To make matters worse, existing storage of wind energy in batteries was also gone, because batteries were losing 60% of their energy in the cold.
Bottom line: renewables don’t work well in extreme weather. Never will.
Conversation
This is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source. When weather conditions get bad as they did this week, intermittent renewable energy like wind isn’t there when you need it.
335
604
2,672
#2 - Nuclear also got too cold: We only have 4 nuclear units in TX, near Houston and Dallas. One of the reactors near Houston turned off due to a safety sensor freezing. No problem with the reactor. But the lack of the sensor forced the plant to shutdown, as a precaution.
135
313
2,109
(On another note, this shows how safe nuclear is. Lots of safety precautions.)
71
228
2,958
#3 - We don’t have enough Natural Gas online:
ERCOT planned on 67GW from natural gas/coal, but could only get 43GW of it online. We didn’t run out of natural gas, but we lost the ability to get it transported. Pipelines in Texas don’t use cold insulation – so they froze.
212
360
2,095
Every natural gas plant stayed online. The “downed” plants were due to scheduled maintenance.
Gov. Abbott made the right call in diverting all natural gas to home heating fuel and then electricity for homes. Gas and coal brought a stable supply of energy, but still not enough.
174
305
1,980
Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most?
Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.
279
528
2,876
Bottom line: fossil fuels are the only thing that saved us. They are *base load* energy.
If we were even *more* reliant on the wind turbines that froze, the outages would have been much worse.
378
591
2,994
This raises the obvious question: can we ever rely on renewables to power the grid during extreme weather?
No, you need gas or nuclear.
And subsidizing investment in wind has pushed gas and nuclear out.
Now we live with the consequences.
683
668
3,180
The push to decommission baseload power sources like natural gas would be disastrous when trying to keep the lights on in Texas.
201
273
2,384
I’ll be joining my Texas colleagues in getting to the bottom of what happened. We can do better, even for once in a century events.
In the meantime, stay warm, stay safe, and stay strong.
Replying to
We could also work closely with HVAC and hot water heater manufacturers to install remotes to cycle and distribute loads. As well, tax incentives for insulation, tankless water heaters, and higher rating heat pumps would help reducing wasted energy.
1
4
Replying to
What happened: you didn't weatherize any of your power plants, so they failed. And the grid isn't tied to any other state.
6
4
132
Replying to
deregulation - maybe not the great idea ya'll thought it was.
LOL, once in a century! Denial of climate change isn't going to help.
3
2
90
Replying to
Do you believe extreme weather events are caused in part by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Atmosphere? If not, what do you attribute the”once in a century” weather to?
16
4
87
Replying to
Cat’s out of the bag, Dan.
“Rare extreme conditions” are now become more common and more intense in large thanks due to human activity and fossil fuel usage.
You sit here clamoring for more use of the stuff that got us here in the first place? NRA gun policy all over again 😑
3
4
64
Replying to
Dude. It happened because of deregulation and failure of being able to get power from other states. If the grid was connected to the nation Texas would be better off.
Also how dare to criticize any other power grids.
1
2