Texas in the winter?

[TCABM]

... the race to be the lowest cost provider needs to be tempered, in the public interest, by a willingness to concede that worst-case disaster scenarios happen, and the unlikely- though-not-impossible needs to planned and budgeted for accordingly...

This, quite simply is where our regulatory model failed. The presumption was peak demand would incentivize generators and suppliers to prepare for the worst AND to keep up with base load requirements due to demand growth.

That presumption was wrong. Then, add to it cases like our local city-owned utility; their peakers (much like a lot of other places down here) were off-line to begin with for long-term maintenance; even if they could have spun those peakers up in time because they heeded the weather dog’s warmings, some portion of those peakers weren’t going to be available anyways. And some, like ours, also did not heed the weather dog. That decision, to me, is a failure of the worst degree. A .gov entity whose sole purpose is to provide a public good chose to abdicate it’s responsiblity. Meanwhile the elected folks lay blame elsewhere in an effort to spin a good story and distract their constituents.

I *think* where most of the level-headed people I know stand is that the crisis-response management double-speak and jargon is just a horseshît attempt at transparency. What we’d like to see is something we’re used to...the military style aircrew debrief. Let’s lay this failed mission on the table and dissect in plain English how each of us individually performed (both good and bad), find the root causes, and then fix the root causes so there isn’t a next time. Yep, it’s going to be costly.

But when .gov monopolizes base load generation and delivery, that bill pretty much has to be paid.

 

[TCABM]

Back to the OP’s original concern...here in San Antonio no fresh produce as of last night, and still under voluntary boil water order. Son went to job at burger joint and they weren’t allowed to sell any items that relied on produce, or drinks with water or ice. So sold lots of French fries and milkshakes.

I don’t know about Corpus.

TX ANG was flying potable water into Corpus and Galveston yesterday. They got hit as bad as everyone else.

 

[danhagan]

North Dakota has wind turbines. Do they all freeze in the winter? Seems odd to build something that only works ~6 months out of the year.

Am guessing difference is winterization on all power production models (wind, solar, gas, et al). We had the same here in El Paso 10 years ago (we're not on ERCOT). El Paso electric invested in making sure their water lines would not freeze again shutting down their operations ...

 

[TCABM]

North Dakota has wind turbines. Do they all freeze in the winter? Seems odd to build something that only works ~6 months out of the year.

Ron Wanttaja

In addition, winter here ranges from 2 weeks to two months of near-freezing temps. The greatest demand for electric is HVAC, which is temp differential. Near freezing is about 30*-40* from the 68-72* thermostat settings, which about 30-40* from most of our high temps. That’s nominal for base load.

For this event, it was 100+ hours of near- or below zero temps across almost all 254 counties. Now you’re talking a 60*+ differential to cover in homes that are designed to be energy efficient in months of 100*+ heat. Lots of techniques incorporated to shed heat, not retain it. Result is more load demand for longer durations that the system as a whole is designed for, especially considering 4+M net population increase since our last serious cold snap 10 years ago, which was nowhere near as far-reaching or as cold for as long of a duration as this one was.

Not truly a 100 year event, but certainly eye-opening on assumptions and plans made a decade ago.

If only forethought was as clear as hindsight.

 

[AggieMike88]

If only forethought was as clear as hindsight

Insert a meme of a Magic 8-ball