Rolling blackouts

[yankeerider]

The power companies pay dividends to the stockholders while the infrastructure stays at a "get by" level of integrity....

...if they just put a little more of the profit they make into the infrastructure they would not need ration the juice....at least that is the way it here in FL whenever there is a high demand...or the wind starts to blow gale force...

we (deep S.E.) escaped the storm this time...

Just remember, there's two factors in the equation: generation and transmission/distribution. Both factors are heavily impacted by electricity users who are afraid of too much carbon dioxide and the aesthetics of overhead power lines.

 

[WM75Guy]

Texas declared an emergency today. This is the reason why according to the Division of Emergency Management Situation Report.

"During the early morning hours on Wednesday, the ERCOT grid began experiencing numerous forced outages of generation due to the cold weather. As of 9:00 AM, more than 7,000 Megawatt (MW) of capacity was still out of service or not producing at its expected level. Rotating outages were implemented around 5:30 AM this morning to shed 4000 MW of load. The rotating outages are continuing at this time, although the amount has been reduced to about 3000 MW. ERCOT expects the rolling outages to continue until a sufficient amount of generation is back online. They are continuing the appeal for energy conservation and will provide updates as additional information becomes available."

There was only one large transmission line in or out of Texas in years past. We could not send power out when it was needed elsewhere. Now we can not get it when we need it. Nobody is building new power plants because of cost and environmental concerns. I guess the old "Drive 75 and freeze a Yankee" bumper stickers are not quite so funny anymore.

 

[texasjohn]

It was 14 this morning with 0 wind chill.
Heat wave now at 4pm it's 21 degrees and 11 wind chill.

Electricity out here this morning for about 20 minutes. Also in Round Rock for about 20 minutes at a different time.

Put out 2 round bales for the cows today.
Used FEL hay spike to break the 1 inch solid ice sheet on water trough.

Tried to dump a load of road base today.... frozen solid in the dump trailer, won't fall out, gotta wait for summer!!

 

[WM75Guy]

Here is the noon and afternoon updates.

Noon Update: CONSERVATION IS STILL CRITICAL AT THIS TIME
ERCOT is urging all consumers who can reduce their energy consumption to do so at this time. Severe weather has led to the loss of more than 50 generation units more than 7,000 MW, and additional units are continuing to trip offline due to the extreme cold temperatures. ERCOT Grid Operations has asked the utilities/transmission providers to implement rotating outages until the load is reduced through conservation and restoration of generation units. Conservation is very critical at this time to reduce the load on the system.

Rotating outages are controlled, temporary interruptions of electrical service initiated by each utility when supplies of reserve power are exhausted. Without this safety valve, generators would overload and begin shutting down to avoid damage, risking a domino effect of a state-wide outage.

As of noon, 2000 MW of the rotating outages had been restored, and 2000 MW remains under rotating outages.

One megawatt is roughly enough to power 200 homes in extreme temperatures.

Mid-Afternoon Update: ROTATING OUTAGES DISCONTINUED BUT CONSERVATION STILL NEEDED
ERCOT has issued a notice that rotating outages are no longer needed at this time; however, there is a strong possibility that they will be required again this evening or tomorrow, depending on how quickly the disabled generation units can be returned to service.

Please note that some consumers are still out of power due to the winter storm conditions.

Energy conservation is still critical during peak demand hours this evening between 6 and 10 pm.

We will continue providing these updates when new information is available.

 

[WM75Guy]

For those not familiar with ERCOT:
Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)

The ERCOT Region includes Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, Abilene and the Rio Grande Valley.

It does not include the El Paso area, the Texas Panhandle, Northeast Texas (Longview, Marshall and Texarkana), and Southeast Texas (Beaumont, Port Arthur, and the Woodlands).

 

[Western]

I spoke to soon, less that 5 minutes of my first post we lost power for 5 hrs.

Hope it's on long enough to heat the water.

 

[zzvyb6]

Poor little suffragettes can't deal with electricity off for 30 minutes every 3 hours. With no telly, you might have to talk to or at least look at each other for 30 minutes. Are your houses so badly insulated that they can't hold a decent heat level for 3 hours? For heavens sake, make some candles out of all the grease in your fridge and have a seance. Just wait until we all have to have electric cars. Where's that juice gonna come from?

OMG, they are running for the borders...

 

[txdon]

Poor little suffragettes can't deal with electricity off for 30 minutes every 3 hours. With no telly, you might have to talk to or at least look at each other for 30 minutes. Are your houses so badly insulated that they can't hold a decent heat level for 3 hours? For heavens sake, make some candles out of all the grease in your fridge and have a seance. Just wait until we all have to have electric cars. Where's that juice gonna come from?

OMG, they are running for the borders...

Oh my! We can deal with it just fine. but it's good to know that it is just a rolling blackout and not a serious problem with my electricity or the Co-ops lines. I have an all electric house with foam insulation and have not used my central heater this cold spell. And yes I do have an electric car. And the juice can always come from my emergency generator which I don't have to power up because of the knowledge of the short duration. We got it all covered here in Texas no need to call out the Reserves or the Feds.

If you want to see who's running to the border just look at the license plates of the RVs in the border towns. (Hi Ron.)

I even went to town and timed my haircut in-between outages, but I didn't quite make it to the grocery store in time, I had to shop in the dark, but I knew where everything was anyway.

 

[Loren49]

Temperature in NNY was about 15F this morning - amazing when its warmer here than in parts of Texas. Best wishes that you do well and that power gets back to normal. It sure is good to have a backup heat source that doesn't require electricity.

The storm never really developed here - we had about 8 to 10 inches but we have equipment to easily take care of it. (all area schools where closed in anticipation of possible icing or more snow - my school district's first snow day this winter)

Loren

 

[TheGoose]

Of all times to do so..hope folks have electric back that doesn't burn wood.

Why black outs because of cold? because everyones running electric heaters?

Seems like a reasonable aproach to protect the grid, as long as they had a schedule so you would know how to plan your chores.

JB.

The black outs are caused by several things. First off, our plants are not designed to run in this extreme cold. Things that are insulated to run in the normal 28*+ degree weather we normally have are suddenly being put to the test. Lines are getting plugged, electronics and pneumatics are failing.

2ndly, there are several plants who are down for maintenance outages that are scheduled this time of year to keep the plants online during the peak season.

The power companies pay dividends to the stockholders while the infrastructure stays at a "get by" level of integrity....

...if they just put a little more of the profit they make into the infrastructure they would not need ration the juice....at least that is the way it here in FL whenever there is a high demand...or the wind starts to blow gale force...

we (deep S.E.) escaped the storm this time...

There are 3 grids for the United States. The Western Grid, Eastern Grid, and the Texas Grid. The Texas Grid is mostly indepenedent of the other two. We have plenty of capacity, but as stated earlier we have several plants who went down due to cold-weather related failures.

Just remember, there's two factors in the equation: generation and transmission/distribution. Both factors are heavily impacted by electricity users who are afraid of too much carbon dioxide and the aesthetics of overhead power lines.

Plenty of powerlines and powerplants here. There are several permits for coal-fired plants that just passed the permitting process and a nuclear plant near here is doubling their capacity with 2 new nuclear reators.

Poor little suffragettes can't deal with electricity off for 30 minutes every 3 hours. With no telly, you might have to talk to or at least look at each other for 30 minutes. Are your houses so badly insulated that they can't hold a decent heat level for 3 hours? For heavens sake, make some candles out of all the grease in your fridge and have a seance. Just wait until we all have to have electric cars. Where's that juice gonna come from?

OMG, they are running for the borders...

Our houses are built differently. There are few basements, especially in the South. Our pipes mostly are in our attics, our water wells completely exposed. The coldest we normally get around here is low 30's. Even when it freezes it rarely gets below 30*. Kinda like all the people I know from Canada (and Mich) who have no home A/C or A/C in their Cars.