ERCOT Ends Emergency Blackouts
Power out at your house? You've got good company — 400,000 other Texans, as of noon today. But as of this afternoon, the lights (and heat) should be coming back on.
The demand for power — namely heat — exceeded generation capacity around midnight last night, causing more than 50 generators to shut down statewide. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the flow of electric power, ordered utilities to begin rotating power outages to prevent the escalation of uncontrolled power loss. As of about 1:30, ERCOT ended those emergency blackouts.
“Because of winter weather conditions that have created ...
Comments (11)
Donald Dickson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Saw a headline, "Rolling Outages Won't Affect Super Bowl," and I was thinking to myself that whether or not the lights are on in Arlington, it'll certainly "affect the Super Bowl" if they're not on at my house. In any event, I care more about staying warm than I do about the Super Bowl, and I'm thinking we need a new name for the Electric "Reliability" Council of Texas.
Susan Blount via Texas Tribune on Facebook
plenty of people (like ME) were without power for far more than 45 minutes - I was out for more than 5 hours total with very brief intermittent spells of restored power.
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is curious that ERCOT and ONCOR can get in touch with me anytime they need to toot their own horn or try to pry money or support from me.
But they lose my number when they should be warning me of rolling black outs??
They are so short sighted they couldn't even get mention on the local news about the possiblity.
That is a very disfunctional organization. This is what happens when agencies and populated with cronies of politicians.
Betty Boomer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't trust GE since they sold their souls to Mexico. I purchase several lights at the hardware store in Oregon; I was told by the clerk to go to their website to complain, I am out money... so I got nothing but attitude towards American businesses that want to shaft me. I got ACE, Home Depot and Walmart on my SHIT LIST! Betty
Betty Boomer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I am tired of throwing away hundreds of dollars on junk made over the border and overseas. I am fed-up sheeple! Betty
Mac Mcclure via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Did anyone go outside and smell the clean fresh air. I know we have clean fresh air because of the 7 coal fired power plants that were cancelled because of environmental concerns. Wonder if we would have had blackouts if they were online?
Rudy Gonzales
How did this happen? I was under the impression that Texas had excess energy for any and all our needs and we could sell excess to and through the grid to those in real need. Surely ERCOT didn't sell or move energy to other states without taking into consideration the needs of Texans first. Surely this wasn't a ploy to build new power production plants. Surely the Texas House didn't act in collusion with those members appointed to ERCOT to mastermind the impression that Texas needed more production plants. With the knowledgeable weather forecasters and computer imaging capabilities available we could not have been warned of this impending action? This action was never a possibility before de-regulation. Something stinks here! I think I'll forward this to the investigators at Channels 13, 11 and 2 in Houston and a few others around the state to investigate.
D W
oddly enough we now know what happened. there were a few power plants that crashed this morning. but they only took 7000 kilowatts of power. or so we are told. but consider that we were needing 54,000 kilowatts but didn't have, compare that to max demand from last summer, 67,000 kilowatts. seems some thing doesn't jive
Mike Dunn
So, which is it? Did demand exceed generation, as indicated by Perry, or were some plants hindered by the cold and that led to the shutdowns, as indicated by Dewhurst yesterday?
This is exactly the sort of story I expect the Tribune to dig into to verify.
Given what we know about California's "blackouts" and how any little disturbance (a grassfire, for instance) was exploited as a profitable event, it seems reasonable that story deserves some investigation.
Where is the reporting?
Deborah Dalton
I am all for investigative journalism... but the rolling blackouts are a non-story, people!
I grew up in Austin and it is rare for this to happen - but it is not the first time (it happens more often with extreme heat). And it will happen again should we face these conditions in the future.
It seems that some people from Austin have such a "not at my house" attitude. I have lived in much larger American cities and when things like this happen, people deal with it. And, yes, I understand that some people took a larger hit than others. But I didn't see anyone picketing outside of ERCOT or Austin Energy - it seems that reporters really went out of their way to seek out disgruntled individuals, all in the name of a headline...
M. D.
There is plenty of cause to investigate. 60-fold increases in market value of power due to a couple of frozen pipes? Somebody got rich this week, let's find out who and if they were just the recipients of heaven from mana, or if there are some guys from Enron out there.
As per http://tinyurl.com/6zw5fsx :
Weather-related unit outages caused hourly wholesale power prices in Texas to soar 60-fold to $3,000 per megawatt-hour, up from about $50 where they usually trade. That's comparable to about $3 per kilowatt-hour for residential users, though most Texas home-owners have long-term power deals with suppliers that protect them from short-term price spikes.
Wholesale power for Thursday delivery traded in the $325 range, up from about $70 for Wednesday, as cold weather was expected to persist until Friday.
ERCOT forecast peak demand would top 55,000 megawatts on Wednesday and 57,000 MW on Thursday before dropping to about 47,000 MW on Friday.
That is still well below the grid's 2010 summer peak of 65,715 megawatts.