Texas Freeze Raises Cost Of Charging A Tesla To $900

[TruckElectric]

The city of El Paso,TX took action after the problems of 2011. El Paso might be only major city in Texas that did NOT have major problems this week.

El Paso is not on the Texas Grid. It's electric power is provided from the Western Interconnection

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[Crissa]

El Paso is not on the Texas Grid. It's electric power is provided from the Western Interconnection

That's a pretty good choice, then, isn't it?

-Crissa

 

[TruckElectric]

That's a pretty good choice, then, isn't it?

ERCOT was formed in 1970. I guess you think El Paso had a crystal ball?

 

[firsttruck]

El Paso is not on the Texas Grid. It's electric power is provided from the Western Interconnection

Yes, that is true but that is not the only difference.
In 2011 El Paso was on the Western Interconnection and had problems.

After 2011 incident, El Paso did winterize more power plants & grid infrastructure.

After 2011, energy experts told Texas they needed to winterize AND have better connections to other grids. Mostly none of that happened.

 

[TruckElectric]

Yes, that is true but that is not the only difference.
In 2011 El Paso was on the Western Interconnection and had problems.

After 2011 incident, El Paso did winterize more power plants & grid infrastructure.

After 2011, energy experts told Texas they needed to winterize AND have better connections to other grids. Mostly none of that happened.

Just listened to Texas Governor Abbott during a press conference concerning the energy and water crisis. He said the state will step up if needed to upgrade power plants for winterization, among other things.

Heads are going to roll after all the investigations are done.

Gov. Greg Abbott gives update on Texas’ winter weather response
TEXAS
by: Robert Sims, Maggie Glynn
Posted: Feb 19, 2021 / 01:58 PM CST / Updated: Feb 19, 2021 / 03:41 PM CST

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Gov. Greg Abbott said state officials are working to help provide clean water to Texans as well as necessary resources like food and bottled water to the state.
Abbott provided an update on Texas’ response to this week’s winter weather event which left millions of Texans with no power for days during record-breaking cold temperatures on Friday afternoon.
Abbott said there are four main priorities that the state is focusing on.

Power restoration
He said about 165,000 households are still without power right now. He attributed this to downed power lines or power companies needing to manually reconnect those households to the system. Abbott said he’s observed about 20,000 restorations from local power companies each hour.

Water restoration
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is working to connect local water utilities with labs to test their water, to expedite the cancellation of boil water notices.
Abbott said the state of Texas is awaiting confirmation that President Joe Biden has approved a major disaster declaration that would allow Texans to apply for individual assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Background
Earlier in the week, Abbott called on the state legislature to investigate the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. He called ERCOT a complete failure.

During the governor’s update to the state on Thursday, he said most of those remaining issues are because of issues caused by the storm, and not because of any generation issues stemming from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ grid management.

Travis County expects to be in the ‘water delivery business’ for next 7 days, 1M gallons on its way
During a virtual press conference from ERCOT on Friday, the council said, “We just got the notice from our control room that we have left in the last stage of emergency operations. So we are completely back to normal operations as about.”

Now, the biggest issue impacting Texans is water. As of yesterday, a total of 725 have issued boil water notices, affecting 13 million Texans, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The governor is expected to address any resources being provided by the state and FEMA in response to these shortages.

KXAN.com will live stream the press conference from the Alternate State Operations Center in Austin today at 3 p.m.

SOURCE: KXAN

 

[firsttruck]

Sure Sure. Like a wife beater promise not to never hit her again.

officials promised after 1989 and 2011.

-----------------

Top Texas News for Feb. 15, 2011
The state's electric grid operator will enter Texas Senate hearings this morning with a Texas-sized target on its back.
by David Muto Feb. 15, 2011
https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/15/the-brief-top-texas-news-for-feb-15-2011/

Lawmakers have called on state agencies and power companies to explain what exactly caused the rolling blackouts that left hundreds of thousands of Texans intermittently without power during an uncharacteristically harsh winter freeze two weeks ago.

Today, a joint Senate committee will hear from a number of witnesses, including representatives from the Railroad Commission and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. But lawmakers will likely home in on the agency that called for the blackouts and has since raised a number of questions about its operations: the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the state's electric grid.

Concerns over the agency's inability to predict and warn Texans of the blackouts have dominated discussions of the agency's performance. But as the Tribune's Kate Galbraith reports today, a number of other behind-the-scenes concerns, about transparency and bureaucracy within the agency, have since cropped up.

ERCOT, for instance, must wait 60 days before revealing which power plants failed in the cold weather. On Monday, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, reintroduced a bill to reduce the confidentiality period — in place to keep competitors from capitalizing on malfunctioning plants — to two days. Transparency also plays into concerns over market manipulation, which some have alleged in light of price spikes that accompanied the blackouts.

Another concern: the agency's board, which a panel of commissioners have recommended cleaving off as an independent entity. Board salaries have also increased dramatically in recent years.

-----------------

Winter storm blackouts plagued Texas in 2011, too. Recommendations made afterward went unenforced.
By Asher Price and Bob Sechler, Austin American-Statesman
Feb 2021
https://www.newsbreak.com/texas/aus...ow-much-did-energy-regulators-actually-change

.....
"You could take out ‘2011’ and pop in ‘2021,’ and there is going to be a lot of similarities” between the deficiencies in the grid found in the report 10 years ago and those plaguing it now, said Dave Tuttle, an Energy Institute research associate at the University of Texas.

'An electrical island': Texas has dodged federal regulation for years by having its own power grid

Had the recommendations been followed, either voluntarily by power generators and transmission companies or because of mandates by regulators, many Texans likely would be a lot warmer now, Tuttle said.

.....
A federal report issued in the summer of 2011 found that state officials back in 1989, after another cold snap caused outages, "In 1989 state officials issued a number of recommendations aimed at improving winterization on the part of the generators."

"These recommendations were not mandatory, and over the course of time implementation lapsed," said the August 2011 report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, titled "Report on Outages and Curtailments During the Southwest Cold Weather Event of February 1-5, 2011."

.....
"10 years ago, the Public Utility Commission of Texas identified the incapacity to deal with extreme shifts in the weather and did nothing," state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, wrote Wednesday on Twitter .

.....
“It’s not just ERCOT – although ERCOT is going to get hammered over this,” he said.
Lawmaker: The PUC 'did nothing'

ERCOT is regulated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas – a three-member panel appointed by the governor – as well as by the Legislature. In addition, power generation companies, transmission companies and retail utilities all have a hand in keeping electricity flowing in the state’s deregulated electricity market.

"10 years ago, the PUC identified the incapacity to deal with extreme shifts in the weather and did nothing," state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, wrote Wednesday on Twitter .

In response to a question from the Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network, about what the state mandates in terms of winterization, a Public Utility Commission official pointed to a state rule that every year ERCOT must file reports with the PUC addressing whether generators have complied with winter weatherization plans – including “an assessment of the reliability and adequacy of the ERCOT system during extremely cold or extremely hot weather conditions.”

“ERCOT's review of plants indicates that the majority of plants are following their weatherization plans,” says the Extreme Weather Reliability Assessment, filed with the PUC in January.

The Statesman also left messages with the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates gas pipelines, asking whether the agency requires gas pipeline operators to winterize their infrastructure and if it requires any kind of proof or affidavit about that winterization. The messages were not immediately returned.


*** firsttruck ***
I bet there is no penalty for companies to lie on affidavit or penalty is so small that it is no deterrent. *****


.....
A total of 193 generating units in Texas faltered, leading to rolling blackouts affecting 3.2 million customers.

"Had ERCOT not acted promptly to shed load, it would very likely have suffered widespread, uncontrolled blackouts throughout the entire ERCOT Interconnection," federal regulators concluded at the time, a claim that ERCOT operators are echoing today as they seek to answer criticism from Abbott and other politicians.

The federal officials also found that natural gas pipelines and production facilities were compromised by the weather.

"Generators and natural gas producers suffered severe losses of capacity despite having received accurate forecasts of the storm," the 2011 report said. "Entities in both categories report having winterization procedures in place. However, the poor performance of many of these generating units and wells suggests that these procedures were either inadequate or were not adequately followed."

.....
A decade ago, in the wake of the February 2011 weather-related blackouts, Glenn Hegar, then a Republican state senator from Katy, authored legislation that required the Public Utility Commission to analyze emergency operations plans developed by electric utilities , analyze and determine the ability of the electric grid to withstand extreme weather events in the upcoming year, and make recommendations on improving emergency operations plans and procedures in order to ensure the continuity of electric service.

“When I passed this legislation, it was intended to identify the mistakes made in 2011 and ensure that our power grid, including our generation capacity, was prepared for winter weather emergencies," Hegar, now the state comptroller, told the Statesman. "While the issues that are plaguing our electric grid system in this disastrous winter storm are complex, I am extremely frustrated that ten years later our electric grid remains so ill-equipped for these weather events."

-----------------

 

[Crissa]

ERCOT was formed in 1970. I guess you think El Paso had a crystal ball?

Texas's network failed encountering a temperature that had been previously recorded.

So yes. Apparently they did choose the more reliable partner. When they chose to connect west, instead of east, the Western Interconnect wasn't a thing, yet.

Hopefully Abbott's job is one of those lost.

-Crissa

 

[TruckElectric]

Hopefully Abbott's job is one of those lost.

Why?

 

[Crissa]

Why?

Because he's been one of those heavy on the misinformation. And he's supposedly in charge of all this (although I know it's figurehead-y, the figurehead should fall with the system it heads fails.)

-Crissa

 

[TruckElectric]

Because he's been one of those heavy on the misinformation

Ok. Heavy on what misinformation?

 

[Crissa]

Ok. Heavy on what misinformation?

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/abbott-republicans-green-energy/

His first reaction was to blather and blame, not fix.

-Crissa

 

[TruckElectric]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/abbott-republicans-green-energy/

His first reaction was to blather and blame, not fix.

-Crissa

From that article I gathered it was partisan(even though TT claim to be non-partisan) and they disliked Abbott's criticism of The Green New Deal. ERCOT is responsible for the Texas Grid, not Governor Abbott.

 

[Crissa]

ERCOT is responsible for the Texas Grid, not Governor Abbott.

You asked why I said he should be fired. I provided evidence of his irresponsible behavior.

Your answers are two fallacies, one of 'ad hominem' and the other of passing the buck.

He took up responsibility two times: Being elected Governor and spreading misinformation.

-Crissa

 

[empiredown]

Let's not let Griddy get in the way of the truth (or a good story...)

https://www.pec.coop/news/2021/winter-storm-faq/

PEC is more representative of what MOST Texans use for service... As posted elsewhere, we pay just over USD .08 (yes, 8 cents) per kWh...

Nothing to see here. Lets move on before we get more proselyting and uncaring responses to what folks out here are going through from the collective brain trust...

SS

 

[TruckElectric]

Let's not let Griddy get in the way of the truth (or a good story...)

https://www.pec.coop/news/2021/winter-storm-faq/

PEC is more representative of what MOST Texans use for service... As posted elsewhere, we pay just over USD .08 (yes, 8 cents) per kWh...

Nothing to see here. Lets move on before we get more proselyting and uncaring responses to what folks out here are going through from the collective brain trust...

SS

I have relatives that live in Round Rock, Jonestown and Austin. Their stories vary but all have been impacted from this disaster.

Austin and surrounding areas have gone through no electricity, no water, flooded homes and apts. from burst water pipes, no gas, no propane, no fuel, shortage of food in grocery stores.

As some have put it "a hot mess" but surprisingly, or not, the community has risen to the occasion and helped out whenever and whatever they can do.





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