systems failed: Because they weren't installed with the proper systems for the weather they may be expected to operate in, and/or they just refused to winterize them if those systems were already in place.

Texas failed to install/winterize all of their systems to the needed level of possible low temperature protection. It's just that simple.

 

[Bearsixty7]

They weren't installed with the proper systems/lubricants for the weather they may be expected to operate in.

Also, Texas should have had 75% capacity even with total failure of wind and solar systems. Why didn't Texas coal, gas, and nuclear power plants work? Same reason the renewable systems failed: Because they weren't installed with the proper systems for the weather they may be expected to operate in, and/or they just refused to winterize them if those systems were already in place.

Texas failed to install/winterize all of their systems to the needed level of possible low temperature protection. It's just that simple.

Yep but why winterize for 0F temps that last a week when it rarely ever gets below 20F for a day or two at a time, that's been the winters for decades. Plus there's global warming!

But seriously, maybe now they will prepare some of the power sources for similar cold extremes.

 

[cqaigy2]

Yep but why winterize for 0F temps that last a week when it rarely ever gets below 20F for a day or two at a time, that's been the winters for decades. Plus there's global warming!

But seriously, maybe now they will prepare some of the power sources for similar cold extremes.

Must be new math. 2011 is exactly 1 decade. When the last freeze episode in Texas. And coincidentally triggered an investigation that came to the same conclusions. I.E. Need to be ready for cold weather. I don't remember what the scapegoat was that time, but apparently it worked, because here we are 10 years later.

 

[MossRoad]

Why plan for 100 year floods? Because they happen eventually.

Why plan for 0 degree temps? Because they happen eventually.

However, as we used to say in I.T.:

You can redundancy yourself into the poorhouse.

How much backup is adequate backup?
Will the savings of not having robust backup outweigh the costs of catastrophic failure?