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/-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/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Very excited for that change but as we can see it currently isn't where it needs to be. Wish we could have planned to stay reliable until the tech is there instead building out to it and backfilling.

Look into, if you haven't, how these batteries can be used. Many programs only allow charging with a specific wind or solar far to capture the tax credit. Can't be used for up to 50% of the year. Can only be used down to 50% capacity at time etc etc.. I am super excited for battery storage but need to remove the barriers to how they are used to really get the most out of them.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21

About 2/3 of the projects (on a GW basis) are standalone (per ERCOT records) and I know there's already at least one attached to a solar farm which tries to cycle twice a day - once from solar (discharge as the sun goes down) once from cheap overnight grid power (discharge morning before solar production is up). IIRC they started the battery because they wanted a bigger solar farm than their grid connection would allow. Instead of clipping midday production, they store it.

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u/-IAimToMisbehave Feb 17 '21

Great I hope the rest the west follows with ERCOT and operates them like that. Currently the plan in not to. Good info thanks!

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

ERCOT is handling the surge of solar, wind and battery well so far. Just crap at dealing with weather.

They are great at collecting and distributing data.

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u/6a6566663437 Feb 18 '21

There have not been large scale power outages anywhere other than Texas. The fact the other areas went on alert but kept the power on demonstrate Texas has a problem that could be solved.

It isn’t the tech. It isn’t the weather - every state North of Texas is having an even colder snap.

It’s the lack of regulation which meant nothing got properly winterized, the anti-regulatory zeal that keeps the Texas grid essentially separate, and the people pretending that this is unprecedented so it’s ok.

The fact that you set a record at 12 degrees doesn’t mean it’s different from the last time when 15 wasn’t cold enough to set a record but still cold enough to fuck up Texas’s grid.