Texas

Why is there not enough power to run the heaters in winter when they have enough to run all the air conditioners when it gets over 100 degrees in hot weather? Also why do they have to boil the drinking water now?

There is not enough power because the wind and solar is not working. They have to boil water because the water plant lost power for a while.

Their equipment is not built for cold weather like it is in other States. I think their temperatures are supposed to be back in the 50's and 60's this weekend though....

No, jon, it's because their gas and nuclear generation plants are not cold weather compatible, so they're shut down. And they're not tied into the national grid so they can't buy power from the rest of the country.

Depends on what part of the state your in. Here in Centerville the power has never gone off.The main problem with our power grid. Is too many people moving to the state.They have overloaded the system. I am 70 and when I was a kid power failures were rare.

Boling the water kills any germs. But most stock up on bottled water before a storm.

Yes, thank you for providing some accurate information.

They said people left water faucets running to keep pipes from freezing, now water reservoirs are low, so they recommend boiling water, its a real mess down there.

According to the Senior Director of Systems Operations at ERCOT, Dan Woodfin, the frozen windmills accounted for less than 13% of the power outages. So yes they were a factor, albeit a small one. Solar production in the state only accounts for 3.8% of their production, so it was also a tiny factor as well. Natural gas is their largest power producer at 51%, and coal is 13.4%. Let's all take a moment and look at the numbers and facts before reaching conclusions.

I know a guy that works for our regional electric company and I asked him that question. He said since they don't need as much electrical capacity in the winter they shut down some power plants to save money and now they need the power and the plants aren't back on line. What is on line can't handle the load. Add that to their windmills being froze up and not connected to the grid outside of the state they are stuck without power. I don't know how long it takes to restart an electrical plant. They are being asked to boil water because there is no power to their water treatment plants.

(quoted from post at 12:04:31 02/18/21) Depends on what part of the state your in. Here in Centerville the power has never gone off.The main problem with our power grid. Is too many people moving to the state.They have overloaded the system. I am 70 and when I was a kid power failures were rare.

Boling the water kills any germs. But most stock up on bottled water before a storm.

Click to expand...

s

1. The power companies have failed to keep up with increased demand due to increased population.
2. Texas and/or the power companies made the decision to not tie into any other power grid in order to buy or sell additional power.
That is a failure on their part, not an act of god.
3. Boil water because water is going thru the treatment plants untreated or poorly treated. Also because maybe delivery piping was not buried deep enough and some pipes are breaking.

4.

(quoted from post at 12:23:39 02/18/21)They are being asked to boil water because there is no power to their water treatment plants.

Click to expand...

Red flag on that one.
I worked for a company that builds components for water treatment plants. For new plants and old ones being refurbished.
Everyone had on site emergency generators to keep everything operational.

So 17% reduction in the power grid on days when the grid would be taxed anyway sounds like a problem to me. Plus I heard it on the news so it must be true.

So 16% of their customers don't matter....right....a wake up call for those managers and bean counters in charge. Nearly everything has a "safety factor" or "catastrophic event" figured in...nearly everything. gobble

Agreed, and it is a problem that should be addressed in the future but let's not forget about the other 83%. From what I'm reading the largest factor might be the natural gas supply lines. When Texans need much greater than normal amounts of natural gas to heat their homes they are directly competing with the fuel needed to generate the majority of their electricity. The system down there just was not set up to succeed during a cold snap like this. Add in the fact that they are not interconnected to other states grids and you find yourself in the disaster that unfolded this week.

I never said that 16% of their customers don't matter. All I'm saying is that many people are quick to point their finger at wind and solar and are completely ignoring the cause of the other 84%. Every reason for power failure should be studied and corrected if possible, including renewables like wind and solar. But let's not forget about the other 84%.

After you posted I looked it up and it seems that there were many factors involved as well as wind and solar, mostly government mismanagement.

From what I have heard, a number of the conventional plants were not fully winterized for such cold temps and various sub systems were affected resulting in shutdowns. Also, one of the nuke plants went offline because of sensor issue or sensor sensed something (as reported by the news). Mostly these problem were preventable.

The windmills were having problems with ice buildup from freezing rain but they don't account for a high percentage anyway and were not really a factor. However it does show how they are vulnerable to weather.

The electric being off resulted in water pumps being shutdown and low system pressure. Apparently when it's low there is more risk of reverse flow in the system or something like that. Our local water had low pressure at two different times but never went off. They have a backup generator that can run the pumps at capacity but the generator went offline for some reason for a few hours but was fixed. Then once the power was on, it was intermittent and the pumps tripped due to power surging. (as was explained to me).

Our house is on COOP power and never went "out" but starting Monday evening they did rotating blackout: 4 hours on and 30 minutes off, very predictable. That stopped last night and power has been on continuously. Shout out to out local COOP power!
Half the local area belongs to ONCOR (giant utility) and their power was out for two days.

The whole thing is overblown in the news IMO. This is not the first time we've had icy cold weather; it just doesn't happen often. It seems like the first priority is to assign blame. There's plenty to go around but it's all in little bitty bites and everyone needs to look in the mirror first.

The REAL problem is that most people have no plan or reserve for any emergency of any kind. They've gotten too complacent because things go well most of the time. Then when something happens they want the Gov to rescue and bail them out.
You don't have to be one of those live-in-a-bunker-world-ending-prepper types. You just need a little extra food, a little extra fuel, flashlights, etc. and also pay attention to the weather forecast. Just a small effort to keep you out of trouble when things don't go perfect. Half the country has weather like this every single year and it's no secret how to get through it, even if it only happens once every thirty years.

(quoted from post at 12:42:11 02/18/21) So 17% reduction in the power grid on days when the grid would be taxed anyway sounds like a problem to me. Plus I heard it on the news so it must be true.

Click to expand...

No
17% being wind and solar might be offline due to current conditions.
But there are gas and coal plants offline as well because traditionally their capacity is not needed in the winter.
Guess when major maintenance is then traditionally scheduled?
Add in coal plants shutdown for a year or more while they are being converted to use NG.
The above and the fact that it involves a few days to bring a power plant up to speed after being offline even if it was 100% ready to go at a moments notice.

First off winter is maintenance time in the south.
We do maintenance on electric plants and oil refineries in the winter.
So some of the electric plants in Texas were shut down during these normally slow time of the year.
Couple that with some renewable production went down.
They under predicted maximum daily usage.
They are not hooked to the national grid.
And you got the start of a problem brewing.

Then you add in the unprecedented cold that we are not equipped to handle.

But the main reason the grid went down in Texas is the Natural gas supply.
Texas gets over 50% of its electricity from natural gas.
Because of their ready supply of gas they do not have much storage.
Because of the cold the normal gas supply from west Texas to the big cities in the east was cut off due to freezing problems.
Without a steady fuel supply electric production was not able to keep up.

The water has the same problem.
We are not equipped for the cold.
With so many letting the water drip to keep the pipes from freezing the water treatment plant gets over whelmed.
Once the water pressure gets to a set low amount it automatically triggers a boil water order.

Well I'm glad to have been able to shed a small amount of light on this subject. Please keep posting the pics of your farm. I never comment on them but sure do enjoy seeing them.

(quoted from post at 09:16:01 02/18/21) First off winter is maintenance time in the south.
We do maintenance on electric plants and oil refineries in the winter.
So some of the electric plants in Texas were shut down during these normally slow time of the year.
Couple that with some renewable production went down.
They under predicted maximum daily usage.
They are not hooked to the national grid.
And you got the start of a problem brewing.

Then you add in the unprecedented cold that we are not equipped to handle.

But the main reason the grid went down in Texas is the Natural gas supply.
Texas gets over 50% of its electricity from natural gas.
Because of their ready supply of gas they do not have much storage.
Because of the cold the normal gas supply from west Texas to the big cities in the east was cut off due to freezing problems.
Without a steady fuel supply electric production was not able to keep up.

The water has the same problem.
We are not equipped for the cold.
With so many letting the water drip to keep the pipes from freezing the water treatment plant gets over whelmed.
Once the water pressure gets to a set low amount it automatically triggers a boil water order.

Click to expand...

That sums it up perfectly right there ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Several reasons.

When it's 100* and you want 70* in the house, you're only looking at a 30* difference.

When it's 0* and you want 70*, that's 70* difference.

Also air conditioning is simply picking up the heat and putting it outside.

Heating requires converting energy to heat. A much more demanding process.

And we're not prepared for extreme cold, the buildings are not properly insulated to contain heat.

Now we're facing another problem, water! Broken pipes are thawing, water blowing everywhere, depleting the system.

Pressure dropping, boil requirements. Hard to boil water with the power off.

Apartments are the worst, broken pipes flooding multiple stories, unlivable conditions!

(quoted from post at 09:29:18 02/18/21) Several reasons.

When it's 100* and you want 70* in the house, you're only looking at a 30* difference.

When it's 0* and you want 70*, that's 70* difference.

Also air conditioning is simply picking up the heat and putting it outside.

Heating requires converting energy to heat. A much more demanding process.

And we're not prepared for extreme cold, the buildings are not properly insulated to contain heat.

Now we're facing another problem, water! Broken pipes are thawing, water blowing everywhere, depleting the system.

Pressure dropping, boil requirements. Hard to boil water with the power off.

Apartments are the worst, broken pipes flooding multiple stories, unlivable conditions!

Click to expand...

Since I live on the outskirts of San Antonio this is spot on!

The sad and scary part is, scammers are probably already licking their chops at the thought of all of those buildings needing repairs. Or am I too cynical?

I read through this thread twice and have seen it mentioned a few times about Texas not being interconnected with other states power transmission grids.

Why is that? It makes absolutely zero sense.


Anyone got a good explanation?

Texas is not hooked to the grid because being a intrastate business they do not fall under federal regulations and over sight.
The laws they follow are made in Austin not D.C.

You're absolutely right about the scammers!

They're running public service announcements about them on TV.

(quoted from post at 11:13:12 02/18/21) You're absolutely right about the scammers!

They're running public service announcements about them on TV.

Click to expand...

That's a good thing about the PSA's. Texas is ripe for the picking by scammers. Theyve fallen for a lot of scams over the years. For instance, look at their junior senator. He let a conman from New York denigrate him, his wife and his father and then ended up kissing that fellows ring repeatedly! And to make matters worse then the senator fled to Cancun during the ongoing disaster! Those Texans really got scammed by that guy. Hope they dont get scammed again.

(quoted from post at 15:12:59 02/18/21) Texas is not hooked to the grid because being a intrastate business they do not fall under federal regulations and over sight.
The laws they follow are made in Austin not D.C.

Click to expand...

So, what I get from your post is they are too independent to be interconnected with other states.

Is that accurate?

If so, is it wise?

Texas is famous for not wanting regulation or zoning of any kind. Subsequently there is no regulation of any kind on its electrical grid system or the many small unregulated generating facilities connected to & supplying power for it. No incentives for them to upgrade the facilities they operate or penalities if they don't. Also no penalties if they don't supply power whenever it's needed. Just my opinion based on a little knowledge of that states electrical grid system provided by a Texas attendee at a conference on reliable power sources for small water/wastewater systems. Bottom line from other conference attendees: Make sure to invest in sufficient back-up generators to sustain extended power outages if you are a water system operator in Texas.

Since 2000 Texas has grown from 20 million residents to over 28 million residents..Its the fastest growing state in the US...This is the worst cold wave in Texas since 1989 and they just couldn't keep up with it...We barely kept up here in Missouri because for several days we were 40-50 degrees below normal...AC doesnt play in to this because we are never 40-50 degrees above normal..

In 2018 a private energy company closed 3 coal fired power plants in central Texas. As stated below this was the fastest growing state in the country. These 3 power plants produced enough electric to provide power for 800,000 residential homes in Texas. Why would you need less energy for 8 million more people moving in to your state ? In retrospect this appears to have been be a very bad move by someone. We have to have a balance in a variety of sources of energy production you can't just rely one one source like natural gas or wind or solar.

Wind generators froze up. They were not designed for the extreme cold. Read an article that said the ice/snow caused the blades to get out of balance and the wind turbine had to be shut down, but I don't know if that's true. At least one nuclear power plant was shut down without explanation. Some other plants shut down, don't know why. Gov. Abbott has opened an investigation as to why plants were shut down.

So, let us put to rest the previous discussion...were you getting electric from municipal power or from generators you have on-site?

Glad y'all are okay.

Thanks to the Clean Air Act, pipeline compressors run on electricity now rather than natural gas. So blackouts meant to conserve energy can actually reduce it by knocking gas burning generators offline.