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>ERCOT fags shut down the power substations to the natural gas plants
moar from this Jason Isaac fellow
The Texas Power Outage Started With Bad Policy
By The Honorable Jason Isaac, Brent Bennett, Ph.D., Katie Tahuahua|February 17, 2021
Energy & Environment
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The story of how Texas was brought to its knees by crippling cold weather leaving millions without power is a complex one, yet entirely predictable and avoidable.
The details matter, so it is important to know the long story, but let’s start with the short version: For years, Texas’ grid operator (ERCOT) has overestimated the ability to maintain a reliable grid without a sufficient supply buffer, known as a “reserve margin.” That margin is the difference between demand for electricity and what the grid can produce. When demand exceeds production, you get blackouts. That buffer has been shrinking because reliable sources of energy have been retired,few reliable plants have been constructed, and the grid is depending more and more on weather-dependent renewable energy that repeatedly fails to perform when we need it most.
When wind and solar production predictably dropped as the winter storm hit, the buffer collapsed. ERCOT needed to execute a series of balancing measures that would have protected the grid. But it did not act soon enough, which caused many more gas and some coal power plants in the system to “trip.” (Think of it as a circuit breaker that triggers to prevent a fire or other emergency at your house when there is a system imbalance.) Other weather-related issues caused problems too but ERCOT’s failure to act sooner was a major factor.
Usually, a system trip wouldn’t last long and we’d have power back in a few hours. But this time, many of the units that were tripped off the system had difficulty coming back online for a variety of reasons, including the fact that some were not designed to be taken off and put back on the system quickly, as well as other cold weather issues that exacerbated the problem.
So when people blame ERCOT for not acting quickly, they’re right. And so are the people who say that both renewable energy and fossil energy plants are not generating what they should. But it doesn’t begin there.Our overdependence on unreliable energy that caused the razor thin reserve margins started the ball rolling years ago.
Here’s the long story…
>https://www.texaspolicy.com/the-texas-power-outage-started-with-bad-policy/