THIS is Texas? 6º F

[OVERKILL]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/28/texas-power-outage-wind/

“In the updated analysis included in a Wednesday ERCOT meeting, the grid operator calculated that natural gas power losses were several times that of wind generation lost during the power crisis”

That shouldn't be surprising, significant wind capacity wasn't expected to show up. The issue was that the gas that was expected to fill for AWOL wind was unavailable. I got into this in detail earlier in the thread.

 

[E365]

 

[PimTac]

But but my Tesla?

 

[Rochev]

Set your thermostat to a humid 78° or higher? No thanks.

 

[tombalas]

At least here in the mid-Atlantic, all of the electric grid operators have been plowing ahead full speed with the regional 69kV reliability project, which when complete will mean plenty of power for the anticipated future. I assumed this was a nation-wide directive, not just on the East Coast.

 

[Wolf359]

At least here in the mid-Atlantic, all of the electric grid operators have been plowing ahead full speed with the regional 69kV reliability project, which when complete will mean plenty of power for the anticipated future. I assumed this was a nation-wide directive, not just on the East Coast.

Well, yeah, Texas is in an island of its own, not part of FERC and not regulated federally so it doesn't have to do anything the rest of the nation does.

 

[OVERKILL]

Yep, and I saw this tweet:

For those playing ERCOT wind, the home game, which we've discussed earlier, they have almost 30,000MW of wind capacity (29,320MW synchronized):

Only the in land of renewable apologists and fanaticism would a generation source showing up at 13.6% of installed capacity instead of the predicted 10.2% be heralded as a victory and celebrated as "helping" and wind "working". If Pickering showed up at 13.6% it would be down 5 of 6 units and that one unit would be on life support. If any conventional plant were doing this we'd be screaming "WHAT IS WRONG?!!!!" but with wind, hey, it showed up, here's your participation trophy!!!!

 

[blupupher]

So first it is too cold and we don't have enough power, now it is too hot and we don't have enough power.
Did not know the power company was like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.

Set your thermostat to a humid 78° or higher? No thanks.

My thermostat is set to 80°F during the day, while we are all home.
Turn on fans and wear shorts and a t-shirt and we are all fine, even when it is 100°+ and 85% humidity outside (and this is in a 40 year old home with just OK insulation).
I do turn it down to 76° at night though.

 

[Rochev]

So first it is too cold and we don't have enough power, now it is too hot and we don't have enough power.
Did not know the power company was like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.

My thermostat is set to 80°F during the day, while we are all home.
Turn on fans and wear shorts and a t-shirt and we are all fine, even when it is 100°+ and 85% humidity outside (and this is in a 40 year old home with just OK insulation).
I do turn it down to 76° at night though.

Wow that's intense. I can't stand it if it's above 68 lol. Do you have central air? That may make a big difference.

 

[Skippy722]

Yep, and I saw this tweet:

View attachment 60340

For those playing ERCOT wind, the home game, which we've discussed earlier, they have almost 30,000MW of wind capacity (29,320MW synchronized):
View attachment 60342

Only the in land of renewable apologists and fanaticism would a generation source showing up at 13.6% of installed capacity instead of the predicted 10.2% be heralded as a victory and celebrated as "helping" and wind "working". If Pickering showed up at 13.6% it would be down 5 of 6 units and that one unit would be on life support. If any conventional plant were doing this we'd be screaming "WHAT IS WRONG?!!!!" but with wind, hey, it showed up, here's your participation trophy!!!!

Same thing happens here/on MISO’s grid. Currently, they forecasted 5,709MWh of wind, they’re getting 2,883. Luckily, MISO seems to have a reasonably balanced grid (for the time being) and can survive wild swings in demand as well as not banking entirely on unreliable “green” power… yesterday IIRC peak demand was almost 107,000MW.

Kind of an apples to oranges comparison though… MISO’s footprint is absolutely massive compared to ERCOT.

 

[OVERKILL]

Same thing happens here/on MISO’s grid. Currently, they forecasted 5,709MWh of wind, they’re getting 2,883. Luckily, MISO seems to have a reasonably balanced grid (for the time being) and can survive wild swings in demand as well as not banking entirely on unreliable “green” power… yesterday IIRC peak demand was almost 107,000MW.

Kind of an apples to oranges comparison though… MISO’s footprint is absolutely massive compared to ERCOT.

Texas (normally) has enough gas to backup wind, but it's this wild dynamic where wind gets a free pass on producing like utter crap while a few gas plant maintenance outages has the same folks up in arms about how unreliable it is. They have a nuke unit (singular, one) down because of a transformer fire and I watched one of these guys tell somebody pointing out the precariousness of this situation to "keep his head down" saying that wind was "over-performing" and a nuke was down. Yes, the nukes were down to 75%, which is clearly WAY worse than 13.6%. WTH????

This is wind in the ERCOT presently BTW:

681MW of 29,320MW, 2.3% capacity. Oh, but they expect it to potentially hit 32% at midnight when demand will be in the toilet so that makes it allllll better.

 

[blupupher]

Wow that's intense. I can't stand it if it's above 68 lol. Do you have central air? That may make a big difference.

yes, I have central air.

 

[rekit]

I have lived for for more than 6 decades, and 40 years of that in the one home I built. Yea, that was was a cold snap! I am on a 375' deep well and in the 80's we had some days around 17 degrees and I would drain my pipes (PVC and CPVC) and did ok, but this time I made a hose that connected my air compressor to an outdoor faucet. I shut down the well pump and the power to the electric water heater and drained it into buckets and blew out all the faucets one at a time, inside and out, hot and cold to account for any drooping water lines. We were w/o power for 46 hours and ran our 5000 watt generator to run space heaters. When power came back on I pressured up the system with air to 35 lbs and let it hold for a day. Made sure to refill the water heater before powering it up. People around me are still waiting for repairs in June, even still staying in hotels. Thousands of $$$. My hose cost $5.

 

[Jetronic]

And if nothing had happened they would laugh at you. Better safe than sorry though

 

[blupupher]

I have lived for for more than 6 decades, and 40 years of that in the one home I built. Yea, that was was a cold snap! I am on a 375' deep well and in the 80's we had some days around 17 degrees and I would drain my pipes (PVC and CPVC) and did ok, but this time I made a hose that connected my air compressor to an outdoor faucet. I shut down the well pump and the power to the electric water heater and drained it into buckets and blew out all the faucets one at a time, inside and out, hot and cold to account for any drooping water lines. We were w/o power for 46 hours and ran our 5000 watt generator to run space heaters. When power came back on I pressured up the system with air to 35 lbs and let it hold for a day. Made sure to refill the water heater before powering it up. People around me are still waiting for repairs in June, even still staying in hotels. Thousands of $$$. My hose cost $5.

I had the galvanized pipe in my house replaced 2 years ago with PEX (several leaky sections of galvanized).
Every single neighbor that still had galvanized had major pipe breakage/water damage.
I left my water on the entire freeze and had hot water the entire time (only thing that kept us from freezing was taking a hot shower twice a day).

 

[Dave Hess]

How much did that re-pipe job cost ?

 

[blupupher]

How much did that re-pipe job cost ?

Around $7500, and included a new water heater and install.
Single story 1300 sq foot house. They did it in 1 day as well.

 

[rekit]

$5

 

[OVERKILL]

Around $7500, and included a new water heater and install.
Single story 1300 sq foot house. They did it in 1 day as well.

Ouch! I did mine myself with PEX (bought the tools, fittings and materials from Home Depot) for a few hundred bucks. I did a run from the basement to the 2nd floor and completely redid my bathroom. I had replaced the main floor and basement with copper already back shortly after we purchased but the run that I had to make to replace the galvanized was beyond my comfort level with copper, as it did some interesting direction changes inside a wall.

 

[4WD]

Haven't seen this here in my lifetime. Nothing to those up north but a total shutdown for us. Tonight is to be 0º F +/-
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Sure would have dove in that powder about 1500 hours today