Texas power issues. Wind farms getting iced up (Part II)... 38

[JohnRBaker]

This is a continuation of the original thread, which had gotten a bit too long:

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=479415

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/05/texas-ercot-electric-bills/

Came up in my news

 

[LittleInch]

Interesting wording in that article,
"Erroneous"
"Mistake"
"Overcharged"



Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[RedSnake]

Redsnake,

Try to make a car or more complicated than a spoon or cup without petroleum products.

From the first Texas power.. thread.
I have moved the question and my answer to the thread.
thread815-479631

Best Regards A

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[1503-44]

The Public Utility Commission ignored its independent monitor’s recommendation to retroactively reduce the market price for power for at least part of the week of the winter storm.

Exactly what I said they should do.
But they've come up with this BS excuse.

D’Andrea added that a retroactive decision would have winners and losers: “You don’t know who you’re hurting. And you think you’re protecting the consumer, and it turns out you’re bankrupting [someone else].”

[someone else]??? Meaning the brokers can't convert their paper gains to real money. I want to see the list of exactly who is getting bankrupted, besides the lite commercial and residential customers. Oh, its the brokers, brokers, brokers, speculators and hedge funds and ... Griddy. They can't pay, because they can't collect, because none of their clients have $17,000 to pay for FAKE MARKET POWER COSTS.
Roll back the market prices to actual Costs + 10% profit.
Real bills can be paid, fair profits made and all the rest are unfair paper gains and losses only.
Tear up the paper.
Problem solved.

 

[FacEngrPE]

Brazos Electric Power Cooperative going into Chapter 11 might also result in an inability of brokers to convert paper gains to cash, particularly since the CO-OP is supposed to pass the costs on to it's members, and on to their customers, potentially limited by Texas usury law.

https://www.kxan.com/investigations...ty-hit-with-2-1b-ercot-bill-files-bankruptcy/

The storm event resulted in $1.8 billion bill from ERCOT to the CO-OP.

Fred

 

[1503-44]

I guess they didn't stop buying power like the higher price was supposed to force them do to keep the grid working. Silly people. They obviously should just have switched off and blacked out Waco.

Really, can you believe these guys at PUC. $20 to $9000 in a week!

 

[waross]

The conspiracy theories are getting wild.
Biden manipulated the weather.
Bill Gates blocked the sun.
The snow was fake government snow.
The post, which was forwarded to other channels and viewed more than 150,000 times, falsely claimed that the situation in Texas "was a planned attack."
Prominent Republicans, Fox News hosts, and conservative websites have pushed the idea that wind and solar energy are to blame for Texas' disaster.
The right-wing narrative has also blamed the Green New Deal for the disaster, though no legislation from that leftist congressional climate-change proposal has passed.



Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[dik]

you forgot to include, "and the wealthy got more wealthy."

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[waross]

you forgot to include, "and the wealthy got more wealthy."

I was listing conspiracy theories, not "The Cold Hard Facts of Life". grin
(Emphasis on "Cold")

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[waross]

Free market works on a free market, not an oligopoly.
When the demand exceeds the supply, it is no longer a free market.
Someone is making billions of dollars in excess profit.
When the majority of the people accept grade 5 level knee jerk economics, the stage is set for real world economics to bankrupt them.
Remember; the same voters that let their elected representatives set the stage for this rip off, probably voted for Trump.
No, Hokie, I'm not blaming Trump.
I am pointing out that;
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

In 1985, Kenneth Lay merged the natural gas pipeline companies of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth to form Enron.[6]:3 In the early 1990s, he helped to initiate the selling of electricity at market prices and, soon after, Congress approved legislation deregulating the sale of natural gas. The resulting markets made it possible for traders such as Enron to sell energy at higher prices, thereby significantly increasing its revenue.[7] After producers and local governments decried the resultant price volatility and asked for increased regulation, strong lobbying on the part of Enron and others prevented such regulation.[7][8]

"And the rich got richer".

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[waross]

A simple solution going forward.
Full disclosure;

Legislation to require the following sentence to be included in all variable rate contracts.
The sentence to prominent, capitalized, and in large font.

BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT, I UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT THE VARIABLE RATE THAT I AM CONTRACTING FOR MAY INCREASE FROM THE PRESENT RATE OF $0.10 PER KILO-WATT-HOUR TO A MAXIMUM RATE OF $9000 PER KILO-WATT-HOUR.

SIGNED___________________________

With this in mind, how about a class action suit seeking to void all consumer variable rate contracts on the grounds of lack of full disclosure?
Is a maximum price of $9000 per KWHr stipulated anywhere in the consumer contracts?



Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[SnTMan]

Bill Gates blocked the sun.

Not going to bother to link it, but Mr Gates is actually floating a plan to block sunlight by dispersing particles in the atmosphere, because, you know...


The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[1503-44]

He needs the cover of darkness to do the all the rest of his dirty deeds, right?
Hey, that could be why ERCOT turned the lights off too.

 

[1503-44]

But right. California at least recalled their governor. Tx sent Bush II to Washington.

Running as a peaker plant only, if it really is possible to operate solely in that manner, will have to change.  Running every hour of the year will result in the lowest cost/hr operating cost, but it isn't  possible when the demand is not there every hour of the year.  Neither is it fair to the consumers to define your operating cost  by assuming that you will only operate for the very few number of hours that maximum, market capped price will be in effect. That results in the maximum hourly operating cost. Yet it is apparent that there is room for these peaker plants to recover their investment and make a fair profit, if they can run for certain percentages of the time, I.e. during which electricity prices are above their break even costs including a fair profit.   The running costs for various generator types I've seen in widely published data is well known, so it is apparent that profits can be made at well below market cap levels.  Thus it would seem that all we have to do is decide what a fair profit is and dispatch electricity orders to available generators according to a running cost ranking.  Those with the lowest running costs get priority bookings, which would encourage lowest cost electricity production at all times.

We should also set a level playing field amongst all producers.  All approved generators should meet certain design standards and availability criteria, so no producer could have unfair competitive advantage by not winterizing, or otherwise providing appropriate equipment in his plant to operate inside whatever range of conditions his region would experience during, say a 25yr or a 50yr, or 100yr upset event condition.  Various equipment could be assigned different event criteria according to criticality of that equipment to the specific event in question and its likelihood of failure.  No generator would be allowed to inject, if it did not meet all criteria, perhaps even one of a max minimum_operating_cost, including whatever profit the genco targeted.  They would be forced to go offline by prohibition of the grid purchasing their electricity until their min op cost was reduced. No substandard electricity allowed.      

Dispatch of electricity orders to the gencos would have to be proportioned according to grid load, location of loads and gens, current and near future state prediction, and type of gen.  Base and variable loads would not be distributed solely by generator type, a certain percentage of each being proportioned to each gen according to type and response time in their ability to control output to some extent and the variability expected in demand and production predictions.  For example, solar might supply some % base load, some % of variable load and do some battery charging of reserves.  Nothing says that coal electricity must be used for base load only, that's just the ideal purpose of building such a plant.  The part of base load they replaced from coal or nuclear production could be compensated for by directing some of the coal power to pumped storage, battery charging, or in future, maybe to H2 production with the rest being used for the remaining base load not supplied by other means.  Once in the grid, the electricity doesn't have labels of origen and may be used for a multitude of purposes.   The storage provider will pay for electricity going in and will receive payment for that going out.  Maybe it will be possible to store it at low prices and release it when higher market prices prevail.  Depends on how risk sharing arrangements are made, or not.

If some sharing of base and peaker loads cannot be made practical, then peakers will have to be paid for spinning reserves or standby capacity and be compensated without actually injecting power into the grid.  Maybe plants with multiple generators will need to go to split duty, being called upon to generate and inject from 1 unit for enough hours when prices are within one, or two standard deviations of  average price - their running costs to recover their yearly costs and a reasonable profit for all units.  I haven't run any numbers on this, but it seems possible to a large extent to be able to do that.

In any case, it certainly seems impossible to continue running large grids that have little means to control supply and demand by nothing other than setting near arbitrary caps probably by people that most likely have little experience or any idea of what they are playing with and can set that can change at a moments notice by several orders of magnitude.  

Oh wait. We're probably doing a lot of that, except for design standards and setting moving average + 1 Std.dev price caps.

The days of the "Texas Cowboy Grid" certainly seem to be numbered.

 

[JedClampett]

Anyone want to take a bet on when this blows over? There will be:
[ul]
[li]A lot of watered down legislation, kind of rewarding utilities for winterizing their plants,[/li]
[li]the lobbyists will mobilize,[/li]
[li]the legislation will be changed so you're rewarded no matter what you do and[/li]
[li]this will be repeated in another 10 years.[/li]
[/ul]

 

[dik]

I suspect their next 100 year snowfall will be a lot sooner...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[waross]

With billions of dollars in free money available millions will be spent on lobbying.
Fairness? Honesty? Common sense? These don't stand a chance against the money that will be spent on lobbying.
Do away with variable rate plans and the industry will find a way to cope and keep the power on.

Bill
--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[Fischstabchen]

Dik,

A 100 year event doesn't mean it happens every 100 years. It just means that there is a 1/100 chance of it happening each year. Even then, the data is so sparse that I don't think anyone can draw hard conclusions about it being more or less. It appears that warmer weather is moving further north but I get tired of people claiming that correlates into more hurricanes or other weather events. It is a postulation put forth with very little to no evidence. It often is merely politicizing a weather event for the battle against climate change.

 

[dik]

My understanding is that a 100 year event is an intensity that you can expect every 100 years... it doesn't mean that you cannot have one the next day... just less likely. The magnitude of 100 year events will likely increase in the next little while...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik