So, is the Texas power grid 'fixed'? (leases, property taxes)

[Pilsn3r]

The power grid failures have nothing to do with natural gas prices. Sort of like the prior assertion that ERCOT has something to do with transporting natural gas.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by Pilsn3r

The power grid failures have nothing to do with natural gas prices. Sort of like the prior assertion that ERCOT has something to do with transporting natural gas.

It had to do with the price of natural gas
Since our electricity was setup to be a capitalist business
The moment they thought they would start losing money, they shut plants down

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by Dopo

It had to do with the price of natural gas
Since our electricity was setup to be a capitalist business
The moment they thought they would start losing money, they shut plants down

Plants shut down for numerous reasons.

#1 Some plants were already down for maintenance due to the previous Winter Storm that happened only weeks before. ERCOT did everything in their power to have as much capacity available during the freeze by coordinating with power generating stations before the storm happened in effort to keep as much capacity available as possible.

#2 Natural Gas (supplying about 50% of Texas energy) availability really was crippled. Natural Gas lines at the power stations themselves, froze. Natural Gas suppliers in the form of rail or trucks were not operating during the storm, and the plants themselves also had to compete with additional Natural Gas demand from other entities using it to heat their homes or businesses.

#3 Safety. Electric demand was record high but supply was slowly dwindling due to plants already out of service and fuel supply / freezing gas lines to Natural Gas plants as well as freezing Wind Turbines.. When power demand exceeds supply, you run into big trouble with Electricity. Generating stations as well as electronics are designed to operate within certain metrics, go too far above or below that and you fry them..

..I'll give you, lack of winterization did play a big role in this, but the plants themselves did have legitimate reasons for shutting down.

The things that may have saved us from what happened would be winterization and possibly interconnection to the Eastern and Western Interconnect, although that is questionable because ERCOT did try to buy power from the one connection we have with the Eastern Interconnect and they did not have much capacity to spare to ERCOT as they too were heavily hampered by the storm. That along with the fact that ERCOT serves about 26 million people. I doubt that there would have been enough reserve capacity in either interconnect to account for that many people in a sudden power failure.

[crone]

The conference in the Texas grid can be measured by the time one must wait for their generator to be installed.

[ScoPro]

It would seem that the massive rush to invest in the wind farm infrastructure has been detrimental to the maintenance and improvement of the existing grid.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Plants shut down for numerous reasons.

#1 Some plants were already down for maintenance due to the previous Winter Storm that happened only weeks before. ERCOT did everything in their power to have as much capacity available during the freeze by coordinating with power generating stations before the storm happened in effort to keep as much capacity available as possible.

#2 Natural Gas (supplying about 50% of Texas energy) availability really was crippled. Natural Gas lines at the power stations themselves, froze. Natural Gas suppliers in the form of rail or trucks were not operating during the storm, and the plants themselves also had to compete with additional Natural Gas demand from other entities using it to heat their homes or businesses.

#3 Safety. Electric demand was record high but supply was slowly dwindling due to plants already out of service and fuel supply / freezing gas lines to Natural Gas plants as well as freezing Wind Turbines.. When power demand exceeds supply, you run into big trouble with Electricity. Generating stations as well as electronics are designed to operate within certain metrics, go too far above or below that and you fry them..

..I'll give you, lack of winterization did play a big role in this, but the plants themselves did have legitimate reasons for shutting down.

The things that may have saved us from what happened would be winterization and possibly interconnection to the Eastern and Western Interconnect, although that is questionable because ERCOT did try to buy power from the one connection we have with the Eastern Interconnect and they did not have much capacity to spare to ERCOT as they too were heavily hampered by the storm. That along with the fact that ERCOT serves about 26 million people. I doubt that there would have been enough reserve capacity in either interconnect to account for that many people in a sudden power failure.

Correct.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

It would seem that the massive rush to invest in the wind farm infrastructure has been detrimental to the maintenance and improvement of the existing grid.

That's not the case. The biggest issue with wind power and the grid is people who want to prohibit building transmission lines from West Texas, where the majority of the wind power is, to the more populated areas that consume the most power. Their argument is that we should be building more gas fired plants near cities. That makes no sense at all.

The owners of the gas fired plants that proved unreliable should be responsible for improving their weather resistance. The owners of the power lines ought to be responsible for ensuring that the transmission infrastructure is well maintained.

I am reasonably certain that no one spent money on wind turbines instead of maintaining their gas fired plants. I do not think there's a lot of ownership overlap between the two.

[Need4Camaro]

I won't necessarily condemn an investment in wind farms, but the way they are deployed is a bit odd.

From my understanding, wind farms are essentially replacing coal power which has been declining just about as quickly as wind farms have been inclining. I don't know the history specifically of Coal fired plants in Texas but its also my understanding that the wind farms in the High Plains region of Texas - just as you stated - have little to no connectivity to the major metro areas of Texas, they are literally just spinning there producing power for just about no one. Coal power was 'most likely' (I cannot confirm this) more connected to the major cities in TX.. ..therefore while generation capacity may have increased statewide, usable capacity for the major cities may have remained stagnate while power demand increased, or may have even decreased altogether... which theoretically would cause supply / demand problems for the cities.

If that is the case, I won't condemn the act of adding wind farms to replace coal, but the method of how it is being done may indeed be causing problems as we may have retained a linear production of energy throughout the transition, but usable energy in the major cities may not be meeting energy demand as quickly.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

I won't necessarily condemn an investment in wind farms, but the way they are deployed is a bit odd.

From my understanding, wind farms are essentially replacing coal power which has been declining just about as quickly as wind farms have been inclining. I don't know the history specifically of Coal fired plants in Texas but its also my understanding that the wind farms in the High Plains region of Texas - just as you stated - have little to no connectivity to the major metro areas of Texas, they are literally just spinning there producing power for just about no one. Coal power was 'most likely' (I cannot confirm this) more connected to the major cities in TX.. ..therefore while generation capacity may have increased statewide, usable capacity for the major cities may have remained stagnate while power demand increased, or may have even decreased altogether... which theoretically would cause supply / demand problems for the cities.

If that is the case, I won't condemn the act of adding wind farms to replace coal, but the method of how it is being done may indeed be causing problems as we may have retained a linear production of energy throughout the transition, but usable energy in the major cities may not be meeting energy demand as quickly.

Coal plants closed in Texas because they did not make any money. Luminant had several in East Texas that burned the crappy lignite from the adjacent mines. Luminant bought them on a bet that coal generation would be cheaper than natural gas generation, since power prices were based on NG cost. They went bankrupt when gas prices fell. No great loss, since those plants were horrible polluters and very inefficient. Those plants are not coming back, since the mines were remediated and abandoned and the generators decommissioned.

Existing wind has markets, but there is room for far more turbines in West Texas, and the land owners enjoy the $4k to $8k they get per turbine per month. Wind is good from a load perspective, as it can be shut down and started up very quickly. Wind's main role so far in Texas has been Summer marginal generation. That's why there was little wind power available during the freeze - it wasn't scheduled to be operating at the time.

[done working]

wind farms = tax dodge