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Historic Weather Event Could Impact Electricity Grid

28,261 Views | 275 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by walton91
Rice and Fries
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YouBet said:

IOW, those of us who happened to take the first outage got stuck with it ongoing.


ERCOT didn't send the BOHICA message soon enough. 5 hours of power since 2AM on Monday morning is ridiculous. Barely get the house warm again before it shuts off.

Bend Over Here It Comes Again = BOHICA
FTAco07
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I am staying at my girlfriends apartment since she has running water and we have a new experience with power last night. Previously when power came back on everything worked. Last night, the electric furnace, range, and microwave didn't work (the later two were on with lights but didn't generate any heat).

I have deduced that we had 110v power but not 220v which explains those three items. My question is, is this something that Oncor would dial back or do you think this is a problem with circuitry somewhere at the apartment complex?
Spaceship
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I don't think (I could be wrong) Oncor can be that surgical with their outages. It's likely an issue with the apartment complex.
riverrataggie
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Check the breaker box. In surges breakers wil flip on the heavy voltage items
FTAco07
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That was the first thing I did yesterday and none were tripped. I flipped those items off and back on anyway with no change.
falconace
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Your microwave is 110v, not 220v. If it was just the furnace and oven, you might only have one phase but the microwave doesn't make sense.
riverrataggie
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is there an outlet by the appliances impacted? Do they work?
culdeus
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Ercot forecast is as bad as I've seen it for today. Rolling blackouts all but assured thru midnight.
JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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Is it possible they're on a GFCI circuit? If so, one of them would potentially have a little light with a "reset" button on it - it could have taken the whole circuit down (maybe a surge on startup). If so, find the one with the light and press the reset button back in....if it goes off immediately, there is probably a reason the circuit is having problems.
culdeus
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FTAco07 said:

I am staying at my girlfriends apartment since she has running water and we have a new experience with power last night. Previously when power came back on everything worked. Last night, the electric furnace, range, and microwave didn't work (the later two were on with lights but didn't generate any heat).

I have deduced that we had 110v power but not 220v which explains those three items. My question is, is this something that Oncor would dial back or do you think this is a problem with circuitry somewhere at the apartment complex?


You lost a phase and need to call this in. I would unplug anything from 110 that has something that spins.
FTAco07
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Outlets in the kitchen all work and no GFCIs were tripped. The microwave light works and when you start it it will act like it's working but not generate any heat. Same thing for the range, lights work and you can turn it on but no heat.

The loss of a power phase seems to be a potential culprit. Thanks for the help!
2wealfth Man
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Getting more consistent and longer duration of power "on" here in Coppell. Temps are rising and less load stress I am assuming.
JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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2wealfth Man said:

Getting more consistent and longer duration of power "on" here in Coppell. Temps are rising and less load stress I am assuming.


Same here in Rockwall starting late yesterday afternoon. Went from 6+ hours "off" with 1-1.5 "on" to several hours "on" followed by an hour or so "off"...makes such a difference in keeping things managable.
FTAco07
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Apartment maintenance claiming Oncor "hasn't restored full power" and the issue is complex wide. My buddy who is an energy trader says Oncor isn't controlling voltage and you either have power or don't, nothing in the middle.
culdeus
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Lost power for first time in 76107. Water is also at a trickle and running out. The internet has a battery backup so I have that going for me for now.
FTAco07
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Just got a text from Atmos saying to conserve gas. Hard to do when you have to melt snow in order to flush toilets.
JDCAG (NOT Colin)
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FTAco07 said:

Apartment maintenance claiming Oncor "hasn't restored full power" and the issue is complex wide. My buddy who is an energy trader says Oncor isn't controlling voltage and you either have power or don't, nothing in the middle.


I believe the power is just coming in to your house/building/etc. When you put in a 220, it is literally just taking 2 slots in the breaker vs 1 for a 110. Nothing is different as far as how the power gets to the breaker. I don't think they have any real way to control that granularity.
2wealfth Man
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FTAco07 said:

Apartment maintenance claiming Oncor "hasn't restored full power" and the issue is complex wide. My buddy who is an energy trader says Oncor isn't controlling voltage and you either have power or don't, nothing in the middle.
Correct in that you can't have partial power. I think your buddy means they didn't control the load on the grid. It overloaded. FYI - There are different voltages for different appliances but you shouldn't have anything to do with that as said by JDCAG above.
riverrataggie
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FTAco07 said:

Just got a text from Atmos saying to conserve gas. Hard to do when you have to melt snow in order to flush toilets.
If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down.
FTAco07
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Oh that's been the policy for sure
riverrataggie
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looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
culdeus
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riverrataggie said:

looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
ercot is showing a forecasted huge surge in demand late afternoon. Not clear what would drive that, but I suppose as they start cutting areas back on they will pull in.

riverrataggie
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culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
ercot is showing a forecasted huge surge in demand late afternoon. Not clear what would drive that, but I suppose as they start cutting areas back on they will pull in.


They've done this past several days. Forecast appears to assume everyone, 100%, have power.
Quinn
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LisaMarie said:

In the hospital having a baby. Seriously concerned when we get released we STILL might not have power at home. Ours went out Monday around 2am and never came back so going on 30+ hours. Glad to be somewhere warm and safe that I know won't lose power.
Does that mean that we aren't getting your weekly review of The Challenge??

JK Congrats! Stay warm and safe!
YouBet
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Houston Hobby shut down due to no potable water.
culdeus
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riverrataggie said:

culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
ercot is showing a forecasted huge surge in demand late afternoon. Not clear what would drive that, but I suppose as they start cutting areas back on they will pull in.


They've done this past several days. Forecast appears to assume everyone, 100%, have power.
Has anyone broken down what the implications of this are? Should we assume there will be more shutdowns? Trying to decide if want to go cross town home, where we were heavily impacted with it on day 1 from a place that's been 99% on.
91AggieLawyer
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Oncor active outage numbers don't seem to be decreasing much but affected customer numbers are coming down by about 50K every half hour or so in the last 2 hours. What does that mean?
2wealfth Man
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riverrataggie said:

culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
ercot is showing a forecasted huge surge in demand late afternoon. Not clear what would drive that, but I suppose as they start cutting areas back on they will pull in.


They've done this past several days. Forecast appears to assume everyone, 100%, have power.
Sounds of like some of the early Coronvirus model predictions.
Log
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Go "borrow" a 5 gallon bucket of water from someone's pool.
riverrataggie
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culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
ercot is showing a forecasted huge surge in demand late afternoon. Not clear what would drive that, but I suppose as they start cutting areas back on they will pull in.


They've done this past several days. Forecast appears to assume everyone, 100%, have power.
Has anyone broken down what the implications of this are? Should we assume there will be more shutdowns? Trying to decide if want to go cross town home, where we were heavily impacted with it on day 1 from a place that's been 99% on.
I dont think it should be assumed there are 'more'. I just think they will continue. To be honest we are showing 54k MW now available. We have been flirting with only 50k since the big drop Sunday night.

remember.. this was the 14th snapshot and the 15th on breaking... 65k/70k MW is what is likely needed still to get the state back up and running. By Friday 50 to 55k will likely do. This doesnt take into account the broken infrastructure that occurred as part of the blackout


Robert C. Christian
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riverrataggie said:

culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

culdeus said:

riverrataggie said:

looking at ercot... are things finally coming back online since half the state is now above freezing?
ercot is showing a forecasted huge surge in demand late afternoon. Not clear what would drive that, but I suppose as they start cutting areas back on they will pull in.


They've done this past several days. Forecast appears to assume everyone, 100%, have power.
Has anyone broken down what the implications of this are? Should we assume there will be more shutdowns? Trying to decide if want to go cross town home, where we were heavily impacted with it on day 1 from a place that's been 99% on.
I dont think it should be assumed there are 'more'. I just think they will continue. To be honest we are showing 54k MW now available. We have been flirting with only 50k since the big drop Sunday night.
Shocking thing is that they added about 10k MW capacity and only added 2k MW demand. Thought they would have rolled more on?
walton91
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So now they are going to start rotating outages for real
Quote:

The state's power grid operators hope rotating outages will actually begin Wednesday, calling it the "best case" so thousands of Texans aren't shouldering entire outages.
That means some folks who held onto their power so far during the winter storm might have their electricity knocked out for short periods or time, while others might get short stints of power, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Wednesday.
"The best case at this point is that today or tomorrow we're able to at least get back down to the point where all the consumers are experiencing outages that are no longer than say 30 minutes to an hour at a time ... I think that's a benefit," said Dan Woodfin, ERCOT's senior director of system operations....Magness answered criticism ERCOT officials did not provide timely and transparent information to the public ahead of the storm. "We have endeavored to, maybe we failed there," Magness said.
Actual rotating outages could begin, full power restoration still not known, ERCOT says
 
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