wessimo said:

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HotardAg07 said:

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This is the best article I've seen at getting to the root cause of the issues:
https://billkingblog.com/the-texas-power-grid-failure-is-more-complicated-than-green-v-carbon/

I have no hope that the changes that we need will actually be implemented.

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Lesson learned: buy a generator.

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I think that I have discovered that I am on a no cut circuit because of a nearby fire station.

The more I digest all the information I am reading, the more I feel like there is a bipartisan solution out there that can address the issues we have had in the last week, but still mostly keeps our system the way it is.

It seems like the cure would be to have a reliability surcharge or fee tacked on to the rate of unreliable power sources. Solar and Wind are inherently unreliable due to being dependent on weather, so they should have a fee associated with that because they require supplemental power to be built to support the system when they are down.

The same could be done for things like winterization. ERCOT can't force companies to follow their winterization recommendations, but if they could charge a surcharge for those who choose to not winterize, then there would be an economic incentive for everybody to winterize (or not).

If the PUC required ERCOT to have a certain minimum reliability threshhold at all times, that could govern how much they let plants offline and what they ramp up.

The question is, since generators are independent operators and do not work for ERCOT, how does that surcharge flow to them to build more capacity in our current system. Would our current free market dynamics make that happen automatically, as the higher fee for unreliable sources balances the field and makes more reliable power more economically attractive, benefiting all of us?

I know we all hate regulations and anything that makes stuff more expensive, but this still seems a lot less expensive than buying a GENERAC and having outages that cause billions of dollars of damage to the State. In addition, it doesn't require us to join up with MISO or some other federally run organization.

I probably don't understand the situation well enough, I'm just looking for a structural fix here.

Zobel said:

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Yes. Good question. And the root cause for the low frequency event. Was it precipitated by a plant tripping? Or was the grid operator too slow to shed load as wind dropped off?

But if you notice the stuff that was running was in a steady decline all night and into Monday. Whether that's from units going offline or derates due lack of fuel or difficulty running (loading frozen coal for example) its hard to say what we would have had capacity wise without the trip event.

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In this case it happened so fast that automatic Under-Frequency Load Shed (UFLS) relays likely tripped the load in order to save the system. The operator would not have been able to trip the load that fast.

I knew that rolling blackouts have always been a tool to use when needed...but I always pictured some sophisticated, AI software driven program handling it.

I guess that's not the case. Or is it?

A capacity market would fix it, but it would make power more expensive on average.

I agree that a different price for dispatch vs non dispatch makes total sense. I don't know how you structure the market to take advantage of that. Wind is both cheap and volatile, which makes it push (cheaper) base load off while increasing variability, requiring GT peakers which are traditionally the very tip of highest price in the stack.

An alternate and unpalatable solution may be: accept that we do not want to pay to insure against infrequent peak events and have a better plan in place to rotate blackouts. If we rolled power 2 on 2 off or 4 on 4 off for a few days I don't think this would be the outrage that it is.

ERCOT in a press release said that did not happen - they said it was manual. But still, we had a 59.3 Hz moment that tripped some units. Was that a - you should have shed faster - or a - wow amazing catch?

XXXVII said:

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Zobel said:

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Yes. Good question. And the root cause for the low frequency event. Was it precipitated by a plant tripping? Or was the grid operator too slow to shed load as wind dropped off?

But if you notice the stuff that was running was in a steady decline all night and into Monday. Whether that's from units going offline or derates due lack of fuel or difficulty running (loading frozen coal for example) its hard to say what we would have had capacity wise without the trip event.

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In this case it happened so fast that automatic Under-Frequency Load Shed (UFLS) relays likely tripped the load in order to save the system. The operator would not have been able to trip the load that fast.

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Are there any power plant engineers here? I've worked in several kinds of chemical plants, but never a power facility. What exactly was freezing up. At first the reports were instrumentation freezing up which doesn't really make sense. Electronics don't freeze. Maybe instrument air supply freezing? I've seen that before.

Next the reports are that the nat gas supply going out which has nothing to do with the ERCOT or the power industry at all. Is there anyone here with some actual first hand knowledge about what happened in your specific plant?

maybe sensing lines - tubes filled with water connecting the instrument to the pipe. Also I imagine some stuff gets iced up and doesn't move like it normally would.

What is a sensing line? I've never heard of anything like that. What kind of instrument?

HotardAg07 said:

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The more I digest all the information I am reading, the more I feel like there is a bipartisan solution out there that can address the issues we have had in the last week, but still mostly keeps our system the way it is.

It seems like the cure would be to have a reliability surcharge or fee tacked on to the rate of unreliable power sources. Solar and Wind are inherently unreliable due to being dependent on weather, so they should have a fee associated with that because they require supplemental power to be built to support the system when they are down.

The same could be done for things like winterization. ERCOT can't force companies to follow their winterization recommendations, but if they could charge a surcharge for those who choose to not winterize, then there would be an economic incentive for everybody to winterize (or not).

If the PUC required ERCOT to have a certain minimum reliability threshhold at all times, that could govern how much they let plants offline and what they ramp up.

The question is, since generators are independent operators and do not work for ERCOT, how does that surcharge flow to them to build more capacity in our current system. Would our current free market dynamics make that happen automatically, as the higher fee for unreliable sources balances the field and makes more reliable power more economically attractive, benefiting all of us?

I know we all hate regulations and anything that makes stuff more expensive, but this still seems a lot less expensive than buying a GENERAC and having outages that cause billions of dollars of damage to the State. In addition, it doesn't require us to join up with MISO or some other federally run organization.

I probably don't understand the situation well enough, I'm just looking for a structural fix here.

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Why tack on a fee that makes electricity more expensive? Wind incentives such as renewable energy credits and renewable energy production requirements require electric companies to buy more expensive wind power displacing cheaper more reliable fuels such as coal.

Get rid of those incentives and we can have a more stable grid at a lower cost.

Jack Boyett said:

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XXXVII said:

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Zobel said:

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Yes. Good question. And the root cause for the low frequency event. Was it precipitated by a plant tripping? Or was the grid operator too slow to shed load as wind dropped off?

But if you notice the stuff that was running was in a steady decline all night and into Monday. Whether that's from units going offline or derates due lack of fuel or difficulty running (loading frozen coal for example) its hard to say what we would have had capacity wise without the trip event.

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In this case it happened so fast that automatic Under-Frequency Load Shed (UFLS) relays likely tripped the load in order to save the system. The operator would not have been able to trip the load that fast.

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Are there any power plant engineers here? I've worked in several kinds of chemical plants, but never a power facility. What exactly was freezing up. At first the reports were instrumentation freezing up which doesn't really make sense. Electronics don't freeze. Maybe instrument air supply freezing? I've seen that before.

Next the reports are that the nat gas supply going out which has nothing to do with the ERCOT or the power industry at all. Is there anyone here with some actual first hand knowledge about what happened in your specific plant?

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Typically it is a gas turbine speed or temperature sensor that is pneumatic. They have to be pneumatic because the temps or environment they are in exceed the temperatures electronic sensors can operate.

Even dried air has some moisture in it and that moisture will freeze inside the line causing the sensor to give an over speed or no speed reading.

The lines are maybe 1/4" and maybe could be heat traced but that can get expensive? Typically, up north where these temperatures are normal, the unit will be built in a building that protects the instrumentation but that costs millions more than an installation in Texas.

It has been a few years since I have worked with this so I may have a few details wrong but this is a general idea of what may have happened/has happened at plants in the past

Zobel said:

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ERCOT in a press release said that did not happen - they said it was manual. But still, we had a 59.3 Hz moment that tripped some units. Was that a - you should have shed faster - or a - wow amazing catch?

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I don't see how it wouldn't have activated if the frequency got down to 59.3 Hz because that is the frequency at which UFLS starts shedding load. If more units tripped at 59.3 Hz, then more load would have to be shed along with them via the UFLS to prevent total collapse.

Good input. Some of the gas plants I see have a lot of equipment outdoors. I was also wondering if the precipitation gets in there and causes binding (like my truck door that wouldn't open). Seems like there is so much that can go wrong with crazy cold temps.

The instrument air driers I've seen are good to like -30F. I don't see how instrument air could be a problem.

Maybe ERCOT lied then - wouldn't surprise me. I don't know where the emergency relays kick in. GE's gas turbine operating guidelines to calculate when you should do maintenance talk about being able to operate as low as 5% off speed - that's 57 Hz. But I don't know where unit actual trips are set for speed, if they even are. It seems to me you'd trip out on current from degrading power factor before speed, but I don't know...??

This is what you need during the next long power outage

Truck has a generator




Texans trapped without electricity for days in their homes have suffered without heat or lights or the ability to run refrigerators or stoves despite freezing temperatures.
But Randy Jones, 66, a retired refinery worker from the town of Katy, outside Houston, and the owner of a 2021 Ford F-150 Hybrid truck with Pro Power onboard, generated envy on social media after posting images of how he's using his pickup to power his home and help neighbors during the blackout affecting millions in the Lone Star State.
"We were out from Sunday through Wednesday evening," he said early Thursday. "It's been miserably cold and frustrating to have loss of power for that many days."

The experience felt like a bad movie, something Jones said he couldn't really describe in words that would be printable in a family newspaper.
"You're living your life normally and all of a sudden you're thrust into the dark. I think it got around 9 degrees. It's been in mid-20s and low 30s. You don't expect that in south Texas. You don't expect to lose power when we have nuclear, natural gas, wind and solar power," he said. "The truck gave us light at night, TV access to catch the news and weather. It helped give us a little bit of heat and a good pot of coffee."

He just bought his new F-150 the first week of February, replacing his 2015 F-150, which replaced his 2010 F-150.
"We have hurricanes down here more than freezes. We went through two hurricanes just a few months ago," Jones said. "I bought the truck specifically because of the generator for my own safety. I'm happy I bought it. Some of my neighbors are too, because they could charge their cellphones and iPads off my power supply."






This is actually very cool to me

Pressure sensing lines can freeze. That is what tripped one of the reactors at STP.

Other problems - gas turbines get get ice formation due to the pressure drop in the inlet with humidity + cold. You can ice over the inlet air filters and cause the low pressure implosion doors to open. It can freeze cooling lines to lube oil heat exchangers, and the coolers themselves. I'm sure there's a dozen other failure modes we could come up with.

Because it wasn't just wind that didn't work. Natural gas had 30% capacity off line. 1/4 nuclear reactors were down. Coal had a similar percentage offline. Everything fuel type failed due to lack of winterization -- a "recommendation" ERCOT made in 2011 that was never adopted by too many. The question is -- how do we tweak the system to enforce more reliability.

You say why pay for electricity to be more expensive? We just had billions of dollars of damage in Texas due to this wind storm and several lives lost. You have to pay for reliability and we SHOULD.

HotardAg07 said:

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Because it wasn't just wind that didn't work. Natural gas had 30% capacity off line. 1/4 nuclear reactors were down. Coal had a similar percentage offline. Everything fuel type failed due to lack of winterization -- a "recommendation" ERCOT made in 2011 that was never adopted by too many. The question is -- how do we tweak the system to enforce more reliability.

You say why pay for electricity to be more expensive? We just had billions of dollars of damage in Texas due to this wind storm and several lives lost. You have to pay for reliability and we SHOULD.

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What I am saying is the money is already there and it is being misappropriated due to non economic incentives in the market. Remove those incentives and let the market correct to the right resources.

I keep hearing the winterization issue but it is not true that there is no winterization. We need better information on what tripped due to winter weather and what tripped on grid instability. My thought is that most of the trips were due to grid failure, which is normally harder to recover from than weather retaliated sensor or site failure particularly for a gas turbine because you need to check out the turbines to make sure they weren't damaged which takes hours

I mean, it's been confirmed that a water pipe burst at the Texas South Nuclear Power Plant. That seems like something that could have been avoided with heat trace and insulation. Why wasn't it? 650,000 houses lost power because a water pipe wasn't prepared for freezing weather? That's awful man.

South Texas Nuclear went offline because a pressure sensing line on a boiler feedwater pump froze. Actually, I think 2/3 froze in a redundant system.

The trip resulted from a loss of feedwater attributed to a cold weather-related failure of a pressure sensing lines to the feedwater pumps, causing a false signal, which in turn, caused the feedwater pump to trip.

More details here.

I've never heard of hours to check a turbine after a trip from load. GER-3620 allows for a hot start 1 factor to immediately restart a turbine after trip (yeah, it's a huge maintenance factor for the rotor, but still) on a GE machine. Is this not done?

What are you checking on the turbine??

GER-3620 reference on Texags. Damn, we are officially in the weeds.

Feb 19, 2021, when my two worlds collided.

WTF

I don't know where you'd even start if trying to re-regulate generation in ERCOT, but I have a feeling there will be a strong push for that. There is no way the deregulated competitive market will support the economics for winterizing the generation fleet. A capacity market *might* help, but I doubt it would really make much of a difference for these extreme scenarios.

We can't have cheap and good at the same time. I'm not a fan of regulation but I think it's probably the only way to ensure there is a base load of generation that is winterized (and maintained) for these extreme outlier events if that's what we want to have. The only new thermal generation in Texas is in regulated markets outside of ERCOT.

Or maybe it's as simple as having a better system operator with more modern monitoring and control tools to ensure load shed happens at appropriate times? If it turns out a material amount of generation was lost due to low frequency trips, that seems like the cheapest and easiest place to start.

BBRex said:

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I'd guess too much power and not enough load is making the frequency too high. Earlier this week, it was the opposite, too little power and too much load, frequency was low.

We over rotated.

Renewables can make money when pricing is negative due to tax credits and renewable energy credits they can sell. I'm sure that is what's causing this. I don't think it's really all that unusual on sunny days (solar) and when weather is supporting strong wind generation.

Also, it's just spot pricing so other plants are probably running because they've sold power on the day ahead market, are hedged or are must run plants that can't quickly shut off and restart (nuclear).

LostInLA07 said:

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I don't know where you'd even start if trying to re-regulate generation in ERCOT, but I have a feeling there will be a strong push for that. There is no way the deregulated competitive market will support the economics for winterizing the generation fleet. A capacity market *might* help, but I doubt it would really make much of a difference for these extreme scenarios.

We can't have cheap and good at the same time. I'm not a fan of regulation but I think it's probably the only way to ensure there is a base load of generation that is winterized (and maintained) for these extreme outlier events if that's what we want to have. The only new thermal generation in Texas is in regulated markets outside of ERCOT.

Or maybe it's as simple as having a better system operator with more modern monitoring and control tools to ensure load shed happens at appropriate times? If it turns out a material amount of generation was lost due to low frequency trips, that seems like the cheapest and easiest place to start.

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Texas will never re-regulate

BenFiasco14 said:

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BBRex said:

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Most of the state has positive prices, it's just one area near the west Texas wind farms that is negative. Don't believe everything you read on ****ter.

http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/contours/rtmLmp.html

Prices are 0 or negative throughout most of texas as of right now. I believe real time prices update every 15 minutes.

LostInLA07 said:

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http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/contours/rtmLmp.html

Prices are 0 or negative throughout most of texas as of right now. I believe real time prices update every 15 minutes.

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Switch to the high gradient. They are mostly positive, but very low.

It happens all the time. The entire ERCOT goes negative mostly when wind is up and demand is down. Was worse a few years ago but still happens regularly. Prices right now are right at zero.
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_spp