third coast.. said:
What's the point of bringing that up in this thread?
Texas legislature and government are ineffective and incompetent, and no focus is given on reform in places that need reform, or preparedness for actual issues.
third coast.. said:
What's the point of bringing that up in this thread?
gonemaroon said:
Good morning guys, I'll read back through this thread and respond to some questions in a little bit. I wish I had better news but we've gained about 3000 MW of wind power overnight and as you can see on the graph the generation that's in the red his only went from 44 to 47,000. So we haven't gained back any thermal generation overnight at all.
All I can say at this point time is if you got electricity back on, somebody else probably lost it. We lost Oak Grove Vistra's big coal plant and maybe gained Forney in Dallas. Can't afford to be losing more coal plants and it's a big one - totally at 0.
Tough to compete when your subsidized competition can make money paying someone to buy their product, on a windy (warm) day, regardless of demand.Quote:But there is more to the story than that. Texas has what some regard as a free market in energy, but in fact it is distorted by the massive federal subsidies paid by the federal government. These subsidies often cause the price of electricity to go negative; that is, wind farms will actually pay utilities to take electricity off their hands. The resulting market dislocation devastates reliable energy sources:Quote:
More than 2.5 million people in Texas are currently experiencing rolling blackouts as temperatures remain in the single digits in many parts of the state. The Lone Star state is currently short of electricity because half of the Texas wind fleet (the largest in the nation) is iced over and incapable of generating electricity. Additionally, the natural gas infrastructure Texas has become so reliant upon has also frozen up.
Texas's experience highlights the perils of becoming overly reliant upon wind, solar and natural gas because these energy sources are not as reliable as coal or nuclear power during extreme weather conditions.Isaac's post includes a map that shows the prevalence of negative pricing across the U.S.Quote:
Federal subsidies for wind pay wind-turbine owners $24 per megawatt-hour for electricity regardless of whether the electricity is needed or not. These subsidies allow wind operators to make money even if electricity prices turn negative. This means some power plant operators need to pay customers money if they continue to supply electricity to the grid when the prices are negative, while wind generators will make money courtesy of our tax dollars.Quote:
When coal plants close, renewable energy activists often cry, "Seeeeeee, it's the market!" But the PTC's market distortions are one of the reasons why these coal plants are no longer available to produce the electricity needed in Texas due to the frozen wind turbines and natural gas infrastructure.
hedge said:
ROUND 2 . BRING IT
Which is totally asinine.I Have Spoken said:
Politically, an event like this could flip the state blue. It would not be better with the other guys, but it is an easy message & people will be pissed for a long time.
gonemaroon said:
Some good news -
ERCOT has a lot of outages forecasted to come back tomorrow - so if this is true it could start to be over for a good chunk of people tomorrow. STP according to a vendor is due back tomorrow / not sure if that is accurate.
ERCOT is forecasting outages to drop from 30,000 to 15,000 by tomorrow.
Have to think that it's all hands on deck everywhere to fix every plant in the state.
flyingaggie12 said:
water plants now starting to go down due to lack of power (ft. worth)...what happens to that infrastructure if water can't be moved?
reports saying cell phone towers could start going offline after running out of fuel if on generator
Gas and power flows in places like Montana and Alberta all the time because there are real design differences, and no one plans for the 100th percentile event, or 97th if you figure this is going to happen every 30 years.Zobel said:
Same reason your house didn't probably have broken pipes in that weather but your house in Texas would. Different construction practices. Different designs.
It is possible to make provision for weather like this. It also costs money. Plants in Texas aren't built for days with temps in the teens and never getting above freezing.