Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

[Smoove_B]

Texas is trying to quietly revise their death toll associated with the power grid collapse:

On New Year’s Eve, with few people watching, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced that 246 people died in the February 2021 winter storm that took down much of the state’s power grid. The new figure is 36 higher than the state’s previous count but is still almost certainly wrong.

According to an analysis of “excess deaths” in the week of the power outages by BuzzFeed News, the true number is likely more than 750.

[malchior]

I'm not surprised. I almost posted something in this thread the other day. Natural gas production plunged during a freeze the other day. In other words, faced with a near collapse event ERCOT did essentially nothing to ensure the R means anything (as expected/predicted). But that's just the price of freedom or something.

[Pyperkub]

I almost posted something inthis thread the other day. Natural gas production plunged during a freeze the other day. In other words, faced with a near collapse nothing was done (as expected/predicted) based on this event. But that's just the price of freedom or something.

Here's the link:

Texas’s natural gas industry had almost a year to prepare for last weekend’s cold blast and avoid another loss of production. But yet again, instruments froze, output plunged and companies spewed a miasma of pollutants into the atmosphere in a bid to keep operations stable.

Though Saturday’s cold front wasn’t as severe as the February storm that killed hundreds and knocked out power to much of the state, nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas was burned or wasted due to weather-related shutdowns, according to filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. At the same time, production plunged to the lowest level since the last freeze...

...“These facilities could be investing in better insulation and other kinds of things that would prevent equipment from freezing,” he said. “It’s easier to pay a fine.”

[Smoove_B]

Potential problem incoming:

With freezing weather sweeping into Texas late this week, subsidiaries for a major pipeline company are threatening to cut off natural gas to the state’s largest power generator — which could impact the electricity supply for hundreds of thousands of customers — over a financial dispute stemming from last February’s deadly winter storm.

Vistra Corp. subsidiary Luminant on Wednesday asked the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, to prevent Energy Transfer LP from cutting off fuel to five Vistra power plants, which produce enough electricity to power 400,000 Texas homes, businesses and critical infrastructure such as hospitals and schools.

FREEDOM!

[malchior]

Might have to prep for a thread title update. I didn't expect for them to have another major incident for 5-10 years but the weather will have the most to say about that expectation.

[Octavious]

They will just blame it on the windmills and hippies. And people will get 10,000 dollar electric bills. FREEDOM!!!

[Daehawk]

Blows my mind that Samsung chose Texas for their $17 billion chip fab with that power grid.

[LordMortis]

Might have to prep for a thread title update. I didn't expect for them to have another major incident for 5-10 years but the weather will have the most to say about that expectation.

It was supposed to be unanticipated and once in generation. Surely, it can't happen two years in a row. Has Mexico told Texas we don't need your energy anymore yet? Can they do that in space of a year?

Blows my mind that Samsung chose Texas for their $17 billion chip fab with that power grid.

Taxes and incentives to the "stake holders".

[malchior]

Might have to prep for a thread title update. I didn't expect for them to have another major incident for 5-10 years but the weather will have the most to say about that expectation.

It was supposed to be unanticipated and once in generation. Surely, it can't happen two years in a row. Has Mexico told Texas we don't need your energy anymore yet? Can they do that in space of a year?

2011 would like to have a word with you!

Edit: I dissected this upthread - they had warning from the 2011 event that they needed major cold weather improvements. They said *let the market decide*. The market decided to gamble for the chance to capture windfall profits from failures.

Blows my mind that Samsung chose Texas for their $17 billion chip fab with that power grid.

They'll probably be fine. You'd probably be surprised how poor power infrastructure is in some of the countries they operate in now.

[LordMortis]

I know. I work with manufacturing in Texas and Northern Mexico and we've had coat drives more than once. But last year Texas power and governance kept informing it was once in a generation. I'm sure there were news links in this very thread stating as much.

[malchior]

I know. I work with manufacturing in Texas and Northern Mexico and we've had coat drives more than once. But last year Texas power and governance kept informing it was once in a generation. I'm sure there were news links in this very thread stating as much.

They were flat out lying.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

But last year Texas power and governance kept informing it was once in a generation.

They didn't specify what animal's generation. They meant it was a once in a mouse generation event.

[Isgrimnur]

Spider generations

[Daehawk]

Maybe the power company could release a video on how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together.. Perhaps have a public showing of Quest For Fire.

[Smoove_B]

Greg Abbott, just two months ago: "I can guarantee the lights will stay on.”

Greg Abbott today, as Texas freezes: “No one can guarantee there won’t be power outages.”

Maybe spend some of your political capital on the power grid instead of restricting women's rights? Imma just throw that out there.

[LordMortis]

You're just mad because he issues Executive Orders for COVID response based on conservative fantasy.

Or is because he endorses voter suppression?

[Smoove_B]

Ugh, what a mess (again) in Texas:

Severe winter weather has left nearly 70,000 Texans without power as of Thursday morning, as freezing temperatures continue to move eastward across the U.S.

According to poweroutage.us, another 24,000 customers in Arkansas have also lost power. These outages comes roughly one year after massive power outages swept across the Lone Star State, resulting in over 200 deaths and prompting criticisms of the state's preparedness against colder temperatures.

The National Weather Service said on Thursday that "an ongoing significant winter storm is expected to impact much of the central and Northeastern U.S. through Friday night." Additionally, the agency forecast that a "corridor of heavy ice accumulation is likely from Texas through the Ohio River Valley."

[Isgrimnur]

70k is a drop in the bucket compared to last year's millions.

[LordMortis]

Ugh, what a mess (again) in Texas:

Severe winter weather has left nearly 70,000 Texans without power as of Thursday morning, as freezing temperatures continue to move eastward across the U.S.

According to poweroutage.us, another 24,000 customers in Arkansas have also lost power. These outages comes roughly one year after massive power outages swept across the Lone Star State, resulting in over 200 deaths and prompting criticisms of the state's preparedness against colder temperatures.

The National Weather Service said on Thursday that "an ongoing significant winter storm is expected to impact much of the central and Northeastern U.S. through Friday night." Additionally, the agency forecast that a "corridor of heavy ice accumulation is likely from Texas through the Ohio River Valley."

It's a question of how they respond. Bad weather here can leave us without power for 200,000 in a much smaller state but we get it back on line quick.

The 200 deaths I can't speak to. It might be more about people not knowing how to respond rather than the grid.

Now if you told me severe weather left 70,000 Texans without power on January 30th and there is still no ETA on resolution. There have been a 200 deaths related to this incident, I'd be a lot more at the response.

Edit. BAMmed.

[noxiousdog]

For reference, Texas has 10x the people of Arkansas.

That being said, I doubt anything was learned, it's just not likely to be as cold for as long.

[Smoove_B]

Abbot is on a roll today:

The former chief of Texas’s power grid testified today that Greg Abbott *instructed* officials to charge the maximum amount for power during the winter storm. Texans still owe $3.4 billion.

[Octavious]

I hope he has proof because god knows even if he said it on camera people would still say it's not true. I saw tons of people that supported what happened because it's a free market and the people should have known better than to take a variable rate. We seriously need a purge...

[LawBeefaroni]

Ex-ERCOT has a nice ring to it. Exercot.

[Octavious]

I really love the Republic standpoint that if you don't read every detail they can just rob you and that's on you. I can't imagine the devistation of getting dumped a 15k bill out of nowhere.

[Jaymann]

I really love the Republic standpoint that if you don't read every detail they can just rob you and that's on you. I can't imagine the devistation of getting dumped a 15k bill out of nowhere.

And yet the deplorables will re-elect the douchebags who did this to them again and again and again...

[malchior]

And if you talk to the Abbott class of the world they'll spout off some nonsense about supply/demand dogma. Forget that the ERCOT market max price was pulled out of thin air and hasn't done anything at all to make any supply available in the middle of a crisis. Despite the gouging we see in this bankruptcy case these profits don't provide a reliable incentive for companies to modernize to try to capture any of these windfall profits. The generators aren't idiots and recognize it's a low probability crap shoot. Plus if everyone modernized then they'd just be out the money. It's better to underinvest and hope they might be the ones to hit the lottery next time. And if they don't they still make money in the summer which is more reliable.

[Octavious]

Did they make people pay those insane bills or did they actually do anything about it? I kind of figured nobody would end up paying it. Can I have a 5 year payment plan for my 1 month electricity bill?

[Smoove_B]

Didn't realize this was going to be an evergreen topic:

ERCOT, the embattled power grid operator for most of Texas, is urging customers to conserve energy for a five-hour peak period on Saturday and Sunday as it confronts both unseasonably hot weather and six power generation facilities tripping offline.

The nonprofit agency's CEO, Brad Jones, revealed the facilities going offline Friday afternoon resulted in the loss of 2,900 megawatts of power.

Jones added that with soaring temperatures expected for the second straight weekend, power demand will be pushed to the limit.

"We're asking Texans to conserve power when they can by setting their thermostats to 78 degrees or above and avoiding the usage of large appliances (such as dishwashers, washers and dryers) during peak hours between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. through the weekend," Jones said in a statement.

Set the thermostat to 78 degrees? Sounds like something a mask-wearing, vaccine loving boot-licker would do!

[Isgrimnur]

I sure as shit am not going to comply.

[malchior]

It's only going to get worse. Conditions for investing in additional generation are really poor right now. Unstable energy prices, high interest rates, etc. And ERCOT still hasn't stepped in to address the persistent maintenance short falls.

[Little Raven]

My wife is from Florida. The thermostat never goes below 80 unless company is coming over. And my daughter STILL walks around in sweaters.

It's madness. Madness, I tell you!

[Pyperkub]

It's only going to get worse. Conditions for investing in additional generation are really poor right now. Unstable energy prices, high interest rates, etc. And ERCOT still hasn't stepped in to address the persistent maintenance short falls.

The issue isn't additional generation afaik, it's that they won't invest in resiliency to temperature extremes for the generation they have. WInter and summerizing the equipment.

That's only going to get worse as climate change drives more extremes.

[malchior]

It's only going to get worse. Conditions for investing in additional generation are really poor right now. Unstable energy prices, high interest rates, etc. And ERCOT still hasn't stepped in to address the persistent maintenance short falls.

The issue isn't additional generation afaik, it's that they won't invest in resiliency to temperature extremes for the generation they have. WInter and summerizing the equipment.

It's both. I talked at length about it upthread. Capacity is an issue because they have restricted interconnects to other regions unlike other parts of the national grid. It means they need to be constantly growing capacity with growth in demand which will be driven as tempatures go up. They've developed some pricing mechanisms to try to incentive buildout when it gets closer to the rails. They aren't necessarily working.

As to winterization/"summer"-ization that what I meant by maintenance short falls. I haven't seen anything publicly explaining why the 6 facilities/units were forced out but that is one of the problems with ERCOT. The penalties for failing are nonexistent to low and the upside is windfall profits. It's incentives are all wrong and people have been telling them this for many years at this point. Their deregulation model is broken - as we can clearly see.

That's only going to get worse as climate change drives more extremes.

100% true.

[Defiant]

[malchior]

I don't think this is a super big problem to focus on. If the grid is running at the rails then there is about 40GW online at that moment. 40% of US bitcoin mining roughly equates to 1.5GW. It's not insignificant but it isn't knocking the grid offline. You might as well complain about people playing their XBOXs too. In any case, mining is very price and heat sensitive. If it's hot they have to cool *and* pay for mining so unless they aren't smart metered or bought some crazy futures contract they'll most likely load shed on their own.

[Blackhawk]

You'd think they'd set up in Montana...

[Jaymon]

Because there is no alternate supply, there is no incentive to build additional capacity. When demand goes up, price goes up. Additional profit, without any additional overhead.


There are only two ways out of this mess. Another power company could open for business and undercut the existing companies, but that requires a massive investment, and would face fierce legal obstacles from the existing companies. OR the government needs to step in, and provide heavy regulation and oversight, ensuring that all citizens have access to affordable power.



But isn't there a third way? The existing companies could get their shit together and build more capacity and redundancy? Theoretically thats an option, but without government forcing it, I place the odds of that happening about the same as finding a live pikachu and harnessing it for infinite lightning.

[malchior]

Because there is no alternate supply, there is no incentive to build additional capacity. When demand goes up, price goes up. Additional profit, without any additional overhead.


There are only two ways out of this mess. Another power company could open for business and undercut the existing companies, but that requires a massive investment, and would face fierce legal obstacles from the existing companies. OR the government needs to step in, and provide heavy regulation and oversight, ensuring that all citizens have access to affordable power.

Not exactly. The problem is in how their market is designed. It is called Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) but the R is not backed by much of anything other than a very liberal market philosophy. The gist of the model is that high prices will encourage supply. Isolation of the grid is also seen as a key factor to make sure Texas is not reliant on other grids. There is a regulatory reason I'll touch in a little later. In any case, it's fucking stupid but it could work if they actually focused on achieving reliability in other ways. They don't. The whole thing is subject to the risks of many problems not the least being collective underinvestment (now fully realized) or collusion (narrator: it is supposed to be hard but is almost certainly fucking happening). We are 20 years out from Enron and there is a bare hint of anti-collusion protection in their oversight.

Worse, even if everyone is on the up and up, the model breaks down as soon as you start putting together the financing for real-world generation builds. The banks hate the highly unreliable ROI on these build outs. The power industry is also notorious for cost overruns on builds. Instead, you get a lot of solar and wind farms because they are relatively low capital outlay, rarely go over budget, and get a good ROI. It also has a disadvantage that it doesn't keep up with demand. So it is soaking up dollars, providing some protection against climate change, but it has definite issues, and risk of blowback against green energy.

So let's compare to what looks good. There are several competitive market designs that work. I'll pick the PJM (Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland) grid because I've personally traded power there. It has a control center that dispatches power out the King of Prussia, PA area for a region that includes those states and few more. They build models of forecasted load and have detailed scheduling about the projected availability of power plants. They solicit market bids just like ERCOT does for generation.

PJM also leverages contract law to incentivize additional capacity in the form of 'must run' contracts (and other mechanisms). PJM will contract with a generation provider for some period (e.g.,May 1 - Sep 30) where a plant has to be up and running, standing by and ready to provide power in the event of surge in demand. They pay a minimum amount whether it is needed or not but they provide enough of a safety net to make sure they don't get caught out if a plant has an unexpected outage. Also, if you have an unexpected outage during that period you might be fined. This has been a partial driver which has resulted in a robust Preventative Maintenance regime throughout PJM. Most Independent System Operators such as PJM use a mechanism of this type.

Does ERCOT? No. Preventative maintenance is left to the magic of the market. Companies that skimp on it give up the opportunity to make profit, right? Well sort of. Instead it makes lack of maintenance into an inverse lottery. If someone else fails and you got away with your minimal maintenance scheme, you win! ERCOT also has no say in operating standards. For example, PJM and the feds (again more to come) can make sure your facility meets minimum standards for operating conditions unlike ERCOT which again leaves it up to the (very) invisible hand.

But isn't there a third way? The existing companies could get their shit together and build more capacity and redundancy? Theoretically thats an option, but without government forcing it, I place the odds of that happening about the same as finding a live pikachu and harnessing it for infinite lightning.

The sad part is that the government has to force it by making fairly minimal ways here. All Texas needs to do is build an actual Reliability program into ERCOT. They don't even have to go heavy regulation. Though to be fair this is complicated because a key reason ERCOT is isolated to only Texas is to tell the Feds to go fuck themselves with reliability standards. Power generation everywhere else generally has federal oversight in the form of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). And FERC does impose a decent amount of overhead onto operations in the form of reliability standards including cybersecurity hardening.

Again however they should however enforce some mechanisms to make ERCOT more reliable in the absence of competent adults. They could adopt some of the contract based tried and true practices from the other grids. That doesn't even fly in the face of their libertarian market fantasy ideologies. Which is why I have long wondered what mix of stupid + corruption is actually behind this mind-blowingly bad system design. In any case, the TLDR; is people freezing or cooking to death? Just another aspect of the price of "freedom".

[Pyperkub]

Solar and Wind are bailing Texas out, providing 40% of electricity during heat wave...

But unlike previous extreme weather events in Texas which led to deadly blackouts, the grid is holding up remarkably well this week. Several experts told CNN that it's owed in large part to strong performances from wind and solar, which generated 27 gigawatts of electricity during Sunday's peak demand -- close to 40% of the total needed....

...Not only have renewables helped keep the power on during a scorching and early heatwave, they have also helped keep costs low. Prices for natural gas and coal are high amid a worldwide energy crunch, but renewables -- powered by the wind and sun -- have no fuel cost.
"Because the price of wind and sunlight hasn't doubled in the past year like other resources, they are acting as a hedge against high fuel prices," said Joshua Rhodes, an energy researcher at UT Austin...

...Rhodes pointed to ERCOT projects showing higher solar numbers than what was actually being used; a casualty of over-crowded power lines that can't let the power through to consumers.
"About half of the solar that could be produced is not being produced right now because there's no more room on the lines," Rhodes said. "The numbers for renewables would probably be higher if we had the transmission capacity to move them around."

[Smoove_B]

Probably doesn't deserve it's own thread (maybe rename this one Texas Infrastructure Collapse?), because this is not good:

A water line break in Odessa, Texas could leave nearly 165,000 people in and around the city with little to no water for 48 hours, according to city officials.

The water main break occurred at around 6 p.m. Monday, with crews actively working around the clock to repair the 24-inch transmission water line. The city of Odessa has not yet released details regarding the cause of the break.

...

The loss of potable water is expected to be close to 48 hours, according to the declaration. City officials say crews are working as fast as possible to repair the break underneath the intersection of 42nd and San Jacinto streets in Odessa.