I think at the time there were only 1 or 2 ties outside of Texas and that wasn’t enough. That changed after that incident I believe. Texas has plenty of gas to drive gas turbines but it takes time and maybe there wasn’t enough to offset the loss of those wind resources.
--R Sent from iPhone > On Feb 14, 2021, at 5:12 PM, Dan Penoff via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > wrote: > > There are ties through the national grid, believe me. However, some of those > are little used, which is the problem. The utilities have a spot market for > demand, and it’s based on what time of the day and for how much. Middle of > the day in the summertime? Oh, yea, spot prices will be wild. But - you can > anticipate that demand and buy contracts in advance, so it’s fairly easy to > protect yourself. > > It’s when Mother Nature throws a proverbial wrench in the gears where the > utilities get bent over. Texas and other areas who have potentially lost a > portion of their local generating capacity will have to go to the spot market > to buy imported power. That can’t happen instantly, because of demand and the > time it takes to bring more power online by the other utilities. > > AZ Bob can pull out some control rods and make more juice fairly quickly and > hydro producers can open the sluice gates if there are more generators > available, but the coal and gas fired plants can take hours to increase > generating capacity, as they’ve got to spool up more turbines, some of which > can take many hours to bring online. You’ve got to have the fuel to do it, > too, so that’s another factor. > > -D > >> On Feb 14, 2021, at 5:02 PM, Buggered Benzmail via Mercedes >> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >> >> Some years ago the wind in West Texas just died on New Years Day (I think it >> was). It was really cold and power demand was high. All the wind machines >> (and there were lots) stopped producing and that was a Big Problem as Texas >> was pretty much stand-alone as far as ties into other power grids. So lots >> of people were without power on a day when that was unwelcome. Took a long >> time to spin up other sources, I don’t recall if there was even enough to >> compensate. I think after that the power companies might have added some >> ties to bring in power. >> >> --R >> Sent from iPhone >> >>>> On Feb 14, 2021, at 4:20 PM, Allan Streib via Mercedes >>>> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >>> >>> Texas is facing the possibility of blackouts as power demand ramps up >>> with the cold weather. >>> >>> Apparently wind farms can't operate in icing conditions. Who knew? >>> >>> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-freeze-sends-gas-soaring-to-600-over-the-long-u-s-weekend >>> >>> Forecast here is for 6-12 inches of snow over the next day or so. Temps >>> have been in single digits. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but the >>> past couple of weeks have been the first "real" winter weather we've had >>> this winter so far. December/January were mostly just chilly with some >>> rain. >>> >>> Allan >>> >>> Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> writes: >>> >>>> Blizzard is proceeding, temp is 7 outside with wind chill is -10, snow >>>> blowing outside. Heat pump pretty much runs non stop. Over the last 30 >>>> minutes the power has been going out off and on. No good. I may end up >>>> having to haul in some firewood and firing up the fireplace/insert. It >>>> would Most definitely cut down on the heat pump useable but by the >>>> time you pay for firewood I don’t think it would be any cheaper. I >>>> keep firewood around for use in the case of emergency. >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________ >>> http://www.okiebenz.com >>> >>> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >>> >>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >>> >> >> _______________________________________ >> http://www.okiebenz.com >> >> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >> >> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
