ERCOT Rolling Out First Step of Emergency Procedures
As scorching temperatures continued and Texas electricity use reached another all-time high, the state grid operator initiated the first step of emergency procedures today, seeking power from other grids, including Mexico.
About 20 power generation units, accounting for around 3,000 megawatts of capacity, were unavailable today during unplanned outages, adding to the strain on the grid. Today's temperatures soared well past 100 degrees, and it's not likely that the situation will get better Wednesday or Thursday unless some thunderstorms pass over a major metropolitan area, like Houston or Dallas, to lessen demand.
At a 4 p.m ...
Comments (22)
Gary Scoggin via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I blame Obama and the deficit deal.
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh dear, are we going to be hit by rolling blackouts again? Maybe I should start spending more time on campus.
Chris Hilbert via Texas Tribune on Facebook
When it hit a 100 we moved the thermostat from 78 to 83 and bought some fans. since you can't be in every room at the same time, using the fans has helped a lot...and we've used less electricity...especially today since it hit 108 in dfw!
Karen Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Gary, I don't.
Kimberly Adams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
i am trying to cut back on the use of power during peak hour... we have put everything on powercords and simply turning them off so chargers.. stero's etc will not be using power during these hours
Simone Traverse via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I seem to recall they were very confident the grid could handle this just a few weeks ago. Guess they were wrong.
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Right on Karen, people like Gary are pretty stupid if they think that Obama has ANYTHING to do with the Texas power grid. I'll tell you who is directly responsible. Rick Perry. He added 10 coal plants to the grid instead of doubling the size of the STNP in Bay City, which would have produced 20 times the amount of power. Even Dubya added windmill farms and gave tax credits for companies who built the huge windmill farms.
Jess Henderson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I knew as soon as they published that press release in May about having "plenty" of power this summer that they would end up regretting it. What purpose did it serve?
David ??? Matocha via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Knew this was coming from the news reports yesterday, so today, I shut down the power at my home office and am working from a local coffee shop. Hope it helped a little.
Kona Head via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What do they expect, Satan has taken up house here in TX & ain`t leavin` any time soon
Daniel Cardenas via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Power plants go down either in planned outages to do routine maintenance and they also break down in unplanned outages. When they are unplanned, it can not be helped. In a perfect world, the type of generation would not matter. But since we are not in a perfect world, it does matter. Wind is important but not reliable. Nuclear is the most reliable because it can run at 100% of capacity or more. Coal and Natural Gas are less reliable. The size of the grid does not matter, what matters is the transmission capacity. Believe or not, but transmission lines can get backed up, in bottlenecks, because for the most part electricity can flow in only one direction, again depending. If all your production is concentrated in one area and your need is spread out, then you will have problems. the ERCOT needs to be fixed with upgrades for current and future needs. That is expensive.
James Williams
Gary - C'mon, you know its Bush's fault.
I am curious how ADDING power plants to the grid can cause blackouts though. And, how is Perry responsible for the exorbitant cost of adding nuclear power? I would really like to understand how he convinced David Crane to stop NRG from working further at SNTP on adding generation.
Juan Valerio Antonio via Texas Tribune on Facebook
repeal daylight savings time
Dave Cortez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Smart grid and distributed generation. The. End.
Brandon Whittle via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Some thoughts from an independent, self employed, analyst:
3000 is average, represents less than 5% of the fleet, and is even low for this summer where 5k has been the norm.
Rick perry didn't have anything to do with coal vs nuke. Nuke is extremely expensive and it can't get done without subsidy. The feds started a loan program but japan happened.
Prices have been kept low by over mitigation which prevents sufficient investment of private dollars in new generation.
Brandon Whittle via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wind was generating about 15%, better than expected in the summer.
Good questions, ask more and I will try to fill in where I can.
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Solar panels on every house in Texas would be nice, but nuke & coal require too much water, not to mention coal heating up the air...in the meantime, unplugging lots of stuff, turning off lights....
Brandon Whittle via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Running constantly due to the heat does lead to more outages - but I don't know the reasons for them as they are confidential and I haven't worked or consulted for an ERCOT generator for nearly 10 years. I wish I did know, the numbers were a bit higher than I thought they were.
Most generation here with the exception of a few wind plants can operate without significant transmission constraints. Over the past decade we've had a few issues where transmission has been lacking but they generally get fixed within a couple years.
Brandon Whittle via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The closest comparison to ERCOT is Entergy - Texas which is East Texas but not part of the ERCOT grid. Their rates are ~10 cents. In Houston, you can get a variable for ~5.5 and a fixed for ~8.5. I'll take ERCOT. http://www.entergy-texas.com/content/price/bills/tx-bill.pdf www.powertochoose.com
BurningFeet
Interesting that it is coal, gas and nuke plants that have to be taken off line, and/or take themselves out unexpectedly, leaving gaping holes in generation. Taking a wind turbine off line for maintenance or unexpected failure? No big deal. Yet the wind farms are called unreliable. Curious.
James Williams
The coal, gas and nuclear power plants are base loaded with capacity factors greater than 90% of annual capacity. That includes the planned and unplanned outages that infuriate so many of us. Wind would be in the 30% or lower capacity factor range.
Base load plants have the lowest costs per unit of electricity because they are designed for maximum efficiency and are operated continuously at high output. You can't work a wind turbine continuously - Base loading wind is tricky as you need wind (at certain defined speeds) to be available for them to generate electricity.
There are almost 10,000 MW's of potential wind turbine load availability in the West Texas region. Of those, only 500MW's was available (placed on the grid) to support on Monday. This was the first of the brutally hot days. Infrastructure, wind, and reliability all probably played a role in placing it onto the grid.
If ERCOT could, I bet you that they would place more wind energy on the grid - they don't care where it comes from as long as it is reliable.
Elmo
TXU is to blame. They close plants down and then have nothing to back them up with. Plain and simple