Bregxit said:

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cbr said:

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I'd like to know exactly why there has been no power in the whole region for 18 hours now without a single lineman getting a call

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Centerpoint gave an update. There is a severe capacity problem for the ERCOT grid. The plan was to rotate outages but there is not enough capacity to do the rotations. Those who went down first are hosed at the moment until more capacity comes back online. Lineman can't do anything about this issue. It is at the generation points.

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Well , last night (Mon) I was told by an AEP rep (first truthful one yet, supposedly) after we had been down for 15 hours at that point that there were no more rolling blackouts for anyone in Texas no matter the carrier on the grid, "if you are out of power now, prep to be out till We'd." as I looked out to see almost everyone around me that is on another carrier and see theirs go out for the first time since this happened. 2 hours later, their power came back on. Rolling blackout.

Sincerely glad it did for them it did. Also very aware that now AEP as an organization are not only inept, but liars as well.

Lost power in the hotel in Ft Worth around 3am.

Lost power at my house in Belton at 6pm last night.


Been up here visiting an on hospice relative but I'm going to go home today.

Oh and my four wheel drive will not engage. ****ing Ford.


Anyone drive I35 yesterday?

agsalaska said:

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Lost power in the hotel in Ft Worth around 3am.

Lost power at my house in Belton at 6pm last night.


Been up here visiting an on hospice relative but I'm going to go home today.

Oh and my four wheel drive will not engage. ****ing Ford.


Anyone drive I35 yesterday?

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Their power stayed on, right?

My sister drove from Dallas to Austin today (against my advice) and did fine in a FWD VW Passat

Yes and its a miracle.

There are no words for this kind of BS.

Hope everyone is doing alright out there. Our power went off in Katy Monday morning at 2:00am. I have been running my generator since then and have been at least able to keep one small space heater, fridge and freezer, and some accessories running. Most of my neighbors weren't so fortunate to have a generator... cell service has been horrendous, too.

Power is back on now but I am trying to figure out why my water is off... I suspect a frozen main water PEX line in the garage. We'll see if the heaters can thaw that line off in time.

Y'all be safe out there!

What do you mean thaw off in time? Does pex have a limit?

Do you know where your line comes in at? Comes straight into house then goes aerial or do you have a water softener?

Pex is the best there is at expanding with thermal expansion without breaking but even it can crack. I'd be more worried about the fittings cracking than I would the pipe. They'll either be plastic or brass which is not good at thermal expansion.

I am in the same boat as ttha ag. Pex supply froze last night. It comes in on the garage wall and then goes overhead. I know pex can expand. Now I am just waiting to see when it thaws to see if it cracked.

It was fine on the 13 degree night, but last night was too cold.

My supply is pvc through the slab to a pex manifold. The manifold is in a garage wall that is common with the master closet. The garage is insulated and never got to freezing. After the manifold the pex goes aerial individually to every valve in the house. About 2/3 of the lines froze and all but one has thawed with no signs of a leak.

So far I'm impressed with the pex.

Pex is good stuff, the fittings are the weak link.

We barely ever use it in commercial/industrial work but when we do I always shake my head that we're putting in a pretty good pipe but with plastic fittings. Makes no sense. Brass isn't much better. It will bust too.

danieljustin06 said:

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There are no words for this kind of BS.

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For those of us with no clue here, does this mean I'm going to have a $1k gas bill this month?

TH36 said:

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Do you know where your line comes in at? Comes straight into house then goes aerial or do you have a water softener?

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I got it running now. Comes in on a side garage and ran a space heater until it thawed out. No visible leaks and water is working almost everywhere, for now.

GrimesCoAg95 said:

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I am in the same boat as ttha ag. Pex supply froze last night. It comes in on the garage wall and then goes overhead. I know pex can expand. Now I am just waiting to see when it thaws to see if it cracked.

It was fine on the 13 degree night, but last night was too cold.

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good luck! Heater on supply line and open door to garage finally heated everything up enough.

No, this is for wholesale electricity prices not gas. It won't effect your rate with your provider either. It's also not a fair interpretation of the situation at all. I highly doubt any gen is withholding for anything other than operational reasons. Even with the crazy high natty prices, they are very much in the money if they can get supply or run.

Yesterday, my dad sent me a video of him and my step mom driving around Abilene in the snow. Pictures of piles of snow.

I called him and told him he should stay home, off the roads, his 2WD pickup isn't as good as he thinks it is (but its a truck, it's supposed to go anywhere!).

"Nah, I've been driving in this stuff my whole life." Sidenote: he's lived in Abilene for 23 years, S. NM for 7 years (dry as a bone), Brackettville for 7 years, and ABQ area prior to that for 30ish years.

Today he sheepishly told me he spun out turning into his neighborhood, tires went off the road a few feet into a little ditch, and he had to call his neighbor to pull him out because his tires were just spinning. At least he didn't clip a mailbox!

CowtownAg06 said:

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No, this is for wholesale electricity prices not gas. It won't effect your rate with your provider either. It's also not a fair interpretation of the situation at all. I highly doubt any gen is withholding for anything other than operational reasons. Even with the crazy high natty prices, they are very much in the money if they can get supply or run.

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There will be electricity providers bankrupted over this week....

CowtownAg06 said:

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No, this is for wholesale electricity prices not gas. It won't effect your rate with your provider either. It's also not a fair interpretation of the situation at all. I highly doubt any gen is withholding for anything other than operational reasons. Even with the crazy high natty prices, they are very much in the money if they can get supply or run.

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It don't think it has them withholding, but depending on the financial position of the generation entity, it may prevent them from buying additional natural gas out of the overinflated gas market. I would imagine that almost all gas generators ran out of their purchased reserves on Sunday or Monday.

Speckled Trout said:

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CowtownAg06 said:

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No, this is for wholesale electricity prices not gas. It won't effect your rate with your provider either. It's also not a fair interpretation of the situation at all. I highly doubt any gen is withholding for anything other than operational reasons. Even with the crazy high natty prices, they are very much in the money if they can get supply or run.

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It don't think it has them withholding, but depending on the financial position of the generation entity, it may prevent them from buying additional natural gas out of the overinflated gas market. I would imagine that almost all gas generators ran out of their purchased reserves on Sunday or Monday.

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That's not how natural gas works. It's a daily market and while there is storage, that's not how power plants buy. Power plants operate on something called a Heat Rate, it's basically the efficiency of turning fuel into MW. The vast majority of plants in Texas are 7-8 HR. Some get up to 10. There are extremes above that, but even at $400 gas prices, a 10 HR is economic over $4,000 power. We've been there since Sunday. I'm not saying some plants were afraid of the risk, but the overwhelming majority of plants are off for operational reasons or they can't find the gas at any price.

Saw a minivan parked on the street down the street from us that had been rear ended in the ice the first night.

Despite operational issues at some of the coal plants, this is the why gas plants aren't true baseload. Coal and Nuclear have fuel onsite and are not dependent upon a pipeline.

ETA: forgot to include operational issues at nuclear plants.

We are missing about 1300 MW of nuke.

AW 1880 said:

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Despite operational issues at some of the coal plants, this is the why gas plants aren't true baseload. Coal and Nuclear have fuel onsite and are not dependent upon a pipeline.

ETA: forgot to include operational issues at nuclear plants.

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Operational issues aren't limited to nuclear facilities. You were correct in your initial assessment.

Lol at people *****ing about 'capitalism' because of a government entity's rulings modifying prior government entities' policies. Yep. Thats where we are. Genius.

Been a long time since I had to wear a coat to the toilet and I wasn't hunting.

Right now we are squarely in how did this happen phase (also known as blame wind phase in politics). Why did my power bill go up phase comes later.

50% of Denmark's power come from wind. Pretty damn cold there with storms common. We did not install winter blades on our windmills. And N Dacota is around 40%

Thanks for all of the info here.

Winter blades sound spensive.

SteveBott said:

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50% of Denmark's power come from wind. Pretty damn cold there with storms common. We did not install winter blades on our windmills. And N Dacota is around 40%

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I am guessing their windmills are engineered and produced in Europe and our sheit is made in Chyna.

Don't know. But they use a different technology on their blades so they shed ice and snow. I assume they are more expensive then the ones we use.

Just got power back for an hour and now our natural glass flow is very low. Same for our neighbors