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ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

dspp
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ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#388699

Postby dspp » February 22nd, 2021, 12:36 pm

(Reuters) - Texas utility regulators will temporarily ban power companies from billing customers or disconnecting them for non-payment, after the deadly winter storm that caused widespread blackouts, Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday.......

Texas has a highly unusual deregulated energy market that lets consumers choose between scores of competing electricity providers. .......

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who was forced to cut short a jaunt with his family to the Mexican beach resort of Cancun after public outrage, also distanced himself from the free-market system he had previously praised.

“This is WRONG,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “No power company should get a windfall because of a natural disaster, and Texans shouldn’t get hammered by ridiculous rate increases for last week’s energy debacle. State and local regulators should act swiftly to prevent this injustice.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-wea ... SL1N2KR0HR

And here is a brilliant poster re Crux in Cancun - though that may have to wait until imgur behaves. (I'll come back and post that when it does)

regards, dspp

dspp
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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#388712

Postby dspp » February 22nd, 2021, 1:05 pm

Apparently Cruz went on a trip, though I can't be sure who to credit for this adaptation,

Image

dspp
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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#389106

Postby dspp » February 23rd, 2021, 11:35 am

The Texas electricity crisis and the energy transition
The following is a contributed article by Alex Gilbert, project manager at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance and Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/the-te ... on/595315/

"As many households do not have sufficient insulation, millions of people have suffered near freezing, life-threatening indoor conditions. "

"Power plants in particular failed to perform at the level expected by grid planners. Both electric demand and forced outages greatly exceeded ERCOT's pre-winter resource assessment. Almost 30 GW of natural gas, coal, and nuclear generators (roughly half of what was expected to be online) were already on outage or suffered from a forced outage. Natural gas is the primary electricity source in the state, and was expected to provide as much as two thirds of electric capacity in such conditions. As much as 40% of natural gas capacity was not available.

While the precise reasons are yet to be revealed, these outages are likely due to a mix of plant-level issues and gas pipeline delivery issues. The interdependence between the gas and power sectors has been clearly illuminated. Frozen oil and gas wells cut production and there may be insufficient pipeline capacity. In one of the oil and gas capitals of the world, power plants could not get natural gas to operate. Even one of the state's four nuclear reactors, usually most resilient to weather-related disruptions, suffered an outage due to a sensor issue. Meanwhile, some wind turbines suffered from icing, with renewable energy capacity — compared to grid planning criteria — either overperforming or underperforming depending on the day."

"Unlike other electricity markets, ERCOT has an "energy-only" market that does not feature capacity markets or other capacity mechanism — long the dream of pure market economists. Instead, the market relies on the potential for electricity price spikes to incentivize reliability. As a result, Texas has one of the lowest reserve margins in the country. It also is largely isolated from the other two, much larger, power systems in the US — to the east and west. This, too, was a political decision to avoid regulatory oversight."

"Even though the storm was particularly severe, it was not entirely unprecedented. Exactly ten years ago, Texas suffered rolling outages due to a winter storm. Most recommendations that came from that event appear to have been ignored. Compared to ERCOT, El Paso suffered similar weather conditions but maintained power"


etc

- dspp

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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#389468

Postby 88V8 » February 24th, 2021, 10:56 am

dspp wrote:[b]...Texas has one of the lowest reserve margins in the country.

The CEGB used to have a lot of reserve capacity.
A cursory search finds The total electricity consumed by UK only grown by around 20% over 35 years from 250TWh to 300TWh (2016); however the "capacity reserve margin" available to the National Grid has declined since the days of the nationalised electricity industry from about 35% in 1980 to only 4% in 2016 - and effectively zero over the winter 2016/17

I'm all in favour of the free market, but it has its disadvantages......

dspp wrote:....with renewable energy capacity — compared to grid planning criteria — either overperforming or underperforming depending on the day."

....as does green energy.

V8

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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#389983

Postby dspp » February 25th, 2021, 3:11 pm

credit to JohnKempReuters for the slide deck, but also for hosting it for us out-of-USA folks,

see slide 6 which looks like the control room shift from hell (the sort of thing you do in exercises, or frequently on ships/rigs, but never want to do on land with civilians)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k8CkN0 ... xt-DB/view

Partial extract from JohnKempReuters:
"ERCOT’s own preliminary analysis of the factors contributing to the power failure last week can be accessed from the link above and is worth reading in full. But the single-slide summary of the crisis is reproduced below. Grid frequency is a useful statistic for the state of the system and is actually used as an operational control target. If generation exceeds load, frequency will exceed target, which in ERCOT’s case is 60Hz. If generation is less than load, frequency will drop below. Frequency deviations can damage equipment so controllers aim to keep system frequency very close to 60Hz at all times. [For grids in the UK and Europe the target is 50Hz.] Professional controllers take pride in achieving a straight-line, always on-target print.

ERCOT reported a severe frequency deviation overnight on Sunday Feb. 14 and Monday Feb. 15. As generators failed, frequency fell below target. If uncorrected, the deviation could have led to a cascading power failure as protective instruments disconnnected the remaining transmission lines and generators from the grid to protect them. The control room attempted to reverse the deviation by ordering load shedding to bring system-wide load back into balance with generation. But as generation failures multiplied, the deviation continued to worsen. As a final resort, ERCOT ordered thousands of megawatts of load forcibly disconnected in a last-ditch attempt to protect the rest of the network.

The frequency chart shows a power grid on the brink of collapse. Total collapse was only averted by the rapid reaction of control room staff. It is a tribute to their professionalism under extreme pressure that the grid did not collapse entirely, necessitating a state-wide “black start” that would have taken days. But the question that must be answered is how the grid got to this state in the first place.
"

hosting explanation,
"I’d like to thank a correspondent for sending me a copy of the slides, which I was unable to obtain myself. ERCOT blocks access to its entire website from non-U.S. IP addresses, including such harmless items as news releases, basic background information, and reliability reports, presumably to protect itself from cyberattacks. ERCOT's secretiveness has reached North Korean levels. Other major grid operators and reliability coordinators, including PJM Interconnection, MISO Energy and California ISO, do not feel the need to do this. "

- dspp

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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#391406

Postby dspp » March 2nd, 2021, 10:08 am

Bankruptcy filings start

Texas power cooperative files for bankruptcy, citing $1.8 billion grid debt
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The largest and oldest electric power cooperative in Texas filed for bankruptcy protection in Houston on Monday, citing a disputed $1.8 billion debt to the state’s grid operator.

etc https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bank ... SKCN2AT1FE

regards, dspp

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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#391450

Postby 88V8 » March 2nd, 2021, 11:13 am

dspp wrote:Bankruptcy filings start....

Brazos, who according to the slide set you linked previously only dropped 4.95% of the power outed, but seem to be stuck with $1.8bn of fees at what they say is 500 times the usual rate.

That was a fascinating set of slides you linked previously.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k8CkN0 ... xt-DB/view
But I saw nothing about spinning reserve capacity, and all the 2011 recommendations they mention seem to be about managing what they have.
These - disputed - ERCOT fees that have prompted the bankruptcy defence will hardly encourage more capacity to enter the market.

Plus there is apparently a shortfall in the gas supply system which presumably prompts more questions about who is going to pay for additional capacity.

And half the wind was out. If the wind does not oblige, at times most of the wind could be out anyway, which makes it a useless frippery when push come to shove.

Perhaps Texans just have to be told that they need more spare capacity in the system and they must pay for it via their bills.

Likewise in the UK; as we go greener, we need more spare capacity &/or batteries. Both have to be paid for, a point the govt are not keen to emphasise.

V8

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Re: ERCOT (Texas) wriggles

#391481

Postby dspp » March 2nd, 2021, 12:09 pm

88V8 wrote:
dspp wrote:Bankruptcy filings start....

Brazos, who according to the slide set you linked previously only dropped 4.95% of the power outed, but seem to be stuck with $1.8bn of fees at what they say is 500 times the usual rate.

That was a fascinating set of slides you linked previously.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k8CkN0 ... xt-DB/view
But I saw nothing about spinning reserve capacity, and all the 2011 recommendations they mention seem to be about managing what they have.
These - disputed - ERCOT fees that have prompted the bankruptcy defence will hardly encourage more capacity to enter the market.

Plus there is apparently a shortfall in the gas supply system which presumably prompts more questions about who is going to pay for additional capacity.

And half the wind was out. If the wind does not oblige, at times most of the wind could be out anyway, which makes it a useless frippery when push come to shove.

Perhaps Texans just have to be told that they need more spare capacity in the system and they must pay for it via their bills.

Likewise in the UK; as we go greener, we need more spare capacity &/or batteries. Both have to be paid for, a point the govt are not keen to emphasise.

V8


V8,

It is worse in the US. The fossil lobbyists deliberately lobbied and got batteries categorised as "generation" so as to make them uneconomic to install on the grid. That was a deliberate effort, by exactly the same proponents as designed the de-regulated Texas grid, in such a way as to promote fossil over renewables. Until the batteries are recategorised as reserves, and obtain the same tax etc inducements that reserves get, then Texas ERCOT etc will not see significant build-out of market-driven battery reserves as a business. However rich individuals will act and will install batteries on their own properties, and the poor can shiver without gas or elec.

regards, dspp


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