Facing High Demand, Texas Asks 26 Million to Use Less Electricity This Weekend -...
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Facing High Demand, Texas Asks 26 Million to Use Less Electricity This Weekend
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Friday a heat wave hit Texas — prompting the non-profit that manages power for Texas's 26 million customers to...ask them to use less of it.
"The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) made the appeal in a statement Friday, saying that soaring temperatures increased demand and caused six power generation facilities to trip offline," reports CNN. "That resulted in the loss of about 2,900 megawatts of electricity."
The statement asks 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." CNN reports:
The appeal comes as record temperatures across most of the southern U.S. this weekend are expected to worsen a deepening drought. From Phoenix to Amarillo, Texas, record temperatures are expected to reach triple digits, with a chance for some parts of Texas to break daily records over the next seven days.
ERCOT came under scrutiny last year after record cold temperatures in February caused the state's highest electricity demand and more than 200 people died during the power crisis, with the most common cause of death being hypothermia. In March 2021, ERCOT's president and CEO, Bill Magness, was fired following widespread power outages during a series of winter storms that left many residents in the dark for days. Now the heat is testing Texas' power grid....
Temperatures from the mid-90s to the low 100s are expected on Sunday, with much of central and western Texas reaching 100 to 105 degrees — approximately 10 to 15 degrees above average.
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You're not allowed to abort your electricity use in Texas.-
Turn off your A/C when you need it most or your electricity will be stillborn. What a perfectly vicious circle!
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that's the normal texas weather for the summer. once again ercot is unprepared. texas needs to be connected to the national grid to solve this problem
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And compromise the Eastern and/or Western power grids? Why should we do that? Texans like their power grid just fine the way it is (you know, cheap and unencumbered by Federal regulation), and the rest of the US like their power grid just fine the way it is (regulated, modern, robust, flexible, more reliable, ecologically less irresponsible). Connecting Texas' power grid with the other two US power grids would only make everyone unhappy.
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It's not even cheaper:P
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s/cheaper/more profitable
My mistake.
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Which if you're a large corporation running a for-profit power grid is a huge Plus.
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Just so you know, TX is connected. You can see the power flows real time at their website. I routinely see about 1GW flowing between the 4 tie points.
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That is not factually true. There are parts of Texas that are connected to the national grid; however, those parts are not connected to the Texas grid. Texas on the whole is not connected.
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It is factually true. Take a look at https://www.ercot.com/gridmkti... [ercot.com] Just exactly where do you think those tie flows go? Granted one is RR and one is Mex, but the other two are the eastern grid. Also from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], and from the article, "The Texas Interconnection is tied to the Eastern Interconnection with two DC ties, and has a DC tie and a VFT to non-NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) systems in Mexico." The ties are DC, so TX is not synchronous with the national grid.
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Wait, you directly imply that such as California has regulated, modern, robust, flexible, more reliable, ecologically less irresponsible power. No on all counts.
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Which is why in any given year California is the state with the most power outages.
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by mmell ( 832646 ) on Sunday May 15, 2022 @12:00PM (#62535708)
I grew up in Southern California as well as New York and Illinois. The power grids were never perfect. Connecting Texas would only make them worse. Texas created their own power grid - now that they've cheaped out and made a fortune ignoring the rules, they can clean up their own mess. -
I live in SoCal. Where I am, we don't have rolling blackouts, because our utility is actually publicly-owned (we get refund checks at the end of the year, every year) and responsibly-managed. The only time I lose power, it's because of some idiot going too fucking fast in the neighborhood and hitting a power pole.
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California has had a few rolling blackout warnings, but very few have actually materialized. Usually they happen with a transmission line down and impact a single region. The shutdowns for fire risk are a different (equally inexcusable) problem.
But, what both California, Texas, and most of the country really need to do is establish policies (again) that increase deployment of residential solar plus battery systems. A fairly modest 6kW system with a 5kWh battery (double it for Texas... because Texas) on a
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I can't take those criticisms against California (often by people proselytizing Texas) until Texas gets it shit together and stops asking the citizens to take the brunt of the failure. Imbeciles.
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I have yet to see one a texas power company start a wildfire and destroy countless thousands of acres in Texas.
The socially-responsible, high-tech, "got their shit together" California Power Company has started more than their fair-share of wildfires in California. I have no problem with "turn up your thermostat this weekend" advisories, wildfires on the other hand...
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Except it was not 114 years. 10 years earlier, Texas had a major freeze that nearly brought the grid down. One of the recommendations was to winterize operations; however, being Texas they would never order companies to do so. A regulation is an abomination in Texas no matter how sensible.
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FWIW, every time I've ever been in Texas, the only thing I've looked for is the way out, so I guess we're in agreement here.
Incidentally, I see your sig and raise you mine.
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Imagine instead of focusing on the very real problem of the Texas power grid and just going "CALIFORNIA!" like some kind of pea-sized brain idiot.
As if the solution is to point to some other (by comparison, very small) problem and that somehow absolves Texas of responsibility for an insufficient grid.
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ERCOT Renamed EUCOT
"Electrical Unreliability Council Of Texas" -
What part of
"Temperatures from the mid-90s to the low 100s are expected on Sunday, with much of central and western Texas reaching 100 to 105 degrees — approximately 10 to 15 degrees above average."
did you fail to understand?
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The governor sued the feds over having to connect to the national grid. Good luck on your bootstrap power.
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Why don't you go look that up? You might be surprised as to what the actual reasons are.
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California doesn't need an excuse. California never insisted on its own power grid independent of Federal oversight.
I like things the way they are. It's a shame Texas' infrastructure can't be joined to either of the US grids - it simply doesn't meet Federal standards. Texas has been running things their own way, regulating energy at the State level - I'd say it's time Texans vote out their current government and elect someone competent.
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In Texas, as in many red states, the urban areas are blue and they would very much like to elect someone competent. But the ruling GOP has gerrymandered the state into oblivion and that's why they do and will hold the majority of all three branches of government.
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50 of them blocked any serious attempt at infrastructure expansion. How the hell do you go through school and not know what the Tennessee Valley Authority was? If you're not rich or serving the wealthy then have electricity because the Federal Government, backed by voters, decided you should have it.
Do you really think the elites would pay the taxes for you to have power if they weren't forced too? How much richer would Mr M and Mr B be if all the money spent on your appliances went into their pockets? You think that though hasn't crossed their minds? You think they haven't discussed it with at least some of these governors?
Apple Computer and Tesla showed that the real money is in selling luxury goods to a handful of consumers. Right now there's a baby formula shortage because there's 3 companies that made all of it, and it wasn't profitable enough for them to bother upgrading their equipment to maintain production.
Seriously, please stop fucking that chicken. It's 2022, we know better [twitter.com]-
Correct. It's not a Texas thing, it's a Republican thing. Texas can solve this by getting rid of Republican rule. Texas has the worst access to voting in the nation.
Also, this is not like the February cold wave. That weather was unprecedented, this hot weather is common for Texas.
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did not say Texans do not have access, I said they have worse access than the other states.
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They have better access than such as Delaware.
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Without voter suppression, it would have happened already. Texas is a minority rule state.
But yes, "not likely to happen any time soon" is what Republicans hope for. It's anti-democratic, but that's their plan.
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When your only two options are two horrible parties, you probably should rely more on what you can do instead of waiting the government to do anything for you.
The "easiest" path in this specific problem is just get yourself a solar panel setup.-
Try doing something yourself but ONE party is in bed with big biz and turns all that regulatory power that is supposed to keep big biz from screwing everybody after YOU!
My wind/solar have way too many BS obstacles put in my way. The system is bipolar because of flip flopping between two parties and ONE is at best the "bad cop" but usually is just a bad guy... one who rails against crime to distract from their behavior.
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You know, that's actually a testament to the quality of all three power grids in the United States. They have made 'utility' (in this case, 'electricity') something that just is. There's a plug in the wall. Pay the bill and stuff you plug in works. Period. The sun'll rise tomorrow. Water will still be wet. I'll be able to cook tomorrow morning by turning a knob, no need to chop wood or build a fire.
The fact that this (incipient Texas energy shortages) is big news tells me that Texas has done pretty
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Connection to the other two national grids would benefit all three grids tremendously - once energy regulation in Texas meets or exceeds Federal standards.
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Germany's grid is big too, and it has a bigger population than Texas. It's interconnected, though.
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I don't think that's accurate. If you get the connections up then you can sell power if you have an excess, and there's other states that need power, and Texas' debt is substantial... almost as big as California's surplus:D
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The reason Texas keeps their grids separate is because the private corporation that runs it doesn't want to pay for the weathering and upkeep that is required if they connected to the other grids. It's kind of like how NATO works where everybody has to prove that they can provide aid when it's needed because if you don't people cut corners. In order for Texas to join the rest of America they have to prove that they're not just going to be takers but that their grid will be reliable enough to be of use to t
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The GOP has no leaders. Donald Trump is currently the de-facto leader of the party despite being a loser because everyone is too afraid to challenge him. Mitt Romney and Dick Cheney's daughter are the moral anchors. Yeah.
The GOP has no platform. Aside from "tax cuts for rich people" and "bomb brown people", the GOP has had zero legislative successes in 20 years. They couldn't even kill Obamacare despite having the votes. When was the last time the GOP talked about actually governing?
The GOP has no prin
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#whataboutism
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Which state has had more republican govenors. Texas or California?
When you look it up most of California issues came about because of policies setup during their many republican govenors.
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100% of California's problems are due to SUCCESS.
Unlike Texas, everyone who has any money is willing to pay in order to own even an 1800 ft^2 plot of said California.
Texas has a homeless burden as well, but they solve it by dumping people on grayhound busses headed to CA.
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California is planning to use their massive budget surplus to combat the problem actually.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/po... [sfchronicle.com]
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"California is planning to use their massive budget surplus to combat the problem actually."
California is ALWAYS planning to combat X with tons of cash (either from voter tax bonds, increases in taxes or "massive surpluses".
The problems get worse.
We approved a bond in 2014 to increase our reservoir capacity. Not one pebble has been moved and much of those funds have already been spent. And "OH" We still have well over 20 years paying back that particular bond. Well over $7 billion + interest has mostly
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Considering that PGE is a private company, shy of buying a majority share in it to control its direction, or putting in forced regulation to make it do things (which is going to be met with backlash from private entities and republicans), there is not much the state itself can do about this..
Its why I said before that SOME things like utilities should be a co-op (a public/private joint venture in which it operates like a private firm (or in there case a Investor owned utility), but the state actually has th
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Because it worked so well for California? Richest state in the union with the highest rate of poverty. 40k+ unsheltered homeless literally living in the streets in just LA alone.
18% of California's homeless say they come from other states. So of those 40k people, 7,200 of them are transplants who moved here because their own states didn't care for them. When you consider that California is the most populous state, and the fact that not all the homeless come here (they also go to Florida and other warm states where they can expect not to freeze in the winter) that adds up to a disproportionate percentage of people in other states becoming homeless — and knowing that they will probably die in short order if they stay at home.
We do however have a severe housing crisis in California. Some of the same stuff is happening across the nation, although usually to lesser degrees because California is the most desirable state to own property in. The big corporations are buying up the good houses everywhere and turning them into and rentals, airbnbs have severely reduced the supply of available housing. California has the additional problem that over 89,000 structures have been destroyed by fire since 2005. This is a problem that is coming to much of the rest of the country, however.
Just wait until our unfunded liabilities come due...
Yes, as a nation. What you're seeing in California now you'll be seeing everywhere soon enough. And then there will be the water refugees...
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Move there for jobs. I guessed I could be considered being cared for by your state. But basically if you're coming from a red state your state has left you without much of an education or any skills or any job opportunities. You're effectively a refugee from a third world country.
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Most of the homeless in California became homeless in California, so that is probably true. The 19% figure is people who moved here after they became homeless. They may well have moved here looking for work, but you'd naturally pick a state with some kind of safety net for the homeless if you were already homeless, and desperate enough to travel to another state to find work.
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"Most of the homeless in California became homeless in California, so that is probably true."
While that's true, it's grossly misleading. About 30% of unsheltered homeless in LA alone were homeless before coming to LA (the largest population of unsheltered homeless in the nation -- larger than almost every other states total homeless populations (including unsheltered)). That tops out well north of 40k unsheltered homeless.
Tha'ts about 12k-14k of unsheltered homeless folks that came here already homeless.
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Ya, I can't imagine Texas dealing with a housing price problem by instituting rent control. Texas has problems with homelessness too, and after a period of decline it has been going up since 2017.
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Yes, as the second most populous state and another one where you can survive winter outside, Texas is another prime candidate for a homeless crisis. Property taxes have been skyrocketing in some counties of late and that alone is making housing unaffordable for many. Since Texas doesn't have state income taxes, they have to pay for everything with property taxes, and they have relaxed their controls on those in order to produce more revenue.
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"Yes, as the second most populous state and another one where you can survive winter outside,"
CA has more deaths from exposure amongst the homeless than NY does. Because CA is doing it wrong. Period. You have a better shot surviving being homeless in NYC than you do in Los Angeles.
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This is going to blow your mind, but we have below freezing temperatures in California, too. I know, it's stunning to think that a state which covers a lot of latitudes also covers a lot of climates, but there it is.
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" Texas has problems with homelessness too,"
And it's nothing like CA. What are their unsheltered homeless numbers? Los Angeles alone is north of 40k. They have less than 30k homeless state wide.
Let that sink in. Los Angeles, with a total population 1/3 of the Texas population has a population of unsheltered homeless that are 3x the number of total homeless in the entire state of Texas (sheltered or otherwise).
To ad insult to injury, NYC has more total homeless than Los Angeles along -- but they actually
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You just know all they're talking points and always go for them in every single election. But no sir, you're a free thinking libertarian.
And what does libertarianism mean? Not having to put your girlfriend in a car seat. God bless Rand Paul. -
sure, i’ll bite that #whatabout.. california’s electricity prices were doing just fine until REPUBLICAN PETE WILSON signed legislation deregulating the market. many utility companies jumped at the chance to sell their power plants so they could uncap price controls. it ended badly as the folks who bought the plants immediately shut them down during a heat wave to create scarcity and jack up prices. the utilities basically had to give the money back and ended up with nothing but one-time executive bonuses.
if you’re going to whatabout, at least pick a scenario that works for your argument.
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"40k+ unsheltered homeless literally living in the streets in just LA alone."
A massive chunk of those having been bused in from other states. Try again.
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"A massive chunk of those having been bused in from other states. Try again."
Most of those came here for "covered california" rehab already homeless and stayed.
https://www.ocregister.com/201... [ocregister.com]
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Homelessness is a problem the world over. The Good Ole Boys in Tennessee have made it illegal. They'll send you to jail.
So... take your pick. Have a tent city or have the taxpayers fund their stay in jail (for years)?
Please tell us what you would like?
No doubt some Rep State will soon legislate the return of the Workhouse. "Hard times" ahead. -
When was the last rolling blackout in California? When was the last time Texas froze and ground to a halt because their utilities aren't up to snuff?
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2021 affecting about 800,000. Was that even a question.
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That was more than a decade ago. There has been more than ample opportunity to get off TDC and do whatever it is you think should have been done.
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Do you live in CA? Did you prior to Schwarzenegger Governorship? We recalled Davis for what you are ascribing to Schwarzenegger.
"California has a budget surplus"
Funny how that surplus vanishes when you include both unfunded liabilities and the EDD monies CA needs to repay to the fed.
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Noting that Schwarzenegger may as well not have existed. Why? Because of the Democrats supermajority. They could propose and pass any bill they liked and just told him to bugger off and go lift a few more weights.
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"Otherwise you have zero respect from me."
From you, a poster that modeled his name after another to sow confusion. Your respect means so much to all of us.
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How about asking Crypto miners to stop for a while? After all Texas is now going all in, into crypto now, right?
I assume the other industries there, like the Tesla factory, etc, will have more value for the state then the crypto miners now.
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Lol, Tesla can use batteries to keep the plant running during the blackouts.
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Many of Texas's crypto data centers are using their own natural-gas generators in rural locations, by generating electric power from natural gas that otherwise in the past had been burned off as waste via a big outdoor flame. Hence, non sequitur for those cryptocurrency miners.
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No, not "many". A handful.
Most look like the Compute North datacenter in Granbury or the monstrosity in Rockdale, both of which are connected to the grid and are way too big to be powered off flared gas.And, if these companies are setting up near fracking wells (most are as they produce the higher amounts of flared methane) then they're in for a nasty surprise as the production horizon of fracking wells drops off precipitously after 6 - 8 months. By the end of the 1st year the well must either be re-perforated or shut down due to poor production.
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The crypto mines near wells are in containers. If the well is shut down they just put the container back on a truck and move it somewhere else. They're not building structures.
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That decision will be made based on who gives Greg Abbott and his party the most money and attention.
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The big surprise for me is when the news asks people to limit use of large appliances, they never mention delay charging until overnight. Seems to be much like crypto mining. Easy way to cut large amounts of juice off the grid if needed. I actually don't know, do the 10+ KW home chargers automatically power down on command from grid operators? Maybe they already do this.
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Better yet, pass legislation that commercial-scale crypto mining can only use excess grid power from solar, wind, and nuclear.
That might help solve one of the problems of nuclear (slow ramp time), since they can quickly ramp mining demand to consume excess power from the nukes without having to turn them off/down.
For solar and wind, it would encourage/fund building excess capacity that can again quickly be freed up by stopping mining.
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soaring temperatures increased demand and caused six power generation facilities to trip offline
Gee, whoever would have thought that you would have to design power plants to be able to sustain high temperatures in Texas?
What a bag of absolute chucklefucks.
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Do you have any idea how much money that would cost?!?
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"Gee, whoever would have thought that you would have to design power plants to be able to sustain high temperatures in Texas?"
Temps in Texas are not unusual and literally everyone in Texas has understood this longer than any of us has been alive. Your high school snark is misplaced.
"What a bag of absolute chucklefucks."
No, it is corporate greed combined with Republican politics. They aren't stupid, they're goals are simply not aligned with reasonably thinking people.
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Yeah, that was the basis of my comment. Good catch, tiger!
It's literally impossible to understand it for longer than you've been alive, sport.
Can't sell power when you're not generating power. I thought they were in the business of selling power?
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They could air condition them.
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Based on Texas's past rhetoric, I'd say they'll probably try to blame the Solar and Wind industries for the outages instead of the poor management of their grid.
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I must admit that it's rather entertaining to watch this positive feedback loop of "electrical system failure/blame renewables/elect even shittier conservatives who neglect and sabotage the system even harder/repeat" that Texas is willfully holding itself in, there was once a comedy article that joked that Sarah Palin would "uninvent electricity" but Texas conservatives might actually pull it off with their state grid at this rate! XD
Conservatives are pretty good at both tolerating and deflecting blame for
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Texas culture of cronyism and corruption dates well before R "southern strategy" stuck a different party tag on the living room elephant. Read anything on Roy Hofheinz and the Astrodome, and the fawning sycophancy around massive corruption especially if it involves football. Read on the Sharpstown scandal, one of whose figures I, at an early age, met in his house.
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Of course they are. What’s causing the heat? The sun. What drives solar? The sun. What moves hot air around? The wind. Who supports them? DEMOCRATS. It’s Biden’s fault.
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No, they will blame Solar and Wind for making it "too hot".. basically no matter what, its solar and wind's fault..
I'm halfway surprised they didn't blame solar and wind for making them stub their big toe.
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Because you get what you pay for. In this case the grid supply can't handle the max demand
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Their grid is a classic example of cronyism. The utilities commission are all friends with politicians and the body has no real power. They can only recommend changes or upgrades, not mandate them. Like with the once in a century ice storms that happened in 2021, 2011, 1988, etc etc.
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I can't imagine that the populace would be happy about rate hikes either
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Average it in with the 2021 winter storm, and everything works out to be average.
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https://electrek.co/2022/05/14... [electrek.co]
Tesla advised drivers to avoid charging at times of peak demand to reduce the strain on the grid. Most EV drivers charge at night anway, though, so EVs shouldn't be a significant factor in the current shortage.
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They try to act like life is hell in democrat states, but it isn't,. For example, if you look at the top 10 highest violent crime states, 7 of them are Republican run. The right wing pushes the narrative that DeSantis (who is hoping Trump chooses him for VP in 2024) made Florida safe, but Florida has a higher murder rate than California even though it is full of old people.
They claim California is broke, but we had the highest budget surplus by far of any state. California is richer and safer than Florida or Texas, yet Repblicans want us to think California is a hellhole, while Florida is a paradise. Fuck you fools.
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Of course, it's individuals and not industry that is being asked to cut back on power usage. Empty office buildings will be maintained at a nice cool 71ÂF.
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yeah , these might be record temperatures for May, but come June they will turn to slightly above normal and in July they will be normal.
Whatever is going on, they better fix it soon, or they are going to be completely and totally screwed this summer.
I mean, if they don't have enough power now, how exactly are they going to have enough power in August ??
So let's watch in Nov 2022 and see how many of the asshats currently responsible for this mess get re-elected...
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Texas leads the nation on abortion rights. Abortions must not be happening. Stupid imposter trying to be significant.
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"But do not worry, the next one I choose will be closer to yours. How does nmell sound? Or mmeIl?"
Pig loves rolling in shit.
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Don't mess with my wheels. Don't mess with my woman. Don't mess with my castle. Don't mess with my loot.
Today, in that order.
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1) You aren't thinking too straight are you?
2) Tesla software allows the car to charge during off-peak hours and is aware of the power grid issues. You car will automatically wait till evening to charge unless you force it to. Just because it is plugged in does not mean it is charging.
Stay in school kids, or you'll end up like OP.
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Yeah, and use other people's air conditioners as target practice.
Seriously, don't mess with other people's stuff. Unplugging someone's car is one step short of slashing their tires.
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I doubt it was the nukes. The power loss would be higher. I am thinking it is some of the peaker plants. TX is having an early summer. Normally April/May is one of the times plants do maintenance as demand is typically low. It has been a very warm May and as early as a week ago ERCOT was asking power plants to reschedule maint or if they were already doing maint, cut it short to come back online. Some of those plants coming off maint that wasn't completed may have failed. TX already has a great deal of sola
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LOL as though Texas has no taxes. Are you an idiot?
Texas has no income tax, it still has property taxes and sales taxes and those still affect poorer people.
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