Texas power issues. Windfarms getting iced up. 67

[Alistair_Heaton]

That's a lot of capacity that's been lost. Must admit being Aberdonian we always associate Texas with hot and humid... Not snow storms.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...nd-turbines-texas-power-outages-b1802596.html

 

[JohnRBaker]

Texans are tough and expendable... it's a price you pay for being tough...

Apparently the ex-governor of Texas, Rick Perry, of recent Energy Secretary fame, thinks three days without power, in the middle of a 100-year winter weather event, is a small price for Texans to pay if it keeps the Federal government out of the state:

Perry says Texans willing to suffer blackouts to keep feds out of power market

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/bu...ns-wiling-to-suffer-blackouts-to-15956705.php

I wonder if he thinks Texans need to be 'protected' from Federal disaster aid as well?

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

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

 

[TugboatEng]

[not politics] Let's keep the discussion related to causes. Perry did not cause this outage nor was in a position for his policies to affect it.

On your note about the CA situation, funny because my parents are finally looking to take a step forward (they refuse to use LED lights in their house) and they're getting a tankless water heater. My mother wants to buy a small gas generator just to run the controls on the water heater but I suggested otherwise due to the inherent problems associated with gasoline engines in standby service. We found a battery unit that only comes on when it senses flow and I think that's brilliant but it wouldn't work at the temperatures being experienced in Texas current. AGM batteries have their limits.

 

[JohnRBaker]

My comment about Rick Perry was simply providing substance for dik's comment about the resilience of Texans and what they're willing to withstand for the honor of being seen as "tough".

Besides, several other people have already injected political commentary into this thread and I didn't see you say anything about what they had posted.

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

 

[byrdj]

just curoius (not trying to make political statement)

How would the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission be of any assistance to prevent current situation.

it was couple decades past, but Texas Steam Turbine plants were more concerned with having their control regulate grid frequency and the biggy was to have emergancy over design capibilty while maintaing frequency regulation.

it was only during the last years I worked that NERC starting even surveying about actual steam turbine controls response

Maybe they have become laxed with the public desire to go green

 

[dik]

I suspect that if you're not connected to the grid... you're on your own...

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

-Dik

 

[JohnRBaker]

Interesting that you mention FERC. They had a very prophetic take on a situation very similar to what's happening now, back in 2011. Note that I just now posted the item below in another forum, but since you brought it up, it seems appropriate that I post a copy of it here:

There was a similar, although not as extensive, but still a significant interruption of electrical service in Texas during the winter of 2011, which took out a major part of the state's power grid under conditions similar to what's been seen this past week. After that incident, a 400 page report was prepared by FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) and provided to the state of Texas and to ERCOT (The Electric Reliability Council of Texas), which highlighted the problems with the lack of winterizing the power infrastructure including, but not limited to, natural gas pipe lines and power generation facilities, including the state's four nuclear power plants (note that at the time, there was negligible wind and solar generating capacity connected to the state's grid). The primary conclusion of the report was that the failures were caused by a lack of proper concern and preparation for winter weather conditions and that without sufficient investment in mitigating the shortcomings and weaknesses in the power grid, the generating facilities, and the supply infrastructure for delivering fuel, primarily gas and oil, that this would be a recurring problem.


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

 

[dik]

Is that one of the 'inline' heaters that heat on demand... so common in Europe? As far as LEDs causing sterility... there are too many people, anyway.

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

-Dik

 

[dik]

Looks like things haven't changed... this 'freaky' weather could become more common...

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

-Dik

 

[byrdj]

I recall the events. . .
OK, so FERC could have forced the utilities to impliment what they should have done. My impression back then, the Texas ERC was more strigent than NERC

when verifing actual steam turbine respone were as per NERC guidlines, I never heard plant managers discussing concenquences if not met.
(But that was the time frame I quit)

 

[JohnRBaker]

But I thought that was Rick Perry's argument for having a totally isolated, Texas-only, power grid, so that they didn't HAVE to listen to the Fed's.

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

 

[byrdj]

the mentioned SCRAM of STP#1, while root cause has not been provided, assuming from what little know, I would bet instrument line freezing was the primary reason.

NOW, a nuclear plant would fall under NRC oversight (I can't imangine TX got out of that Fed). So any Fed recomendation to prevent freezing should have been implimented (with penealities if not)

 

[waross]

I understood that the root problem was that the Texas regulators did not recognize the importance of winterization and refused to allow the energy companies to recoup their expenses.
If the regulators will not allow expenditures to be charged as either operating expense or capital expense, then the money will not be spent.

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

 

[davidbeach]

Ok, say you're a 500MW plant and you've missed 10 hours of a $9000 market because you didn't properly winterize. That's $45 million in foregone revenue. For 10 hours. Gone. How much winterization would have it taken to earn that $45 million? I'm willing to bet that 500MW plant could have stayed on-line for far less than $45 million of incremental costs. Even if most of that had been spent on getting their gas supplier to harden that system. Everybody that wasn't running in a $9000 market was losing the life cycle cost game big time. They may have won the first cost prize battle, but they've certainly lost the life cycle war. Utility systems (utilities as such plus IPPs plus etc.) are not suitable to a first cost analysis, but must be evaluated on a life cycle basis. Texas sized losses.

I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations

 

[1503-44]

On demand "tankless" water heaters do not require gasoline powered generators to run the two manually set knob controls. One sets the "fire height" and the other (as best as I can tell) sets the water flow rate that lights the flame. No external power source is required. Snap in 2 x C cells. That is all.

Not sure about recent trends, but no single family house in TX had anything but gas central heat and electric cooling, or a fireplace and evaporative "desert" cooler.

ERCOT's daily real time Capacity (red) & Demand (green) curves

Does that graph update when this page is reloaded? I think it should, if it has had time to change..
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/main/currentDayForecastSystemLoad.png?uniquenessFactor=161362
I think this one will update too. The graphs above seem to be static or rather "frozen".
[img [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.png[/URL]

There is no such thing as "winterization" design in TX! This hat is the best you'll get. What's worse on a more common basis is that they won't put up a sunshade either. Except over the bosses' pickup. Speaking of pickup, Dont pick up no wrench in August.

Actually, it was the new demands created by all the Californian immigrants that caused this problem!

 

[RedSnake]

dik Tugboat

Is that one of the 'inline' heaters that heat on demand... so common in Europe?
Was about to ask about what that is?
Never heard about it.

As far as LEDs causing sterility... there are too many people, anyway.
????
Free contraceptives ?
I hope you are joking.

Best Regards A



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

 

[1503-44]

It is basically a simple gas fired heat exchanger. Nothing else. No hot water storage tank. Cold water passes through a coil above the flame and comes out hot. Not using hot water right now. No problem, there is none. When you turn on a tap, water pressure reduces at the coil and triggers gas valve to open and 2 C cells to throw a spark into the gas. Poof. Hot water. Turn the tap off, water pressure rises at the coil and the gas valve closes. Flame off. Naturally both electric and gas companies do not like these things, but I really do.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Redsnake they are very common in central Europe. The Germans went that way some 20 years ago now although they tend to use electric.

They had a huge spate of Legionaries' disease linked with changes in building reg's and big hot water tanks and max water supply temp. To keep the supply temp below 40 deg the water tank sits at perfect Legionaries' breeding temp. If you wanted to keep the old tank setup you either had to get a controller to boost the temp to 70 degs every week for a couple of hours or get a temp mixer. So the solution was these heaters which go on all the hot taps so they only have to run 1 water line to each wet room. They are ok for kitchen and most taps but utterly rubbish if you have a bath. The electric ones are a pain in the bum they seem to last about 3-5 years and then you have to swap them out.

 

[JohnRBaker]

In England I was told that they used to call them 'Geezers' or something like that. I used to stay in this small hotel (it only had 12 rooms) across from our office in Cambridge (the door of the hotel and the door to the building where our software development office was, was literally straight across from each other, with only a narrow, brick-paved street to cross, which even in the rain, you could make it without getting too wet). Anyway, before you could take a shower, you had to remember to turn on the gas to make sure that there would be hot water. Of course, you than had to remember to turn it off afterwards. I was told that in some places, you had to put a couple of coins in a 'meter' to turn on, and of course, pay for the gas. At least in that situation, when the money ran out, the gas turned off by itself.

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

 

[RedSnake]

Okay thanks, Our new water heaters always come with the automatic funktion of overheating the water periodically.
Or you run them on 70 degrees all the time and mix it with cold water after the heater, off course there is a small risk of legionella in the pips then but I am not shore if it common though.
And as far as I know you can only get legionella infection from showering or breading in the water vapor down your lungs not by drinking the water.

Best regards A

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

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Sounds about right John I can remember them but most of the UK has gone combi condensing boiler now.

Central Europe doesn't tend to have the mains domestic gas supply network that we have in the UK. And the post war buildings are not really suited to running extra pipes into later on. Showers are the norm but baths seem to have come back into fashion.

But in UK pretty much nobody drinks from the hot water tap where as in Germany my colleagues did it all the time. We also used to have a cold water tank somewhere high up but they did away with that years ago.

My heatpump does the same. Every Monday night on my 250ltr tank it normally sits at 50 deg C . I have a temp mixer as well but its not required in the local regs.