THIS is Texas? 6º F

[wwillson]

I've replaced every gate valve in our house with a 1/4 turn ball valve. Gate valves are cheap for the builder, but end up being a serious pain for the homeowner. Luckily the city water shutoff where the service comes into the house was already a ball valve.

Ball valves just work.

 

[Snagglefoot]

In a home I rented in the Shadow Briar neighbourhood in Houston in 1990, I recall a few things that had me wondering.

1. The water line came out of the ground outside of the house, turned 90 degrees and entered the house. I purchased a heat trace tape and wrapped the pipe in insulation. The salesman at Home Depot noted the tape was manufactured in Canada and told me “ they know about cold up there”. Yes indeed.

2. Basements are rare in Houston and for good reason. ( recall the flood?). Therefore the plumbing pipes are in the attic instead of the basement.

3. The water heater and most of the piping was in the attic was on the cold side of the attic insulation. I mentioned this to a friend at work and he joked the pipes were there to hold down the insulation during hurricanes.

This was back in 1990. I sure hope the building codes have been improved since then. The neighbourhood was fairly upscale with a community pool and security officers, so I doubt the construction was any worse than the norm.

I don’t want to criticize my Texas friends but it seems that a one in 10 year event should be covered by building codes. The authorities are to blame here.

 

[Snagglefoot]

I didn't read the entire thread, so forgive me if this was already asked. Don't homes in Texas have valves to shut off and drain the plumbing systems?

The freeze has been on for several days now. Shutting off the water means no workable toilets. Recall the anxiety over toilet paper. This would be worse.

 

[Snagglefoot]

You can’t predict the weather … no rain but now hit by Canadian Mist

Haha. It could be worse, b’y. You might get hit by a Canadian Club!

 

[OVERKILL]

No, I just think your source is fundamentally dishonest and fundamentally mischaracterizes the issue and actually and somehow you have the arrogance to think I would actually accept your cute meme. I actually asked you where it was sourced from, but hey, post whatever colorful pics you want..

What are you talking about? The "source" is just ERCOT, it's a snapshot of total installed capacity for each source followed by anticipated capacity. There was no "cute meme", are you so eager to get offended that you'd intentionally misinterpret what has been presented?

The Capacity Factors are available here:
https://mis.ercot.com/public/data-products/markets/data-aggregation

Along with production data and all kinds of reports.

I do find it interesting however that you'd find attempted clarification on something that is clearly misunderstood as arrogant because it pushes-back relative to whatever narrative you've already decided to personally invest in.

Or maybe the 800 articles on the web that fundamentally contradict what you are attempting to state. Maybe you can "break" some of those down?.

You only THINK they contradict what I've stated because you have either willfully made the decision to misinterpret what has been stated or are not properly comprehending the material presented.

Do you understand the difference between capacity and capacity factor? Do you understand what nameplate capacity is? If not, it's OK, most people in the media don't either.

The actual fact is that no one ever said that the reason we have rolling blackouts in Texas is because we do not have enough wind farms, it was politicians doing the 'spinning' by claiming that wind and solar are the reason for all of this. The main issue was the failure to plan and the understandable, but unfortunate, reliance on electric based heat in Texas. Do you need me to break that down for you?

Let's try this again.

Wind was not the major factor in failing to meet demand BECAUSE IT WAS NOT EXPECTED TO SHOW UP IN ANY SIGNIFICANT CAPACITY. That fact in no way invalidates the data I've presented, and in fact is wholly supported by the table from ERCOT, which shows that while INSTALLED CAPACITY for wind, within ERCOT, is about 28,000MW, they only expected 7,000MW to be available. That's a far cry from the amount of gas capacity that became unavailable.

Do you want to try and talk through where the figures I've presented APPEAR to diverge from what the media is stating or do you want to continue to be offended? Because nothing I've said here is offensive or "mean".

The claim that wind power is only 10% of Texas's generation CAPACITY is incorrect. If you'd like a few more sources on that, heck, we can even bring in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas

Wind power in Texas consists of over 150 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 30,000 MW (as of 2020).[1][2] If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world:[1] The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state.[1][3] According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power.[4][5] ERCOT set a new wind output record of nearly 19.7 GW at 7:19 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, January 21, 2019.[

Which is consistent with the ERCOT data already posted.

So, let's go back to the ERCOT table:
For the period in question, total AVAILABLE capacity, note the emphasis, was expected to be ~78,000MW. Of that 78,000MW, 7,000MW was supposed to be wind, or roughly 9%. Do you see where the 10% figure is coming from now? So of 28,000MW of wind capacity, only 25% of it was anticipated being available. Actual capacity was half that, only 10% of installed capacity showed up on average.

On the other hand, 51,000MW of gas capacity was expected to show up, making up 65% of anticipated output, but only 32,000MW (62% of capacity) actually did, roughly a 20,000MW deficit, resulting in the rolling blackouts because available capacity didn't meet demand.

Does the table make more sense now?

So while wind is 28% of total installed capacity, the grid operators rarely, if ever, count on full nameplate capacity being available. They look at weather conditions and wind patterns and fudge a figure that should be close. In the case for the 15th, that figure was 25% of installed capacity or 7,000MW, roughly 10% of anticipated capacity, which it failed to meet by 50% on average, but since that's only a 3,500MW deficit compared to the 20,000MW deficit with gas, it was not the major factor in failing to meet demand.

This does however highlight an issue I've opined about on here before, and that's the low inherent capacity VALUE of wind. As we can see, its expected contribution relative to nameplate was quite low, which shows that grid operators are not planning around wind capacity being available in any significant amount to meet periods of high demand and instead are relying on fossil sources, typically gas, instead.

 

[4WD]

In a home I rented in the Shadow Briar neighbourhood in Houston in 1990, I recall a few things that had me wondering.

1. The water line came out of the ground outside of the house, turned 90 degrees and entered the house. I purchased a heat trace tape and wrapped the pipe in insulation. The salesman at Home Depot noted the tape was manufactured in Canada and told me “ they know about cold up there”. Yes indeed.

2. Basements are rare in Houston and for good reason. ( recall the flood?). Therefore the plumbing pipes are in the attic instead of the basement.

3. The water heater and most of the piping was in the attic was on the cold side of the attic insulation. I mentioned this to a friend at work and he joked the pipes were there to hold down the insulation during hurricanes.

This was back in 1990. I sure hope the building codes have been improved since then. The neighbourhood was fairly upscale with a community pool and security officers, so I doubt the construction was any worse than the norm.

I don’t want to criticize my Texas friends but it seems that a one in 10 year event should be covered by building codes. The authorities are to blame here.

As mentioned before there is one house in my town with a basement … it’s a mansion …
Pipe with ball valve (my house) comes out of ground and passes the brick. It is insulated well … but I also have a heat lamp and a sheet of aluminum help slow the heat loss from lamp. Will come up with something better later on.

10 year event I wonder about … I have not seen below 24F here - these freezes are normally a short period before daylight and then we rise above freezing. Most don’t include ice loads everywhere … Some frost and then sunshine and today is my first clear day in many …
We have 20 year old trees that are buckling as they die one by one … Plants that survived every winter for 20 years that are turning brown and down.
They are likely better indicators than what the news will tell …

 

[4WD]

What are you talking about? The "source" is just ERCOT, it's a snapshot of total installed capacity for each source followed by anticipated capacity. There was no "cute meme", are you so eager to get offended that you'd intentionally misinterpret what has been presented?

The Capacity Factors are available here:
https://mis.ercot.com/public/data-products/markets/data-aggregation

Along with production data and all kinds of reports.

I do find it interesting however that you'd find attempted clarification on something that is clearly misunderstood as arrogant because it pushes-back relatively to whatever narrative you've already decided to personally invest in.

You only THINK they contradict what I've stated because you have either willfully made the decision to misinterpret what has been stated or are not properly comprehending the material presented.

Do you understand the difference between capacity and capacity factor? Do you understand what nameplate capacity is? If not, it's OK, most people in the media don't either.


Let's try this again.

Wind was not the major factor in failing to meet demand BECAUSE IT WAS NOT EXPECTED TO SHOW UP IN ANY SIGNIFICANT CAPACITY. That fact in no way invalidates the data I've presented, and in fact is wholly supported by the table from ERCOT, which shows that while INSTALLED CAPACITY for wind, within ERCOT, is about 28,000MW, they only expected 7,000MW to be available. That's a far cry from the amount of gas capacity that became unavailable.

Do you want to try and talk through where the figures I've presented APPEAR to diverge from what the media is stating or do you want to continue to be offended? Because nothing I've said here is offensive or "mean".

The claim that wind power is only 10% of Texas's generation CAPACITY is incorrect. If you'd like a few more sources on that, heck, we can even bring in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas



Which is consistent with the ERCOT data already posted.

So, let's go back to the ERCOT table:
For the period in question, total AVAILABLE capacity, note the emphasis, was expected to be ~78,000MW. Of that 78,000MW, 7,000MW was supposed to be wind, or roughly 9%. Do you see where the 10% figure is coming from now? So of 28,000MW of wind capacity, only 25% of it was anticipated being available. Actual capacity was half that, only 10% of installed capacity showed up on average.

On the other hand, 51,000MW of gas capacity was expected to show up, making up 65% of anticipated output, but only 32,000MW (62% of capacity) actually did, roughly a 20,000MW deficit, resulting in the rolling blackouts because available capacity didn't meet demand.

Does the table make more sense now?

So while wind is 28% of total installed capacity, the grid operators rarely, if ever, count on full nameplate capacity being available. They look at weather conditions and wind patterns and fudge a figure that should be close. In the case for the 15th, that figure was 25% of installed capacity or 7,000MW, roughly 10% of anticipated capacity, which it failed to meet by 50% on average, but since that's only a 3,500MW deficit compared to the 20,000MW deficit with gas, it was not the major factor in failing to meet demand.

This does however highlight an issue I've opined about on here before however, and that's the low inherent capacity VALUE of wind. As we can see, its expected contribution relative to nameplate was quite low, which shows that grid operators are not planning around wind capacity being available in any significant amount to meet periods of high demand and instead are relying on fossil sources, typically gas, instead.

The Texas LG was on TV last night … said on a perfect day they might get 23% from wind and hopefully 12% in the winter but fell way short of that. They are well aware that all systems fell short but are not going to play catch-up with wind power. It’s going to be easier to fortify other systems.

As someone who faired well … the part I’d add to Snags building code - and what works year round would be bumping up insulation systems - and they are systems. That works year round and when you may only have a tiny source of heating or cooling … gift that keeps on giving. Promotion of gas heating needs to happen as well.
But, we really need to get the electrical LOADS down ! Greens, ya hear that ?

 

[Snagglefoot]

Here is a cool article on cold snap in history in Texas. I happened to be living in Houston in 1989 when a cold snap did a billion dollars of damage (2021 currency). Enjoy.

https://spacecityweather.com/looking-back-at-some-previous-historic-houston-cold-snaps/

 

[OVERKILL]

The Texas LG was on TV last night … said on a perfect day they might get 23% from wind and hopefully 12% in the winter but fell way short of that. They are well aware that all systems fell short but are not going to play catch-up with wind power. It’s going to be easier to fortify other systems.

As someone who faired well … the part I’d add to Snags building code - and what works year round would be bumping up insulation systems - and they are systems. That works year round and when you may only have a tiny source of heating or cooling … gift that keeps on giving. Promotion of gas heating needs to happen as well.
We need to get the electrical LOADS down ! Greens, ya hear that ?

And that makes sense. If we look at the Wikipedia article, there are two graphs:

And there's a table as well that shows that Oct/Nov/Dec appear to be the highest output months on average, the summer output is lower, but nowhere near as bad as here in Ontario.

If we take the 2019 figures from the two graphs above we get an average annual capacity factor of 33.4%. So, on average, 28,843MW of wind produced 9,638MW, which is a fair bit higher than its anticipated contribution during this event, as noted.

 

[SeaJay]

Texas is not the only place that has been known to lose power. We used to live in lower Westchester County, just over the NYC border.

Most of the county (but not my locale there) is super high priced, high property taxed residential homes, $500K gets you a run-down smaller property that needs work in most of the county. My SIL & husband had a house elsewhere in the county and would typically lose power for 1-4 days an average of two or three times per winter. Winds and ice knocking down trees which in turn knocked down the above ground electric wires.

 

[4WD]

 

[Rmay635703]

On the other hand, 51,000MW of gas capacity was expected to show up, making up 65% of anticipated output, but only 32,000MW EVENTUALLY came online

It's not that simple. It had nothing directly to do with wind and solar because neither

There fixed it for you.

You really like to spin nonsense to fit a narrative.

When the grid went down in Texas only half of all installed capacity was available and utilized. 32,000MW of gas was nowhere to be found for at least 4 hours followed by at least 2 other near full outages

So while 32,000MW eventually came up speaking like it was instantly there is a lie

Your narrative that there is no point to wind because it went down could be used against natural gas just as easily
as 32,000MW or even 100GW is meaningless if no one can actually use it due to a widespread grid outage exaggerated by a delay in gas power coming online.

Based on the service blotter it’s been weeks of whack a mole failures across their grid most of which have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Wind or Solar.

When coal/nuclear water lines, gas and electric lines and substations are physically damaged having a one directional conversation about a specific power source as being the end all cause of all that ails you is ignorant of reality and more of a hack job to cover up the systemic failure of not just Texas grid decisions but also their failure to properly build livable homes that meet the most minimal of agreed engineering/building standards
many of which are unlivable in zero F even if the power was on.

Cause yeah a house that floods every time it gets below zero or power plants that burst supply lines below zero is totally not a problem , it’s the windmills

 

[wwillson]

Cause yeah a house that floods every time it gets below zero or power plants that burst supply lines below zero is totally not a problem , it’s the windmills

Overkill didn't say that, he said it wasn't the fault of wind because they never expected wind to produce more than it did.

 

[wag123]

The bottom line is this... wind and solar power sources can NOT be depended on 100%. This is why the Texas power generation system has enough fossil fuel power plants available to meet the highest expected demand without the availability of wind and solar power, they just decrease their usage as the wind and solar power output permits. Many of the natural gas power plants use gas turbines which can be brought on-line very quickly, IF there is gas available (which in this case, it wasn't). When it comes to coal, these plants can't be brought on-line quickly, so they run these at full-bore pretty much all of the time. I reiterate, the problem we have been through in Texas started because of a natural gas shortage due to frozen natural gas infrastructure. This is one of the first things that Texas officials need to look at. They also need to look closely at joining one of the two national power grids if they are unwilling to address the obvious shortcomings in the current system.

 

[RTexasF]

I didn't read the entire thread, so forgive me if this was already asked. Don't homes in Texas have valves to shut off and drain the plumbing systems?

Shut offs yes but I've never seen a way to drain the system other than opening the taps.

 

[SZR48207]

Why does Texas need to do anything at all ? It seems the likelihood of this sort of winter event occurring again is maybe in another 50 or 75 years? Their generation and grid is already more than sufficient to keep everyone cooled during the summer, which is what their focus should be on anyway.

Give it a few weeks and let some other national drama capture everyone's mind and this past week will have been forgotten. The public has such a fleeting attention span anyway.

 

[OVERKILL]

There fixed it for you.

You really like to spin nonsense to fit a narrative.

You apparently really like to misinterpret data that's right in front of your face.

When the grid went down in Texas only half of all installed capacity was available and utilized. 32,000MW of gas was nowhere to be found for at least 4 hours followed by at least 2 other near full outages

So while 32,000MW eventually came up speaking like it was instantly there is a lie

I think you are confused with respect to what I'm saying. 32,000MW, is only 62% of capacity online; 20,000MW of gas absent, by far the biggest lack of anticipated capacity, which I've made clear. On the 15th, the lowest gas got was 27,542MW of 51,000MW, per the table from ERCOT, a deficit of 23,711MW. Anticipated was all 51,253MW of gas capacity, so on average, gas only satisfied 62% of its anticipated capacity and at minimum hit 54%.

Your narrative that there is no point to wind because it went down could be used against natural gas just as easily
as 32,000MW or even 100GW is meaningless if no one can actually use it due to a widespread grid outage exaggerated by a delay in gas power coming online.

If your takeaway from my comments here is that we need more gas I don't know what to tell you. There needs to be a larger portion of demand satisfied by sources that aren't dependant on the weather or by JIT infrastructure, which gas is. The gas/wind pairing is pursued because it's cheap, not because it's the best choice.

Based on the service blotter it’s been weeks of whack a mole failures across their grid most of which have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Wind or Solar.

Yes, which I've already pointed out. Significant wind capacity was not expected to be available, but that's an issue in and of itself. We can't ignore that the grid operator was not expecting there to be significant amounts of wind (they expected 25% capacity, it missed that target) available, hence the reliance on gas, which failed. This exposes the significant weakness in that pairing in extreme weather events has been my point. Wind is not expected to be relied upon and gas's JIT supply backbone makes it vulnerable to supply disruptions not to mention that the plants themselves are not properly hardened against severe weather.

When coal/nuclear water lines, gas and electric lines and substations are physically damaged having a one directional conversation about a specific power source as being the end all cause of all that ails you is ignorant of reality and more of a hack job to cover up the systemic failure of not just Texas grid decisions but also their failure to properly build livable homes that meet the most minimal of agreed engineering/building standards
many of which are unlivable in zero F even if the power was on.

Cause yeah a house that floods every time it gets below zero or power plants that burst supply lines below zero is totally not a problem , it’s the windmills

Pointing out the inherent weakness of the wind/gas pairing is not having a one-directional conversation, it's a component of a much larger conversation about properly planning for weather that despite not being normal for Texas, IS for other parts of the country and other parts of the world. One can be discussed while acknowledging that it is a subset of a larger suite of issues. It's an important topic, but so is the rest of that stuff, particularly if one believes that these events will become more frequent in the future. Planning for that becomes important and there are sources currently available that don't have those vulnerabilities.

 

[spackard]

There's a story (fox26houston) about a lady who racked up a $3171.37 electric bill in two days, M and T.

Looking into it a little, she lives in Houston and her variable-rate power supplier is Griddy.

From their website:

Thursday, February 18 @ 8:05 p.m​

On Monday evening the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) cited its “complete authority over ERCOT” to direct that ERCOT set pricing at $9/kWh until the grid could manage the outage situation after being ravaged by the freezing winter storm. But the order was left in place until today. Why? Here is why energy prices were sky high this week.

More detailed info on their page: https://www.griddy.com/post/winter-storm-watch
--

It's Friday, and their variable-rate is back to $0.002/kWh. I can only wish my rate would ever be that low.

If you could freely hook up your genset to the grid and get paid $9/kWh, I'm sure you would. This isn't allowed to happen in CA - gensets are regulated for pollution/emissions so tightly nobody who doesn't absolutely need one buys one and attaches a meter to it.
--

GRIDDY emailed customers before the storm, urging them to switch to fixed-rate providers, writing, "We expect daily electricity charges to be significantly higher through Tuesday." The email included directions to switch and links to other plans.

That would have fixed the lady's bill, but exacerbate the city's problem, a la empty shelves in socialist countries when retail prices are fixed and stores are not allowed to reflect replacement costs of what they just sold.

 

[wag123]

There's a story (fox26houston) out a lady who racked up a $3171.37 electric bill in two days, M and T.

Looking into it a little, she lives in Houston and her variable-rate power supplier is Griddy.

From their website:

Thursday, February 18 @ 8:05 p.m​

On Monday evening the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) cited its “complete authority over ERCOT” to direct that ERCOT set pricing at $9/kWh until the grid could manage the outage situation after being ravaged by the freezing winter storm. But the order was left in place until today. Why? Here is why energy prices were sky high this week.

More detailed info on their page: https://www.griddy.com/post/winter-storm-watch

This wouldn't hold-up in court. It is illegal to raise prices for necessities during a state of emergency or disaster declaration. I didn't see where utilities were exempted from this. I didn't lose power. If I get sent a bill for this kind of money, I won't pay it, and I will call my attorney. If utilities are allowed to do this, then they need to be held financially liable for the damages incurred by their customers .

 

[SZR48207]

This wouldn't hold-up in court. It is illegal to raise prices for necessities during a state of emergency or disaster declaration. I didn't see where utilities were exempted from this. I didn't lose power. If I get sent a bill for this kind of money, I won't pay it, and I will call my attorney. If utilities are allowed to do this, then they need to be held financially liable for the damages incurred by their customers .

Not sure I follow if this particular customer picked a variable rate plan. Yeah they're going to regret it but variable rate plans exist for a reason.