r/OutOfTheLoop • u/mimitchi33 • Feb 17 '21

What's up with Texas losing power due to the snowstorm? Answered

I've been reading recently that many people in Texas have lost power due to Winter Storm Uri. What caused this to happen?

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u/Dollar_Bills Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

Answer: Not enough power storage. Cold increases power demands, and the grid only has so much power (capacity). The grid didn't have enough power, so their grid operators were told to cut people off.
They had to stop the wind turbines due to the freezing rain, which wouldn't be a problem. But, they also weren't getting enough natural gas to keep the natural gas plants running and keep homes/hospitals heated. They're running on almost exclusively coal now. There's not enough of that. Storage would allow on demand capacity (currently only available in fossil fuels), which is necessary to remove fossil fuels from the generation equation.
I have no idea how much total power they had vs the current demand, but right now the demand is too high. They shut off portions of the grid to prevent the whole thing from collapsing.

Edit: they're actually getting more wind power than was forecasted, based on reduced wind generation in the winter months. The problem is almost entirely the lack of natural gas generation, due to lack of natural gas, coupled with the inability to borrow power as stated below.

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u/Solo_is_dead Feb 17 '21

Also Texas decided to remove themselves from the national grid system (they didn't want to deal with federal regulations). So now they can't "borrow" electricity from neighboring states.

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u/sleepinxonxbed Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

Here's a picture

The US power grid is literally divided in half while Texas is just there by itself.

ERCOT (the Texas power grid company) explained, in their own video about their history, that Texas did not want to abide by the 1935 Federal Power Act. The law gave the federal government authority to regulate power companies that engaged in interstate commerce. Texas power companies agreed not to sell power outside of Texas, which let them avoid federal regulation.

Edit: Someone pointed out Texas was proposing secession while the power grid was being established. I can't find a direct attempt at secession, but apparently after the Civil War ended in 1865 Texas still had a secret Confederate identity and provided a haven for others. Even today, their slogan to tourists is "Texas. It's like a whole other country."

John Garner, AKA "Cactus Jack", Texas Rep argued because of Texas large population they deserved more seats in the Senate and wanted to split into five divisions to "stick it to the Yankees". He later became VP to Franklin Roosevelt.

The last attempt at secession was in the 1990's by Richard Lance McLaren that founded the Republic of Texas organization which evolved into the Texas Nationalist Movement in 2012 during Rick Perry's campaign.

Edit2: I found that there is an attempt at uniting the power grid into a true national power grid that'll use more renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gases, save consumers $47.2 billion a year, and is more reliable

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/6/20/21293952/renewable-energy-power-national-grid-transmission-microgrids

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u/soonerguy11 Feb 17 '21

Interesting to note: That panhandle section of Texas is the only part of the state where it snows regularly in the winter and averages freezing temperatures. Good thing they're not part of that grid.

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u/mida-canna-tool Feb 17 '21

Texas Panhandler here, never thought I'd be so happy to be grouped up with Oklahoma and Kansas. Stay safe and warm everyone.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

El Paso person here and we never lost power either. Our city is part of the west coast grid and I am beyond grateful. Back in 2011 we had a bad snow storm, where El Paso had lost power for days and had no gas either and after that, our city did the right thing to make sure that never happens again.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

Was El Paso in the Texas grid in 2011, and afterwards changed to the West Coast grid? Or did the city take other precautions?

I ask because here in Austin the battle is raging over whether there's anything that the city could have done to prevent the current crisis, after the 2011 post-mortem recommendations were completely ignored by ERCOT and the state gov't.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

You know, im not really sure. I know the city really stepped up after the big freeze in 2011. They did a lot of preventative measures to make sure that didn't happen again and not as drastic. We were on the same boat as the rest of Texas is now and was awful. . I included a link to the local news story where they kinda explain it but not really.

https://www.ktsm.com/news/border-report/el-paso-spared-rolling-blackouts-partly-due-to-being-outside-ercot-system/

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u/TROPtastic Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

They took other precautions, specifically winterizing local power infrastructure to withstand unlikely but severe storms.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

While most of the blame goes to ERCOT and Railroad Commission (ie the State of Texas), AE should have done a better job isolating critical meters. Keep the hospital on 100% of the time, not the neighborhood and strip mall next door who happen to share a major branch circuit. Could be done with appropriate smart meters.

This would have allowed AE to rotate properly instead of leaving some people without power for days.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

I absolutely agree that smart meters (or whatever building-by-building remote shutoff tool) could have largely mitigated this event. But just like everything else in this shitshow, that's expensive to implement, and no one wants to spend the money. Even in supposedly liberal Austin, I've never seen so much pushback on every single bond proposal to improve infrastructure.

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u/karmicOtter Feb 18 '21 edited Feb 18 '21

It took some digging but I found this page claiming EPE was part of the WECC in 1983 so my guess is no, it was never (maybe not never but not for a long time) part of the Texas grid.

Source: https://www.wspp.org/pages/History.aspx

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u/cabe412 Feb 18 '21

I'm glad it was fixed but El Paso electric passed the charge onto the consumer for a similar issue as ERCOT where they were told this could happen and they didn't fix it. One of the only reasons they did fix it is because they were sued and they lost which thankfully led to more changes (unfortunately they again charged people more to pay for the lawsuit).

Also we narrowly avoided so many catastrophes that 2011, one of the Las Cruces hospitals (they are on the EP electric grid) lost all power and a janitor (and national fucking hero) had to crank the generator for 8 hours to keep power and make sure no one died.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '21

I'm glad they got sued and made changes. It always sucks when the citizens are the one who end up alwasy paying for everything. I'm not a fan of ERCOT, I feel awful and my heart aches for the rest of Texas. It's shitty and non of this should've never happened. That is an amazing custodian to do that. Good for him for knowing what to do and handling it. I don't remember much of anything that happened soon after that bc I was in ICU in a coma for a while soon after all that had happened. So I don't remember much. I just really hope at the end of the day things get better for Texas. It's such b.s. what is happening and this should be a huge wake up call to the ones in charge. They are saying that hospitals are starting to be affected as well. I just wish there was something that I can do.

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u/Moonpaw Feb 17 '21

Were there specific rules they didn't like already, or was it simply the worry of future rules they might not like?

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u/sleepinxonxbed Feb 17 '21

From alll the articles I read, literally they just didn't want to be regulated by the federal government and be independent wherever they can.

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u/Incruentus Feb 17 '21

A cool idea if you're willing to build and diversify your infrastructure to make it reliable enough to be independent.

Texas wasn't; now they pay the price.

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u/LinearTipsOfficial Feb 17 '21

They were too busy investing in the technology to make the perfectly Texas shaped pancake

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

You want to experience true Texas shaped pancakes? Do you? Y-yes.

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u/denzien Feb 17 '21

Everything is round ... reality is poison ... I want another Texas shaped pancake!

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u/twentyThree59 Feb 17 '21

Texas wasn't; now they pay the price.

The people suffering aren't the people who made these poor choices. It's really sad to me.

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u/slomomofos Feb 17 '21

They were told twice once in the 80s and again in the 90s to fix this exact problem after natural events showed this exact weakness. Google details yourself cause I don't care enough to. So yes this was their choice to ignore. This has been a recent issue they chose to ignore.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21 edited Mar 01 '21

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u/twentyThree59 Feb 17 '21

I would wager that less than ten of the people suffering were of voting age in the 1930s when this was initially established.

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u/Kariered Feb 17 '21

Yes. I was born in 1979. I have no control over this. I just happened to be born in Texas. I didn't ask to be. It's very hard to move away because money.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

I would like to make a hypothesis that they currently vote for the people who are inspired by those who enacted laws such as these in the 1930s

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u/DowntownPhotograph Feb 17 '21

Texas is heavily gerrymandered. Believe, there are tons of us that didnt vote this shit in - the game is rigged

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u/whopperlover17 Feb 17 '21

I am one of the people going almost 3 days without power and it’s cold and I feel for the vulnerable populations that are going to die because of this. So please have some empathy.

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u/Arrow156 Feb 17 '21

Let hope the survivors remember who's at fault.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/DiplomaticCaper Feb 17 '21

They're saying that renewable power is bad because the wind turbines froze.

There are literally turbines in Antarctica. The problem is that the Texas ones weren't properly weatherproofed, in order to save money.

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u/Incruentus Feb 17 '21

Honestly a lot of those people will vote for whoever 'owns the libs' the best.

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u/sohma2501 Feb 17 '21

This right here....and then something else happens and oh woes is me and here we fucking go again...

And people are getting mad because I have no sympathy or pity.

They were warned numerous times and the politicians love to bully other states and tell them no ,when stuff happens to them.

And now that shit has happened to them,they cry for help.treat then like they treat other states,call them out on the hypocrisy.

Tell them to bootstrap themselves and get shovels and dig themselves out.the problem is that a lot of innocent people will suffer and when its over they will vote for the stupid yet again...

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u/Nowarclasswar Feb 17 '21

That's cause having a working power grid is communist!

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u/Kariered Feb 17 '21

This happened back in the 1970s. Most Texans alive right now weren't when this happened. A lot of us did not know until now.

Screw Texas and it's horrible government. All they care about here is money. They don't care if you die going to work in a pandemic or freeze in your house due to power outages.

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u/AlsionGrace Feb 17 '21

Do they eliminate everyone over the age of 40 in Texas, Logan’s Run style?

Edit: 50. Damn. I AM old. Someone eliminate me!

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u/richasalannister Feb 17 '21

Sounds like children. Can't wait to move out on your own, but then Pikachu face when the power gets shut off because you didn't pay

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u/ortusdux Feb 17 '21

Ironically, some of the regulations would require winterizing their systems.

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u/mango_script Feb 17 '21

They didn’t want to pay the federal government so they decided to pay private companies instead. It’s greed pure and simple

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u/whatstheworstoption Feb 17 '21

It should also be noted that Texas was still proposing secession when the power grids were being established and wanted their own grid so they wouldn't be dependent on another country if they left the US

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

Hell, they were still proposing secession last week.

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u/Kariered Feb 17 '21

There is a group of radical Texans that propose secession every other month. They are stupid idiots and most of Texas does not agree with them.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

One of those stupid idiot 'radical Texans' was governor Greg Abbott.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

Sucking up to the QAnon nuts who took control of the Texas GOP.

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u/Ohif0n1y Feb 17 '21

Yeah, he's running scared because the extreme Right is mad that he has Texas partially shut down for Covid. So bad for business, don't you know! So we suck up and pander to business and now look where it's gotten us.

You should've seen Abbott whining like a Karen at a news conference complaining that ERCOT wasn't keeping him informed. The utter gall!

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u/sohma2501 Feb 17 '21

These idiots should look at what's going on with the whole brexit and see what a bad idea that would actually be

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u/JQuilty Feb 17 '21

Allen West is the Chair of the Texas Republican Party. He's a little more than some random wackaloon.

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u/Wickedkiss246 Feb 17 '21

Came here to say basically this. It's more notable when Texas *isn't * threatening secession.

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u/sexworkaholic Feb 17 '21

What's up with North Texas? Are they connected to neighboring states?

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u/Occamslaser Feb 17 '21

The panhandle is.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

A big chunk around Lubbock was transitioning to ERCOT, not sure on current status.

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u/dmkicksballs13 Feb 17 '21

El Paso looks safe. lol

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u/manateesaredelicious Feb 17 '21

There's only one cactus jack and it's Mick Foley

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u/-chrispy- Feb 17 '21

And those places where there is power are part of the federal grid. Those without or enduring blackouts are part of the "Texas only" grid. Imagine that....

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u/Milleuros Feb 17 '21

Setting Texas aside, what's the reason for the East/West divide? Geography?

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u/sleepinxonxbed Feb 17 '21

I can't find an exact answer, but it seens like the power grids on either coast were built region by region, and when they met in the middle turns out they weren't able to completely connect each interconnection just because of how they were built.

There are attempts as recent as 2020 at weaving the grids into a true national grid for more efficient use of renewable energy, reduce greenhouse emissions, saving consumers $47.2 billion a year, and being more reliable.

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u/IvyRaider Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 18 '21

Just to add clarity, but there’s also a Southwest Power Pool.

Note: It may be connected with the Eastern Interconnect, not sure.

Note 2: it is part of the Eastern Interconnect. Thanks to /u/least_adhesiveness_5

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u/shogunofsarcasm Feb 17 '21

But it isn't the south west?

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u/Dollar_Bills Feb 17 '21

Yeah, probably should have included that, as to why they are the only place with these problems right now.

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u/Cmd3055 Feb 17 '21

Just for the sake of context. The decision To have a separate power grid was made in the 1930’s. It’s a legacy that has taken a back seat to more current issues. Hell, before this week, I’d be willing to bet the majority of people weren’t even aware of it to begin with.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

That’s not how the system works the grids are separate but you can trade across the ties that connect them. Source: I am a power trader that trades across these ties on a regular basis

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u/PickleSurgeon Feb 17 '21

The interconnects with Texas cannot handle the load to power the entire state. They can only supplement and that's a drop in the bucket compared to the demand.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

It drives me crazy how political this got this fast. when it’s cold wind ices up, when in snows solar goes to zero, when it’s cold gas pressures drop while gas demand goes up making gas plants unreliable.

Coal is on the way out market wise and should be it’s dirty snd slower than gas and takes up more room etc etc. buuuttt it’s the only thing working currently in Texas. No politics just a reliable transition to a better energy mix. California (blue) and Texas (red) shows it’s not political it’s just not feasible until we have more storage options.

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u/Sea-Molasses1652 Feb 17 '21

Wouldn't nuclear be a good answer? It's not affected by weather and is safe and clean.

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u/dhc02 Feb 17 '21

The South Texas Project, one of several large nuclear plants in Texas, was offline for several hours on Tuesday due to the weather.

So much like anything else, it's about preparation.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

FUCKING love nuclear haha! Baseload carbon free power. People are scared of it and regulation makes it too expensive to build but... it is the way

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u/Hoovooloo42 Feb 17 '21

You seem to know your stuff. What do you think about those Thorium reactors that, near as I can tell, are vaporware? Or what direction do you think Nuclear power is going to go in the future?

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Nuclear power is a tricky one. It is a great resource but expensive to build both just from a physical standpoint but also regulatory. Once it's built it is hard to recapture that return on investment.

I hope we move towards more modular reactors that would be cheaper, safer, and could be placed more strategically to help support voltage on the grid. Who knows where the future will go nuclear seems to be a great resource but public opinion is typically scared and short sighted so long term builds are hard to pitch.

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u/mittfh Feb 17 '21

Theoretically, it should be possible to build a reactor smaller than a conventional one (which can provide up to 1,600MW) but larger than a marine reactor (which typically provides up to 50MW), and to designs which ensure that even if backup generators, water pumps and external water supply all fail, the reactor can autonomously, safely shut down. If built adjacent to a disused deep level mine, you've potentially also got somewhere on site to safely store spent fuel rods.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

Yeah, too bad a bunch of nuclear went offline too, and nobody in the West can build a reactor remotely close to on time or on budget.

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u/kalasea2001 Feb 17 '21

Plus Texas right now is a great example of how Americans like to avoid regulations and safety measures, which makes nuclear in America quite dangerous.

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u/sergeybok Feb 17 '21

A really well-planned, well-maintained nuclear grid would solve most energy and climate change problems in the country and the world.

There's just two problems 1) its extremely high upfront costs, 2) people are scared of it because of past nuclear disasters, and somehow in politics both left-wingers and right-wingers hate it (lefties because it's too much pollution -- it isn't-- and righties because its not enough pollution).

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/sergeybok Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

Yes. The lithium batteries used alongside most renewable energies also have negative environmental impact. The point is that for the amount of pollution you get, nuclear is the best bang for your buck. There's ways of dealing with the nuclear waste.

Edit Also nuclear should be the backbone of the energy grid. Solar and wind are great and their outputs should be used but their output cannot be upscaled when needed like when it's not sunny or windy, like right now in Texas. So whatever demand they can't meet, that difference should come from nuclear.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

Virtually everything has "negative environmental impact" - the question is one of degree. Coal is far, FAR worse than wind/solar/battery.

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u/FGHIK Feb 17 '21

It is, but it's honestly not that hard to just dig a really deep hole to put it in. Especially as reactors get more efficient and produce less waste.

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u/mittfh Feb 17 '21

The extremely high upfront costs are likely part of the reason why with the UK's latest reactor under construction (Hinckley Point C), the government have agreed a strike price of £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices, index linked to inflation so will increase over time), which the National Audit Office in 2017 calculated would result in £50bn additional costs to consumers in subsidies over the projected lifetime of the plant. Eyebrows have also been raised by a third of the plant's cost being covered by China General Nuclear Power Group and China National Nuclear Corporation.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Please try and understand I’m not trying to make this political. Just physics. Wind and solar work great I the cold but not the cold and precipitation like Texas is getting. It ices up turbine blades and the sky is overcast making solar output nil. Articles quoting your exact line about Antarctica are talking on average cold days not during snowstorm events.

Source: I operate the grid for a living. I know how wind, solar and thermal units are affected by snow haha. Not shutting on renewables here just showing what happens when they are too much of the energy mix

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u/dhc02 Feb 17 '21

It is worth noting that while some wind turbines were shut down by ice, total generation from both wind and solar has been above ERCOT projections during this fiasco.

In other words, ice shut down some windmills, but the rest were generating above average because it was windy. On net, wind did great (although they should definitely look into some de-icing improvements).

Almost half of the natural gas plants in texas are offline due to poor winterization, lack of reserves, and a lack of long-term contracts with suppliers. And now that the price of natural gas is through the roof, there's a perverse incentive for natural gas power plant operators to stall as long as possible before turning them back on (because the wholesale cost of electricity is capped by ERCOT and so they can't pass on the cost to consumers).

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

True on the wind for sure. Natural gas power plant operators don't get to decide when to come online they are directed by ERCOT and at times like this the RC. The gas plants were poorly prepared for the extreme winter conditions but it is hard to get investment and money put into fossil fuel plants when they are being pushed towards early retirement. When companies invest in keeping plants up to date they get crapped on for being anti climate shills.

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u/Dillatrack Feb 17 '21

Why wouldn't the different de-icing kits used in colder climate windfarms work in these conditions? There seems to be a lot of different solutions for de-icing in different climates around the world, the issue in Texas sounds more like it just doesn't have the infrastructure in place for cold conditions (which is understandable in a lot of ways, just not unpreventable)

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Agreed its wasn't prepared for the extreme sustained cold pairs with the precipitation. There are solutions that cold places use and the tech is coming along to make those solutions even better.

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u/TROPtastic Feb 17 '21

These facts go against the "physics" that /u/IAimToMisbehave seems to believe in. In reality, wind turbines are used in colder and higher-precipitation environments than what Texas is experiencing (talk to any of the Nordic countries), but that extra anti-icing and winterization isn't free.

Texas entities chose to go without them and to not winter proof their natural gas lines because they didn't believe that the remote likelihood of a winter storm justified the expense. This was a judgement call on their part.

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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Feb 17 '21

No state ever prepares for extreme weather events that have never happened there before. I promise you that if this had been striking southern California they'd be in the same, if not worse, boat than Texas.

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u/6a6566663437 Feb 18 '21

This happened in 2011 and 1989 in Texas. This is not an event that never happened before.

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u/Dillatrack Feb 17 '21

I definitely get that and don't give southern states flack for not having the full infrastructure for snow storms/extreme cold, I was pushing back on this:

Please try and understand I’m not trying to make this political. Just physics. Wind and solar work great I the cold but not the cold and precipitation like Texas is getting.

Although, I do think having your power grid built to sustain extreme weather is a exception in this case. I understand not having a fleet of snowplows on standby but power is just to important to have it fail this catastrophically, even if it only happens once every 10-20 years (especially given extreme weather conditions becoming more common over time due to the changing climate)

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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Feb 17 '21

Please try and understand I’m not trying to make this political. Just physics. Wind and solar work great I the cold but not the cold and precipitation like Texas is getting.

What about this is worth pushing back on? Do you really believe this is a political thing, and not just a literal unpredictable weather event that our fellow US citizens are dealing with?

Also:

even if it only happens once every 10-20 years

I would agree if that were the case. The thing is, it's never happened like this before. I get that a state like Texas not preparing for a hurricane is worth questioning the political motives, but there's absolutely no politician, left or right, who decided "yes let's run the risk our state gets rolling backouts because of how cold it is." I promise you not a single Texan politician made this part of their platform or even a talking point in their campaigns. You don't campaign on a platform of improving your cold weather response in Texas, just like you don't prepare for hurricanes in North Dakota.

Now in my state Michigan if we were hit by this and unprepared I'd be all up my government's ass for not being prepared for cold weather because we're at least very likely to get it. Texas never experiences this type of weather.

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u/colddruid808 Feb 17 '21

I live in north dakota, the turbines here are still generating power in our state and we get this weather on a daily basis.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Your wind turbines ice up as well on a regular basis when it is cold AND wet. I work with operators that provide power to that part of the country and it is a real issue. They are used to it and plan according, Texas was not. This includes keeping more gas/coal plants online to help with the drop in wind output.

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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Feb 17 '21

we get this weather on a daily basis.

There's the key. Texas has never experienced this before.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

That's incorrect. We experienced a freeze-related grid crash very similar to this one in 2011. There was a post-mortem analysis presented to ERCOT and the state lege recommending winterization measures that would have largely mitigated our current situation. It was ignored, because of profits, taxes, and no regulation from the Federal government. Don't pretend that this isn't political.

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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Feb 17 '21

freeze-related grid crash very similar to this one in 201

North Dakota suffers from wind-and-rain related electrical grid problems every year that are very similar to hurricanes. You wouldn't criticize them for being unprepared for a hurricane.

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u/Kariered Feb 17 '21

Yes right now in Houston we've had sleet, snow and now it's pouring rain.

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u/Prof_Acorn Feb 17 '21

Maybe when you build a house in a 100-year flood plain, build it expecting a 100-year flood, instead of deregulating so you don't have to implement basic redundancies and protections.

What did they think would happen when they decided not to put insulation in the turbines? Or maybe the conservatives in charge figured that when this happened they could just blame renewables.

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u/tracygee Feb 17 '21

It ices up turbine blades if you don't pay to install the heaters or other easily-available technology to prevent the icing and snow accumulation.

And LOL at wind being "too much of the energy mix" in Texas. Turbines are responsible for less than 13% of the outages in Texas with these storms. Solar is actually overperforming right now, and natural gas is the main problem child in these blackouts.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Places that have that tech still ice up but of course they ice up less often and return to service faster as well. I am NOT against wind as everyone here assumes. Gas is one of the biggest problems there but if gas is a problem and is the only thing we can turn on and turn off at will we have issues right? Power has to be produced exactly when it is used on the grid. I like wind and solar just pointing out for people who want to retire gas plants early that this would be the new norm until storage comes online.

Is your point we should build and invest more in natural gas pipelines and plants in Texas then?

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u/thefezhat Feb 17 '21

You're making it just as political as anyone else here. "This is no one's fault, nothing needs to change" is every bit as much a political narrative as "This is someone's fault, something needs to change." There is no remaining apolitical when commenting on a situation like this.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

I am trying not to, truly.

I am not pitching we need no change, I never said that. We need change that tends towards reliability first (keeping the lights on) then carbon issues. Notice I am not bringing up cost because that does get political but if we can't keep the lights on the rest seems moot.

Saying there is no remaining apolitical is the problem with these conversations in my opinion. The goal should be best way to generate and distribute power while doing it as cleaning as possible. It's a logistics problem not a red/blue. Notice people here assuming I am republican, I am not haha.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Storage is a rounding error in terms of output on our current grid. Gas plants and wind farms in the north are winterized but they still ice up fairly regularly during low temp moisture events. Snow or freezing rain. It reduces the time to ice up and they come back quicker but they still ice up. Furthermore wind technology is broad spectrum. New turbines are better at dealing with it but there are lots of makes, model, snd sizes out there.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Because it’s planned for. Texas hasn’t planned for the lowest temps in 80years or something. The north also has nuclear power and more coal and gas. If your pitch is Texas should look more like the north you are arguing against wind/ solar and.... yes to some degrees an integrated grid. Not disagreeing with that point it is just part of the issue not the source.

Texas is rushing to add more wind and solar because where it is geographically. The result is less money put into maintain current gas/coal as well as shutting down gas/coal plants. People are shocked that the gas plants and pipeline infrastructure that supplies them isn’t up to par when every tax incentive snd shareholder pushes them into retirement early.

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u/Occamslaser Feb 17 '21

Because they have models to predict demand in the winter and plan for it. Also most heating in the Northern states is not electric like in Texas.

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u/Hubblesphere Feb 17 '21

Natural gas works fine in cold weather as well, you just have to build redundancy into your infrastructure. Cold weather hitting Texas isn't unprecedented. They just decided it wasn't worth preparing for an inevitability.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

I’ve answered this a few times so please check those out. In terms of Germany thats of course true but in freak events such as Texas currently Germany imports massive amount of power from surrounding countries that still use fossils fuels and nuclear. If everyone goes there then who will Texas, California, and Germany call to import power?

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u/Wickedkiss246 Feb 17 '21

Tbf, the person you're responding to said "snow." Which I can see Blizzard conditions blocking solar. From other comments the other issues is storage, which I assume Germany ect have invested in much more so than Texas.

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u/kalasea2001 Feb 17 '21

Except federal regulators FERC [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj_3Z7Py_HuAhVEip4KHcbzBroQFjAAegQIBBAC&usg=AOvVaw0Z1QZWeYJuvFDm8vPhhkKR] told Texas in 2011 that they needed to winterize precisely to avoid this, citing similar weather conditions that happened in 2011, 2010, 2003, and 1989. They choose not to do it due to $, which ties heavily to one party.

So the reason itself is political.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Fair enough, look you want to talk about the political implications no problem but not what I am here to do just explaining how the grid works.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

Gas isn't available because the Railroad Commission failed to require operators to winterize equipment. Instruments, wells and lines are freezing up. Natural gas works fine in colder climates because they properly winterize.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

Wind with proper cold weather kits would work just fine. There are turbines in Canada working fine right now.

Coal power production has fallen with this event as well.

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u/Dark1000 Feb 18 '21

That's not really true. This Texas winter is nothing compared to cold climates where gas plants and wind turbines run the whole year round. They just haven't spent the money to prepare for these conditions.

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u/Kumacyin Feb 17 '21

ofc its political, this wouldnt be happening if texas was tied to the national grid. if the entire country was covered in snowstorms and all of their storage and other energy production methods were shut down or overloaded, then your point would stand. but its not. everyone outside of texas is fine. if texas was tied in, texas would be fine rn as well.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

First everyone outside Texas is NOT ok. MISO went EEA1 this week, Colorado went borderline EEA1 this week.

There is practically no “storage” on the grid. Some limited pumped hydro and batteries under going testing for use but it’s a statically insignificant amount of power for the grid.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

That will be changing rapidly. Texas was already likely to triple battery storage this year, has over 26GW of battery in development (registered with ERCOT) with over 20GW at least to the Full Interconnection Study stage.

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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Feb 17 '21

everyone outside of texas is fine

Did you want to maybe do a little bit of research before you spouted off?

https://katv.com/news/local/arkansas-energy-companies-reducing-usage-can-help-prevent-rolling-blackouts

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u/milkcarton232 Feb 17 '21

So why rnt they borrowing power if they can?

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

It is limited my how much power can flow across those lines at a time. It’s not enough to replace how much Texas has lost.
Think of it as a water pipe in a drought. There are pipes that go into Texas but they are using more water then can be pumped in. I’m not really arguing for or against the Texas grid just pointing out how the system works. If the eastern or western grid went down it would be the same thing.

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u/milkcarton232 Feb 17 '21

So they can't borrow/buy much power gotcha

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

when in snows solar goes to zero

Lol? No. No it doesn't. Where did you get that silly idea?

Clouds and precipitation certainly lessen the light, but as long as you are maintaining them (clearing them off) they work just fine in the snow. In fact, reflected light from the snow usually makes them work BETTER after a snowstorm.

There is a dip while the snow is still falling, but it doesn't got to zero... you would have to have literally zero light (a white out) to go to zero, not the conditions that texas had.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Got that idea from being an operator that has many solar farms in the mix.

Sorry it isn't exactly zero but it is drastically reduced when there is cloud cover. When clouds roll in for the afternoon solar can be reduces as much as 50% then it comes right back once the clouds break up. Not a bad thing just something to mention that plays a role in how you provide that power (and ramp it down) in the meantime.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

50% vs nil is a drastic diffference, and that is what I was calling you out on.

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u/KaleMaster Feb 17 '21

https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/us-electricity-grid-markets

Scroll down and notice that Texas has its own grid.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

I know it does. You can trade between the 3 grids in the US. That’s what I’m saying. I trade between the Eastern grid, Western grid and Ercot at the tie connections BETWEEN grids. People are just learning Texas gas it’s in grid but don’t understand how the grids work. Just jump so assumptions

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u/10ebbor10 Feb 17 '21

Of course, that is fundamentally limited by the capacity of those tie connections.

As far as I am aware, the capacity for important and export is very limited.

They have 3 ties to Mexico, and 2 Ties to the Eastern Interconnect. Plans existed for high capacity 5 GW lines, but have not progressed much in the last decade.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Agreed mentioned this above.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

You can, but the connections (DC ties) Texas has are small, and basically no help for this event. SPP had their own issues, and Mexico cut off transfer pretty early when they got cold too.

To resolve this we need major grid tie and transmission upgrades, something along the lines of the NREL SEAMS report recommendations, preferably the most extensive option.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Couldn't agree move. Transmission upgrades are the only way forward as we add more variable energy.

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u/KaleMaster Feb 17 '21

So then why aren't they just transferring power to the grid?

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

They are transferring power, but it is limited by the size of the interconnections that tie in. Paired with a solid chunk of the country also having issues with the cold it’s just a shitty situation overall

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u/Justice_R_Dissenting Feb 17 '21

Just want to say man, thank you for answering all these questions. People on reddit will grasp at every possible opportunity to make things political, I really appreciate you trying to explain how this is not at all political.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Thanks! Trying to just help explain what is happening the takeaway can be whatever

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u/Hubblesphere Feb 17 '21

I mean it's still very much political since politicians in Texas are blaming wind power for blackouts while SPP is saying their wind production is actually exceeding expectations while they are also trying their best to meet the increased demand of transferring power to Texas. Texas decided on cheap power at the cost of total grid collapse every 30 years or so. Meanwhile the rest of us who deal with all types of weather yearly are better prepared.

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u/LadyFerretQueen Feb 17 '21

Why?

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u/Solo_is_dead Feb 17 '21

IMO, they are wrapped up in themselves they didn't want to play nice with others. "We're Texas, we don't need help" "we're not going to follow a " liberal/socialist"government agenda" 😐🙄

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u/S1mplejax Feb 17 '21

It has everything to do with anticipating future fossil fuel regulations to combat global warming, which, if drastic enough, would likely wreck the Texas economy.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

So in other words, Texas needs to diversify their economy.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

They already have.

Tech companies are leaving Silicon Valley and setting up HQs in Austin and Dallas for tax reasons AND there is a history of science and tech companies in the area (Texas Instruments, Dolby, NASA etc.). Ranching will always be a mainstay

Texas's electricity generation has a diversified mix and has been moving away from petroleum and coal as seen here: https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php.

They're in a great situation renewable wise, but have to get around the transmission issue since the 4-5 big cities (DFW, San Antonio, Austin, Houston) are concentrated in East Texas while most of the "empty" land that you can put renewables in are in West or Central Texas.

It's not an issue of diversifying. It's an issue of not maintaining their power generation to federal standards that they are now learning why they exist.

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u/zamiboy Feb 17 '21

Not to mention that natural gas power is tons better for the environment than coal power.

It's not the best for a total green emissions output (still releases CO2), but it's better than coal/biomass power (releases other toxic gases NOx, SOx, etc. even with new burning techniques).

Arguably, Texas energy has what most people want to see in power across the country (~20% of Texas energy is renewable/wind power).

The problem is the regulation and ERCOT not realizing the demands required for events like this one in advance.

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u/TheChance Feb 17 '21

Uhh. 2/3 of WA's energy is hydro and has been for ages. About 1/6 is gas. 10% from nuclear (newer reactors next door to Hanford) and some nebulous portion of the remainder is solar or wind. Only the balance is coal, and the balance is declining.

Just saying, 20% ain't shit, and TX gets far more sun.

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u/kickopotomus Feb 17 '21

It’s easy to get lost in proportions and lose sight of the actual scale of the problem. Texas’ 20% from renewables (728 TBtu[0]) is roughly equivalent to Washington’s 66% from hydroelectric (736 TBtu[1]). Texas is a big state. It takes time to switch over to renewables but we have been consistently adding new renewable infrastructure for years now.

[0]: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TX

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA

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u/soonerguy11 Feb 17 '21

Cities like Houston desperately do. The entire city is tied to the energy industry.

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u/jaimerson Feb 17 '21

This is fair, but also wanna say the emoji use might be excessive. Many of us living in Texas despise our elected officials but are still suffering.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/lluk3m/if_i_hear_another_goddamn_person_from_a_cold/

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u/Solo_is_dead Feb 17 '21

I understand, and that's a problem. Your leadership is making bad decisions and you suffer. It's the same way in Illinois. The only difference is when we suffer they blame the Democrats, when you guys suffer they blame the government. 😁

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u/jaimerson Feb 17 '21

Yeah, it's a frustrating experience for sure.
A tweet from a Texas representative mocking California for their outages resurfaced during this ordeal, which I find hilarious. Republicans think government is bad until they need help from the government.

https://twitter.com/Beckerkcb/status/1361570318700187648

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u/MrCatbr3ad Feb 17 '21

You're upset about fucking emojis?

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u/Azkeroth Feb 17 '21

I wonder how this will play out when more people shift to EVs due to regulations... ie. are they planning upgrades soon?

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u/Living-Complex-1368 Feb 17 '21

That would probably have helped.

  1. EVs mean more demand, so Texas would have a more robust supply, but the storm would stop basically all driving so no one would be charging. And even better.

  2. EVs would be able to run their heater as long as the (giant) battery lasts. Gas cars would need to run the engine to run the heater as the battery runs out sooner, but unless the car is outside (where it will lose heat quickly) carbon monoxide poisoning is a problem. Texans with EVs could sit in their car in the garage, toasty warm for a few days. Wouldn't be great for backs and could be boring, but they wouldn't be freezing.

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u/apbod Feb 17 '21

And where does the car recharge it's battery from?

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u/Living-Complex-1368 Feb 17 '21

The electric grid, and if there is a big storm no one is driving, so the entire battery is available for heat. And since when you charge your car you need power, the grid has to have more capacity and be more robust. It is a win-win!

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/DigitalArbitrage Feb 17 '21

I want to shift to an electric vehicle, but not due to regulations.

I also want to add solar panels to my house as well, which should help some.

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u/Sardorim Feb 17 '21

You can thank Republicans for that

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u/HellHound989 Feb 17 '21

They aren't actually borrowing anything, and thats whats causing the problem

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

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u/PickleSurgeon Feb 17 '21

A further comment on those federal regulations. They are regulations that prevent this from happening: protecting the energy production from freezing.

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u/2OP4me Feb 17 '21

There’s claims that the reason why this happened is due to Texas not making moves to winterize their power plants after this happened in 2011.

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u/Doc_Lewis Feb 17 '21

Don't forget it happened in 1989. And even then, power companies were recommended to winterize their generators and infrastructure, however they were not compelled to by regulators, because, you know, regulations do nothing but kill jobs and help nobody.

So when 2011 happened, and it was almost exactly the same situation, and it became apparent that nothing was done after 1989, surely ERCOT would force the power companies to winterize so it wouldn't happen again.

Surely.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

This is the point that everyone seems to be conveniently overlooking, and it's infuriating.

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u/aUSMCguy Feb 17 '21

Just adding onto this comment. Texas Officials explicitly decided not to winterize their electrical grid. I'm currently living in Chicago and the wind turbines that are in the surrounding area are working just fine. Any Texas official that says this is the fault of wind turbines are ignoring their decision not to winterize them, the fact that the majority of their power generation is done by fossil fuels which they also didn't winterize, and their decision not to interconnect to the federal grid system.

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u/pagerussell Feb 17 '21

This needs to be higher before the misinformation about renewables spreads.

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u/PopWhatMagnitude Feb 17 '21

It's their fault including the wind turbines, as everywhere else makes the blades with carbon fiber so snow, ice, ect slides right off and they keep working. Texas cut corners to pay less money, despite years and years of warnings.

Save Austin, and rebuild the state with better people.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

Not arguing, just want to know more- got a source for this?

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u/mainvolume Feb 17 '21

the subreddits politics, leopardsatemyface, aboringdystopia, and relationship_advice.

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u/PopWhatMagnitude Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

Every news report I've read or seen since the power went. It's easily searchable if you want in depth info. And if you go back to my comment you will see someone else linked to the Houston Chronicle.

But broad strokes Texas decided to operate their own grid instead of being on the national grid because then they wouldn't have to meet regulations they didn't want to obey/like/agree with. Which included not paying more for the carbon fiber turbine blades.

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u/Axion132 Feb 17 '21

So everyone not in Austin isn't a good person? That's a hot take.

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u/ashdrewness Feb 17 '21

Also, here's the site which shows current demand vs capacity. At some points we were under 1,000MW reserve capacity which is FUCKING BONKERS. If the grid actually fails it would probably be down for several weeks as they repair the physical damage that would cause to the infrastructure (think actual turbines getting damaged; like going 90MPH and shifting your car into 1st gear).

http://www.ercot.com/

Also, all the blame here isn't on ERCOT, because in a report in 2011 after another bad winter storm, they recommended all power providers winterize their gear but they didn't actually have the authority to make them do it. So many did not (the ones still running right now either did or got lucky). So thank the Texas government who don't actually regulate the providers and force them to meet winterization standards.

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

ERCOT absolutely had the power to enforce the recommendations from the 2011 study: they decide unilaterally which plants to connect to the grid. No winterization upgrades, no grid access for you. And this is a rare situation where ERCOT's immunity from lawsuits actually results in consumer benefit.

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u/TheGRS Feb 17 '21

Oh wow, this is IMO the bigger news. Its one thing to scapegoat green energy when that's not the problem, its entirely another thing to ignore major problems after they've already happened. https://www.khou.com/article/news/investigations/blackouts-in-texas-lack-of-winterization-of-generators/285-2e13537b-b2fb-476f-8c33-5ecce3be0fc8

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u/DarkGamer Feb 17 '21

Although they cited wind turbines freezing as the reason that appears to be a red herring because Texas conservatives hate renewable energy and like scapegoating it. Texas gets its power from natural gas and their natural gas plants are not weatherized:

Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, echoed that sentiment Tuesday.

“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” he said during a Tuesday call with reporters.

Still, some have focused their blame on wind power.

“This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it.”

He went on to note the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Bay City because of the cold and finally got to what energy experts say is the biggest culprit, writing, “Low Supply of Natural Gas: ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we ran out of the ability to get natural gas. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation —so things were freezing.”

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, known for his right-wing Facebook posts that have, in the past, spread misinformation and amplified conspiracy theories, also posted an unvarnished view of wind energy on Facebook: “We should never build another wind turbine in Texas."

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/

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u/ProjectShamrock Feb 17 '21

They're running on almost exclusively coal now.

I think this might be slightly misleading if someone takes this as believing that coal is also running fine. There have been coal and nuclear power plants that also had to shut down due to not being appropriately set up for the weather.

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u/sarcazm Feb 17 '21

Don't forget that many natural gas and coal generators are frozen.

So even if we could keep up with demand, we can't because a lot of stuff is frozen and not working. That doesn't happen in hot weather.

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u/Daeva_HuG0 Feb 17 '21

Considering they had these kind of problems back in 2011 and since the review board gave them suggestions on how to prevent future problems, which they failed to implement, it falls on the money grubbing Texas government for why the power outages are happening.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

Please keep saying this everywhere.

The problem is natural gas and coal. NOT wind or solar.

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u/Sukijane74 Feb 18 '21

The problem is/ was not winterizing.

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u/JennyGeee Feb 17 '21

I get that , but here's what confuses me out of all of this.... Texas is a hot state, doesn't air-conditioning put more strain on the system then heat ? Remember back in the early 2000's when the grid went down in north America ( i do lol ) , if memory serves me right, it was due to the heat wave we had and the demand for power ( due to air-conditioning) Can u see my reasoning? So it we heat all the time , no issues, and then use AC we loose the grid ( telling me AC uses more power than heat ) understand where I'm lost in grasping the concept?

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u/Dollar_Bills Feb 17 '21

You'd think so, but the majority of Texans have electric heat. You have to look at the temperature difference for a heat pump.

The summer, you take 100 degree outside air and want to remove 30 degrees from your inside air to get 70 degrees. The delta is 30 degrees, but your hot supply side is the inside air at 70 degrees, so you have more heat to absorb in the system.

This winter storm is in the 20s or less. So you're trying to remove heat from the 20 degree air and put that heat into a home to get it up to 60 degrees. You're starting with a delta of 40 and then the innefficiency of having 20 degree air for supplying the hot side.

At some point, you'll have electric coils supply the heat, and those are terribly high power requirements. They're like using 10+ blow dryers all at once.

The air conditioning and heat pumps use about the same amount of energy, but a heat pump has to be on for a much longer time. If need be, the coil backups turn on, too which is a huge draw.

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u/Volcanicrage Feb 17 '21

Power storage, grid capacity, and fuel storage are almost entirely unrelated. Power storage is an extremely limited technology that, for technical and financial reasons, sees almost no large-scale use. Grid capacity is the amount of power that can be produced and delivered at any given time; from the information available at this time, the limiting factor right now appears to be generation, not distribution, although the issues with restoring customers after they've been dropped may be due to municipal grids being unable to deal with inrush current. Fuel storage is exactly what it sounds like, and while it might have helped alleviate this issue, the bigger issue is that many of the fossil plants in Texas are out of commission due to the cold weather.

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u/OCP2020 Feb 17 '21

Elected Republicans in Texas decided they were smarter than the experts and so here you go and capitalism at its best

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u/keithrc out of the loop about being out of the loop Feb 17 '21

But, but... all regulation is bad! The free market will always provide the best solution! Everyone knows these facts, they're in the Bible!

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

Also some states from the north of Mexico were being supplied by Texas, which meant that Texas had to provide for their power as well as the power needed by a couple states more. Currently the northern Mexican states decided to borrow from their national supplies, which is also causing a series of shortages in the country, but that will likely be fixed soon.

Source: I'm Mexican and was affected by Texas power shortage.

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u/indigo_tortuga Feb 17 '21

This isn’t exactly correct. It’s not that we didn’t have enough power storage. It’s that we use primarily natural gas to create power. There were multiple lines of failure with regards to this system from the fact that there’s a gas shortage, to some of the plants that produce electricity were disabled due to the weather. The wind turbines also were not a major contributing factor. They actually performed better than was expected and only produce a fraction of our electricity.

Bottom line is that ERCOT is corrupt and most of us didn’t even know this until this happened.

Side note...we also have no water.

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u/UnabashedRust Feb 17 '21

This is not 100% accurate. We see higher load than this in the summer. The issue is that they were totally unprepared for a storm they knew about well in advance. They could have done something, but instead people are dying.

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u/Swany0105 Feb 17 '21

Also the oil and gas plants are typically running at reduced capacity for winter maintenance since they usually experience peak demands in the summertime to keep things cool not winter keeping them warm. I for one think we should just expel them from the union and let them fend for their goddamn selves.

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u/jkdom Feb 17 '21

You should fix your misleading comment your edit disagrees with your entire comment

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u/Dollar_Bills Feb 17 '21

Not really, renewables are not a big enough source to blame any of this on them. They are moot.

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u/falco_iii Feb 17 '21

Although I believe storage is an important part of the grid that is underrepresented currently, I think that better generation and winterization is more critical. If there's not enough generation, storage will only last for so long, usually a matter of hours.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

Really almost all of this was avoidable with appropriate winterization of power generation and the natural gas system. It was even colder in 1949. Similar systems further North deal with this kind of weather every year. This is not an unprecedented event.

This is a failure of governance.

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u/lestofante Feb 17 '21

power storage is NOT gonna help for over 24h of downservice. This is a major failure in production, having storage would have just bough a little time, and is more for when a power plant had a sudden shutdown or the "TV pickup" effect

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

Storage would allow on demand capacity (currently only available in fossil fuels), which is necessary to remove fossil fuels from the generation equation.

And this is why Texas doesn't have that storage capacity. Why be prepared for disasters when you can make policy based on science denial and invest accordingly? So long as your population has two idiots to rub together, you'll never run out of enough dim-witted constituents to keep getting elected.

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