Replies to post #413152 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Texas Calls for Power Conservation After Six Generators Fail
Source: Bloomberg News

The Texas grid operator called on residents to conserve energy Friday after six generation facilities tripped offline amid hot weather, prompting power prices to spike.

The power-plant failures resulted in a loss of about 2,900 megawatts of electricity, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said in an email statement Friday. That’s enough power for about 580,000 homes and businesses. Natural-gas fired plants make up all of the generation that failed, an Ercot spokesman said.

The Texas grid is being stressed by high heat in a potential preview of peak summertime demand. This summer will test whether Ercot has made sufficient changes to reinforce a system that experienced cascading power-plant failures and deadly blackouts during a historic freeze in early 2021.

On Thursday, the Public Utility Commission of Texas expressed concern that generators haven’t had enough time to perform seasonal maintenance ahead of summer. The risk: summertime maintenance amid stronger heat can lead to supply shortages and potentially rolling blackouts.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-13/texas-calls-for-energy-conservation-after-six-power-plants-fail

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142916788

40. It's Politicians Managing The Grid

Politicians decided to not allow connections to other grids outside TX to prevent federal oversight (under the interstate trade clause).

This means TX consumers are beholden solely to TX generators. If something goes wrong on the system, and it almost always does, they can't transfer power from out of state generators to keep the grid functioning. Thus you can strain the system to the point it partially or completely fails.

As a side benefit, folks who buy on the spot market get huge bills if their power stays on. As electricity on the grid becomes scarce, the price goes up (for those not locked into a contracted rate, which is typically higher than the spot price).

So yeah, TX politicians (Republicans) are to blame if the grid goes wonky. And when the grid goes wonky, TX residential customers who didn't learn from the last time this happened (and buy electricity on contract vs spot) are going to get astronomical electric bills if their power does stays on.

Funny how the party of commerce (Republicans) doesn't seem to understand or appreciate market forces.