ERCOT asks Texans to reduce electric use Sunday after thermal generation breakdown

[Eugene]

Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram

ERCOT asks Texans to reduce electric use Sunday after thermal generation breakdown

James Hartley
Sun, August 20, 2023 at 7:39 PM EDT·1 min read

Following the unexpected loss of thermal generation and due to extreme temperatures, ERCOT is asking Texans to reduce electricity use when it is safe to do so, according to a news release.

The agency, which manages Texas’ electric grid, is asking people to voluntarily conserve energy from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, according to the news release. ERCOT forecasts high demand and low reserves. ERCOT is also asking for all government agencies, including city and county buildings, to begin programs to reduce energy use at their facilities.

According to the news release, requesting voluntary energy use reduction is an industry practice widely used to reduce demand on the electric grid during peak use hours.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/ercot-asks-texans-reduce-electric-233922216.html

[cloudbase]

1. At the time of this posting, my weather app is showing that it's 100 degrees.

They ought to take the "reliability" out of ERCOT.

[texasfiddler]

2. Solar and Wind are not thermal generation. For the record. NT

[Think. Again.]

4. Yeah...

...the press release made sure to NOT MENTION that the loss of generation is from the breakdown of the fossil fuel generators in the system, so they used a term the public wouldn't understand.

[hunter]

8. Not much solar between 7:00 and 10:00 PM...

And the wind turbines in Texas were running at about 21% of their installed capacity today. Who knows what it will be tomorrow.

That's the problem with wind and solar. Even with completely ludicrous amount of battery storage, the kind of storage multi-millionaires brag about in their "eco-friendly homes," wind and solar are not reliable.

The Texas electric grid is most likely to collapse when the wind isn't blowing, the sun isn't shining, and the gas plants can't keep up with the demand.

In Texas during the past 24 hours about 62% of the power came from gas, 16% from coal, 10% from wind, 6% nuclear and 4% from solar.

Here in California solar power production begins to fall off at around 4:00 PM. That's when the gas plants throttle up and we are asked to reduce our consumption of electricity until 9:00 PM. That's an every day suggestion. That's also when the price of our electricity goes up. (Ah, the wonder of smart meters...)

Renewables production in California was somewhat choppy today as the storm blew in. In cases like this the rest of the grid has to do some fancy acrobatics to match supply with demand which decreases the overall efficiency of the grid and increases both the likelyhood and potential severity of outages.

[texasfiddler]

9. Solar and coastal Texas wind farms peak during

Peak A/C demand. Coastal wind tends to blow in that critical evening time. I wish we had more nuclear.

[texasfiddler]

10. I produced 85 kWHRS today via solar and will use about

85kWHRs during the same 24hr period blasting my A/C. I agree that west Texas wind does not blow at the ideal times. However, solar and coastal wind does for summer conditions. This will be the 62nd day in a row above 100 for us in south Texas. The longest stretch I recall in my 55 years here is maybe 5 days? I used to be the senior plant electrical engineer for several fossil fuel plants so I’m not an eco-whatever, but climate change is real. I firmly believe that renewables and nuclear can be a good mix for MW and MVAR production.

[hunter]

11. How well would you fare without a grid connection?

The problem with storage is much the same at any scale, from a single family home to an entire electric grid. How many battery modules would you need to achieve a 98% reliable household electric supply without a gas or diesel backup generator?

There are no magical batteries or synergies forthcoming that will solve this problem.

"Net metering" is an accounting trick, not a practical way of dealing with the storage problem.

Unlike Texas, California has huge water projects that are capable of sinking and sourcing many gigawatts of electric power for hours at a time, but not days, weeks, or months. One example the Castaic Power Plant which has a capacity of 1247 MW. These contribute to the stability of our grid here.

My criticism of solar and wind power is that they will only prolong our dependence on fossil fuels, especially natural gas, and thus in the long run do nothing to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gasses we dump in the atmosphere.

Solar and wind power are not economically viable without fossil fuel "backup power" which becomes in actual practice the primary power source. When the sun is not shining all my neighbors with solar panels on their roofs are burning natural gas like everyone else.

I believe the fossil fuel industry knows this and does not regard solar and wind power as an existential threat.

[texasfiddler]

12. I do well because I have mini-splits.

I designed my system so that my generator only comes on about 3-4 hours per day for my solark. I only have a 20kWHr battery. It worked great during Harvey when we were out for about 8 days. The previous Hurricane ( Claudette ), I was running the generator all of the time 24 hours and had to start conserving (sweating) to keep from using up my propane. Propane trucks couldn’t get to my place after the hurricane. That is why I installed the solar and small battery system to mate up with it. You didn’t mention nuclear in your post. Are you for or against nuclear fission reactors? I have a SMR scheduled to be built south of me and I’m quite OK with that. Would you be? I’m not an all or nothing kind of guy.

[hunter]

16. I used to be an anti-nuclear activist, and a fairly radical one at that.

I burned a lot of gasoline on the roads between Humboldt Bay and San Onofre, and got into some trouble too.

I was at the Diablo Canyon anti-nuclear rally not far from Jerry Brown when he announced "No New Nukes," meaning, after Diablo Canyon, of course.

Now I think it would be stupid to shut down the Diablo Canyon power plant, at least not until it can be replaced with twenty-first century nuclear technology. (Too many people, who should be ashamed to call themselves "environmentalists," think it would be perfectly okay to replace it with gas power plants.)

When I first started posting on DU, in 2002, I was still sitting on the anti-nuke side of the fence mostly. The evolution of my thinking is largely documented here, some of it in my journal.

I became pro-nuclear after I started to look at the results of aggressive renewable energy programs in California, Denmark, and Germany. It became clear to me then that solar and wind power were incapable of displacing fossil fuels to the extent required to "save the world," or even support all eight billion of us.

The kind of anti-nuclear activism that says, in effect, "Oh well, I guess a few billion of us are just going to suffer and die for lack of high density energy resources and/or global warming," is reprehensible.

[Blues Heron]

13. Those eco whatevers were warning people about global warming a LONG time ago

Glad you are finally waking up to reality though. Everybody gets it now, but the eco whatevers had it right decades ago.

[texasfiddler]

14. Typical DU knee jerk response.

You can’t even see that I was responding to the guy shitting all over renewables. I have installed many different power systems including solar farms for a long time. I have converted many GOP over to solar. Toxic responses do little. You make a lot of assumptions about me in your post. I am currently working on solutions to improve the interconnection of renewables to grid and reduce encroachment issues with relaying technologies within my Engineering firm. I propose I’ve done more to decarbonize the electrical grid than you ever will. There I just made an assumption about you!

[gay texan]

3. Good luck with that n/t

[keithbvadu2]

5. Pic Of The Moment: Ah, The Party Of Personal Responsibility

Pic Of The Moment: Ah, The Party Of Personal Responsibility

“California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity,” Cruz wrote back then.


.

When Texans were dying from the cold:::

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. They're also blaming solar power

Last edited Sun Aug 20, 2023, 10:22 PM - Edit history (1)

ERCOT Issues Voluntary Conservation Notice

…

Why the Request to Voluntarily Reduce Usage?

• Extreme Heat. Continued statewide extreme temperatures today.
• Record Demand. Texas is seeing near-record demand due to the heat.
• Solar. Solar generation declines into the evening hours, before completely going offline at sunset.
• Generation. Unexpected loss of thermal generation.

…

[Upthevibe]

7. Eugene.......

I'm currently in Dallas and it's 101 at 8:45 p.m....

I live in Southern California and my friends are dealing with a tropical storm AND an earthquake! This is crazy....

[LiberaBlueDem]

15. Sounds like a nuclear plant was too hot?

Nuclear is the hottest producer of them all, so it makes sense that it was a nuclear plant that was turned off.

[hunter]

17. No.

It's wind power that's locked themselves in the shit house today and gas is carrying their load, just 15% from breaking.