5 ERCOT board members resign, according to report

[thackney]

Basic science should tell you that they were. Airfoils CANNOT work when they become loaded up with snow and ice and it's the exact same with solar except clouds, bird droppings, and tumbleweeds work just as well as snow and ice for them.

Wind turbines in northern climates typically have heating elements in the blades for this reason.  It is not a reason to eliminate wind.  It is the same problem with the other types of traditional power, not spending the money up front for full winter ratings.

[thackney]

I certainly do not remember that.  It seems to really break against coal, which presumably can be piled up and ready to use, and nukes, which don't have to receive fuel regularly, and to favor solar and wind and even NG generation, which can't store their fuel for later use. 

Stated differently it disables a good method for improving reliability.

I do not favor the subsidy.  But perhaps a tiered generation payout.  One level for any power available.  A bonus for dispatchable power (comes on when needed, needs to include penalty for not)  and an even higher rate for power with its own site fuel supply, even a week would make a heck of difference.  That could even generate some integrated Nat Gas storage.

[HoustonSam]

I don't think you can fully double dip that in cost justification.  You could earn that much with surplus capacity above what you already contracted to deliver.  But if you had not contracted to deliver power, you could not be charged the penalty.

Understood; the upside of the $9000/MWH would only be on excess delivery beyond what is contracted.  So the net loss on failure would be whatever price you would have gotten on the contracted delivery plus the $9000/MWH added penalty.

So contract to deliver the power, then calculate how many days you can afford to fail before you've lost more than you would save by skipping the winterization.  If it's fewer days than you think we'll be knocked out by cold weather, winterization clearly pays for itself.  And it REALLY pays for itself if you'll have spare capacity to sell for that $9000.

Of course I realize actual capital budgets aren't determined this way, and even if they were it fails to consider the dire consequences of failure on the consumers.  So I'm coming around to a required degree of winterization to some standard.  It wouldn't keep the gas flowing into the now-winterized generation plant, but it would make that one part of the system more resilient.

[thackney]

Understood; the upside of the $9000/MWH would only be on excess delivery beyond what is contracted.  So the net loss on failure would be whatever price you would have gotten on the contracted delivery plus the $9000/MWH added penalty.

So contract to deliver the power, then calculate how many days you can afford to fail before you've lost more than you would save by skipping the winterization.  If it's fewer days than you think we'll be knocked out by cold weather, winterization clearly pays for itself.  And it REALLY pays for itself if you'll have spare capacity to sell for that $9000.

Of course I realize actual capital budgets aren't determined this way, and even if they were it fails to consider the dire consequences of failure on the consumers.  So I'm coming around to a required degree of winterization to some standard.  It wouldn't keep the gas flowing into the now-winterized generation plant, but it would make that one part of the system more resilient.

We need more winterization, but not just our electrical power.  All "essential" services, public water, fuel delivery, ect.  I favor intensives payed by the user of product, but likely requiring more legislative regulations.  And I hate adding government regs.

After Hurricane Ike, Texas added some rules regarding onsite generation for gasoline/diesel retail.  It may have had some size/volume limits before kicking in.

The easiest way for most of this is making it a requirement for permits, I believe.

[Bigun]

Just because last week's weather has not happened since 1989 does not mean it will be anywhere near that long before it happens again. Weather is cyclic and some of those cycles are longer than a lifetime.

And with that, I will leave this discussion to others now since electrical power generation is not my primary area of expertise

[HoustonSam]

We need more winterization, but not just our electrical power.  All "essential" services, public water, fuel delivery, ect.  I favor intensives payed by the user of product, but likely requiring more legislative regulations.  And I hate adding government regs.

After Hurricane Ike, Texas added some rules regarding onsite generation for gasoline/diesel retail.  It may have had some size/volume limits before kicking in.

The easiest way for most of this is making it a requirement for permits, I believe.

Sounds like we agree, and your understanding is much more robust and experienced than mine.

[Idiot]

Understood; the upside of the $9000/MWH would only be on excess delivery beyond what is contracted.  So the net loss on failure would be whatever price you would have gotten on the contracted delivery plus the $9000/MWH added penalty.

So contract to deliver the power, then calculate how many days you can afford to fail before you've lost more than you would save by skipping the winterization.  If it's fewer days than you think we'll be knocked out by cold weather, winterization clearly pays for itself.  And it REALLY pays for itself if you'll have spare capacity to sell for that $9000.

Of course I realize actual capital budgets aren't determined this way, and even if they were it fails to consider the dire consequences of failure on the consumers.  So I'm coming around to a required degree of winterization to some standard.  It wouldn't keep the gas flowing into the now-winterized generation plant, but it would make that one part of the system more resilient.

I got an email from Reliant yesterday stating that my rates were locked in and that the HUGE price spike would not affect me.  WHEW!

[thackney]

I got an email from Reliant yesterday stating that my rates were locked in and that the HUGE price spike would not affect me.  WHEW!

We got ours, about double price for the month.  But I am in an Index rate tied to the monthly average of Nat Gas price, and we used a lot more since the power mostly stayed on.  I am happy with double for a month with that cold snap and staying warm.

[Elderberry]

We need more winterization, but not just our electrical power.  All "essential" services, public water, fuel delivery, ect.  I favor intensives payed by the user of product, but likely requiring more legislative regulations.  And I hate adding government regs.

After Hurricane Ike, Texas added some rules regarding onsite generation for gasoline/diesel retail.  It may have had some size/volume limits before kicking in.

The easiest way for most of this is making it a requirement for permits, I believe.

After Ike I was without power for just shy of 2 weeks. Sometime around a week of running my generator on my 100# propane bottle, it felt like it was half full or so. So I went on a drive to find where I could get it refilled. Driving down SH35, I had to go somewhere halfway between Alvin and Angleton before I found a place that could fill my bottle. I drove past lots of places that sold propane, when they had power. Where I got my propane was running on a generator.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I certainly do not remember that.  It seems to really break against coal, which presumably can be piled up and ready to use, and nukes, which don't have to receive fuel regularly, and to favor solar and wind and even NG generation, which can't store their fuel for later use. 

Stated differently it disables a good method for improving reliability.

That is a false statement for NG, and if one uses batteries or gravity/thermal storage, as well as for the power produced by renewables that can be stored.

Natural gas can be stored effectively as LNG or in underground reservoirs and has been done so for many decades.

And the electric power generated by any method including NG and renewables can be stored in batteries, as has been pointed out repeatedly.

The only measure is how much does it cost to do so.

The stored potential energy of nuclear and hydrocarbons is a powerful reason to utilize those methods if one wants surety of supply as batteries usage are minimized.

[berdie]

I see a lot of shades of grey in this issue, and a LOT of equipment that has to change in multiple industries to prevent it from happening again.  Water supply has lots of problems as does the Nat Gas system, but people are mostly focused on Electric Generation.

This storm was so bad that Canada had significant Nat Gas supplies shut down from the cold.  Exactly what standard do you build for?  Some standards become conflicting.  Building Nat Gas Power turbines inside heated building instead of open structures makes our summers requiring derating of units capacity during the summer peak electrical demand.

I agree that attention needs to be paid to water supply and natural gas as well as electrical generation. But, as in most things in life will the consumer be willing to handle the extra cost involved? This reminds me of when the roads in major cities are impassable during a storm. Everybody screams "Why don't we have the equipment like in other states?"

I claim no expertise in this area, at all. But in reading this thread (especially your posts) there seems to be a lot of fingers in the electrical grid pie. In my experience, that never bodes well. So I must assume alot is due to deregulation?

In any event, we can never truly thwart Mother Nature.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Just because last week's weather has not happened since 1989 does not mean it will be anywhere near that long before it happens again. Weather is cyclic and some of those cycles are longer than a lifetime.

And with that, I will leave this discussion to others now since electrical power generation is not my primary area of expertise

True statement, as attested by my father, a career meteorologist who knew better than anyone how often rain amounts come.  He used that knowledge and purchased a lakehouse below a dam spillway as he believed only a hundred year flood could cause him to go under water.

We had three hundred year storms over the past 25 years and it flooded each time.

[thackney]

I claim no expertise in this area, at all. But in reading this thread (especially your posts) there seems to be a lot of fingers in the electrical grid pie. In my experience, that never bodes well. So I must assume alot is due to deregulation?

We had the same problem, the same outcome, in 1989 before deregulation.  But it was a smaller storm with a smaller impact.

...Moreover, some of the same equipment, the report noted, had failed during previous cold snaps. One in December 1989 prompted the state’s grid operator to resort to system-wide rolling blackouts for the first time.

“Many generators failed to adequately apply and institutionalize knowledge and recommendations from previous severe winter weather events, especially as to winterization of generation and plant auxiliary equipment,” the 2011 report said....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/texas-was-warned-a-decade-ago-its-grid-was-unprepared-for-cold

In any event, we can never truly thwart Mother Nature.

Absolutely

February 1899 Arctic Outbreak across Texas - In February of 1899 record cold affected
Texas. A record February low for San Antonio of 4 degrees was set February 12, 1899. It
was also a record February low for Austin of -1 on February 12, 1899. During this
historic cold spell, extremely cold temperatures affected the entire state of Texas. On
February 13, 1899 the whole part of Galveston Bay, except the main channel, was
covered by thin ice. Lows in other locations around Texas on Feb. 12, 1899 include:
Tulia -23; Amarillo -16; Brownsville 16; Dallas-Ft. Worth -8; Waco -5; Laredo 5;
Galveston 8; and Corpus Christi 11. In the February of 1899 arctic outbreak, the coldest
low in Brownsville was 12 on Feb. 13, 1899, still an all time record low for Brownsville.
The low of -23 at Tulia, in the southern part of the Texas panhandle, Feb. 12, 1899 was a
record low for the state of Texas, then was tied when Seminole observed -23 on Feb. 8,
1933. Unofficial reports of -30 came from Wolf Creek and also southeast of Perryton,
both in the northern part of the Texas panhandle.

https://www.weather.gov/media/ewx/wxevents/ewx-18992000.pdf

[HoustonSam]

That is a false statement for NG, and if one uses batteries or gravity/thermal storage, as well as for the power produced by renewables that can be stored.

Natural gas can be stored effectively as LNG or in underground reservoirs and has been done so for many decades.

And the electric power generated by any method including NG and renewables can be stored in batteries, as has been pointed out repeatedly.

The only measure is how much does it cost to do so.

The stored potential energy of nuclear and hydrocarbons is a powerful reason to utilize those methods if one wants surety of supply as batteries usage are minimized.

I recognize that NG in fact can be stored; of course it's routinely stored in underground reservoirs as you point out.

My belief - I stand to be corrected - is that at the point of electrical power generation NG is not routinely stored, while coal is and nuclear effectively is; consequently the decision thackney referenced favors NG, wind, and solar relative to coal and nukes, who have a working capital investment on hand.

Storing produced energy in batteries, while of course possible and routine on a small scale, is not relevant to the reference thackney shared.

I agree with you in favoring hydrocarbons and nukes; it seems to me that all-in-all they will be the most energy dense and the most reliable.

[GrouchoTex]

Just because last week's weather has not happened since 1989 does not mean it will be anywhere near that long before it happens again. Weather is cyclic and some of those cycles are longer than a lifetime.

And with that, I will leave this discussion to others now since electrical power generation is not my primary area of expertise

Reminded me a lot of 1989.
I remember a lot of broken pipes but not the power outage.

[thackney]

Reminded me a lot of 1989.
I remember a lot of broken pipes but not the power outage.

https://www.nerc.com/pa/rrm/ea/February%202011%20Southwest%20Cold%20Weather%20Event/Final_Draft_Assessment_of_Previous_Severe_Winter_Weather_Report.pdf

December 21-24, 1989 – TRE and FRCC Cold Weather Event

TRE: During December 21-24, 1989, Texas experienced the coldest temperatures recorded in over 100
years. It was the first time in history that ERCOT (which serves 85 percent of load in Texas)
implemented region-wide load shedding due to heavy demands on the electric grid. ERCOT shed 1,710
MW of firm customer load. Natural gas supplies were also curtailed to most utilities (generators) during
the cold weather event. The peak that occurred on December 22, 1989 was 12.4 percent above
forecast and 10.8 percent over the 1988/1989 actual peak.

FRCC: During December 23-25, 1989 Florida experienced extremely cold weather throughout the state.
Natural gas supplies to Florida's utilities were curtailed beginning December 22 through December 26.
Record low temperatures were experienced. Record load (34,776 MW) from extreme cold temps
combined with numerous units offline due to maintenance resulted in rotating blackouts (five to eight
hours maximum). On December 24, 4,744 MWs of firm load was not being served.
In both TRE and FRCC, the circumstances, size, geographic area, and impact on the bulk power system
(BPS) of this event were deemed to be very similar to the February 2011 Cold Weather Event.

Issues Identified:
Inadequate cold weather preparations
Frozen ancillary plant equipment
Fuel oil problems
Natural gas supplies were curtailed

Recommendations:
There were numerous recommendations for utilities in both the FRCC and ERCOT footprints. For ERCOT,
according to the PUCT Report dated November 1990, certain corrective actions were implemented by
the utilities.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I recognize that NG in fact can be stored; of course it's routinely stored in underground reservoirs as you point out.

My belief - I stand to be corrected - is that at the point of electrical power generation NG is not routinely stored, while coal is and nuclear effectively is; consequently the decision thackney referenced favors NG, wind, and solar relative to coal and nukes, who have a working capital investment on hand.

Yes to all.

Since you had pointed out that NG, in the same vein as renewables, cannot be stored, I wanted to correct that in order to not give a false impression on NG to others who do not have the knowledge.

And that NG storage is indeed not as common for power station fuel as it is for burner tip needs for residential usage, but it seems it should be.

[Bigun]

https://www.nerc.com/pa/rrm/ea/February%202011%20Southwest%20Cold%20Weather%20Event/Final_Draft_Assessment_of_Previous_Severe_Winter_Weather_Report.pdf

December 21-24, 1989 – TRE and FRCC Cold Weather Event

TRE: During December 21-24, 1989, Texas experienced the coldest temperatures recorded in over 100
years. It was the first time in history that ERCOT (which serves 85 percent of load in Texas)
implemented region-wide load shedding due to heavy demands on the electric grid. ERCOT shed 1,710
MW of firm customer load. Natural gas supplies were also curtailed to most utilities (generators) during
the cold weather event. The peak that occurred on December 22, 1989 was 12.4 percent above
forecast and 10.8 percent over the 1988/1989 actual peak.

FRCC: During December 23-25, 1989 Florida experienced extremely cold weather throughout the state.
Natural gas supplies to Florida's utilities were curtailed beginning December 22 through December 26.
Record low temperatures were experienced. Record load (34,776 MW) from extreme cold temps
combined with numerous units offline due to maintenance resulted in rotating blackouts (five to eight
hours maximum). On December 24, 4,744 MWs of firm load was not being served.
In both TRE and FRCC, the circumstances, size, geographic area, and impact on the bulk power system
(BPS) of this event were deemed to be very similar to the February 2011 Cold Weather Event.

Issues Identified:
Inadequate cold weather preparations
Frozen ancillary plant equipment
Fuel oil problems
Natural gas supplies were curtailed

Recommendations:
There were numerous recommendations for utilities in both the FRCC and ERCOT footprints. For ERCOT,
according to the PUCT Report dated November 1990, certain corrective actions were implemented by
the utilities.

It's a great thing that they seem to have the load-shedding thing down very well.  Now they need to work on no having to do that when the demand gets high!

[HoustonSam]

If every wind and solar facility was replaced with Nat Gas AND winterized to keep running in the weather, our problems would have been WORSE last week.  MORE power would have gone offline and MORE people would have been out of power.  We did not have enough gas available to serve the amount we did have available to run.

Ercot has neither the responsibility nor the authority to require fuel types.  This stupid blame game is going to keep the problems from getting fixed.

@thackney  I see that during yesterday's blame-storming fest in Austin the chairwoman of the TX RR Commission Christi Craddick testified that NG production in TX fell last week *because the producers lost electrical power*, not because of the cold; i.e. she testified that NG production in TX is sufficiently winterized to manage last week's temperatures : https://www.click2houston.com/news/texas/2021/02/26/after-tense-first-day-ercot-hearings-to-pick-back-up-this-morning/

Craddick’s testimony countered ERCOT CEO Bill Magness’ reports that freezing temperatures and precipitation are what unexpectedly knocked dozens of power plants offline, and natural gas was hit harder than most. Craddick fought back those claims.

“When you ask if we have enough gas in this state, the answer is yes, if we can keep the electricity on,” Craddick said. “Time and time again, the number one problem we heard from our operators was the lack of power at their production sites.”

Power plant executives offered similar testimony - they could have stayed on line producing power had they not themselves experienced blackouts driven by their utility companies : https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/fault-investigation-texas-blackout-begins-004047307.html

"The testimony offered a troubling new look at how quickly America’s energy capital ran out of energy. Curtis Morgan, the CEO of Vistra Corp., told lawmakers at the outset that the blackouts affected plants that could have generated more power that was urgently needed. He said when officials from his company called utility providers, they were told they weren’t a priority.

“How can a power plant be at the bottom of the list of priorities?” Morgan said.

“You-know-what hit the fan, and everybody’s going, ‘You’re turning off my power plant?'" he said."

If true, this might shed a different light on the relative reliability of the NG portion of the generation grid.  Any thoughts?

[Bigun]

If true, this might shed a different light on the relative reliability of the NG portion of the generation grid.  Any thoughts?

  More nukes and far less unreliables!

[thackney]

@thackney  I see that during yesterday's blame-storming fest in Austin the chairwoman of the TX RR Commission Christi Craddick testified that NG production in TX fell last week *because the producers lost electrical power*, not because of the cold; i.e. she testified that NG production in TX is sufficiently winterized to manage last week's temperatures : https://www.click2houston.com/news/texas/2021/02/26/after-tense-first-day-ercot-hearings-to-pick-back-up-this-morning/

BS.  Yes it contributed, but we have our own @mrpotatohead to explain they were shutting down wells ahead of the storm due to the coming cold.

...As for the clueless people who wonder why gas/oil wells were shut in...  We shut ALL of our production in before the freeze, because we have waaaay too much equipment to put at risk of being destroyed.  What idiot would risk their equipment for the pitiful price we receive for the product?

Power plant executives offered similar testimony - they could have stayed on line producing power had they not themselves experienced blackouts driven by their utility companies : https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/fault-investigation-texas-blackout-begins-004047307.html

If true, this might shed a different light on the relative reliability of the NG portion of the generation grid.  Any thoughts?

I am going to have to learn more first, but I am quite doubtful this is more than miscommunication/misunderstanding during chaos.

[HoustonSam]

More nukes and far less unreliables!

If true; the people offering the testimony had plenty of self-interested reasons for that testimony.  And they didn't say anything about nukes, only that they could have stayed in production had they not lost power themselves.

[Bigun]

If true; the people offering the testimony had plenty of self-interested reasons for that testimony.  And they didn't say anything about nukes, only that they could have stayed in production had they not lost power themselves.

Picture lines of dominoes standing on end with all the lines interconnected. Knock one domino over and who knows where it stops.

[thackney]

New estimates today show last week's winter storms could cost more than $200 billion across the state. And that's way more money than Hurricane Harvey.

https://news.yahoo.com/ercot-ceo-grilled-state-lawmakers-020400399.html

[thackney]

ACK FINK: But today, Governor Abbott blamed ERCOT again for the situation, saying they blew an opportunity to slowly implement rolling outages.

GREG ABBOTT: Instead, what they did, they delayed their decision-making process about rolling blackouts until they got right to a few minutes before the entire grid crashing, and they did the equivalent of slamming on brakes while driving on ice.

JACK FINK: Power companies said ERCOT's actions forced their power plants offline.

THAD HILL: What we have found lead us to believe that there was a greater disturbance.

BILL MAGNESS: If they're right, then absolutely we have to do something, because there was something going on that we weren't seeing.

JACK FINK: The company said that exposed another problem: the industry and state agencies never updated the critical infrastructure list. So power plants were among those that lost power. The CEO said they winterize their plants, but in some cases it wasn't adequate.

https://news.yahoo.com/ercot-ceo-grilled-state-lawmakers-020400399.html