I would suggest that the regulation paradigm in Texas does not allow coordinated maintenance scheduling to adapt to supply and load issues (especially in the face of a disaster like the Winter event earlier this year). That would mean a stronger regulatory framework and that smacks of government interference in the eyes of some.
* brian.johnson@netgeek.us (Brian Johnson) [Wed 14 Apr 2021, 17:37 CEST]:
Not what I was saying. The demand for virtue-signaling green energy is not an effective strategy to actually having power available.
The relevant virtue that's signaled with green energy is that its MWh prices are WAY lower than traditional fossil fuel-based generators.
I appreciate the nuances, but the need to imply that a profit motive was the issue is not proven. This issue was NOT foreseeable except with the perfect reverse 20/20 vision. It’s like saying that I shouldn’t have built the house where the tornado hit.
I've not done exhaustive research of the situation in Texas (although I am a stakeholder, being a customer in several datacentres there) but I'd be surprised if Regulatory capture - Wikipedia had nothing to do with it.
-- Niels.
* brian.johnson@netgeek.us (Brian Johnson) [Wed 14 Apr 2021, 17:37 CEST]:
Not what I was saying. The demand for virtue-signaling green energy is not an effective strategy to actually having power available.
The relevant virtue that's signaled with green energy is that its MWh prices are WAY lower than traditional fossil fuel-based generators.
Not going to get into this, but this is simply not true on multiple fronts.
I appreciate the nuances, but the need to imply that a profit motive was the issue is not proven. This issue was NOT foreseeable except with the perfect reverse 20/20 vision. It’s like saying that I shouldn’t have built the house where the tornado hit.
I've not done exhaustive research of the situation in Texas (although I am a stakeholder, being a customer in several datacentres there) but I'd be surprised if Regulatory capture - Wikipedia had nothing to do with it.
So you want to do what about regulation. Deregulate so this can’t happen (HA), or regulate more so that this gets fixed (HA HA... and running away).
If your point is that the ERCOT is acting in bad faith, I’d suggest you work with the Texas PUC to resolve that issue. Everything else is just politics.
45 days of planned notice, is what I read. And can be rejected if that notification window is shorter than that.
Is that sufficient?
Mark.
Particularly when you factor in close to no maintenance costs for things like PV, and a nominal 1% drop in efficiency per year on 20-year-old design plans.
Mark.
On a large scale, I agree that numbers can look odd. But on a smaller, community scale, it does look good.
Mark.
It appears that Stan Barber <sob@academ.com> said:
-=-=-=-=-=-
I would suggest that the regulation paradigm in Texas does not allow
coordinated maintenance scheduling to adapt to supply and load issues
(especially in the face of a disaster like the Winter event earlier this
year). That would mean a stronger regulatory framework and that smacks of
government interference in the eyes of some.
Exactly. It's all about risk shifting. Ercot is run by free market
fundamentalists who believe, in spite of considerable evidence to the
contrary, that the market alone will always provide all the power
people need. This has the effect of shifting the risk of failure onto
users who often don't realize that until it's too late. They've known
since 2011 that much of the Texas grid fails when it's below freezing
but they don't have any inclination, or even the authority, to tell
power generators to spend money on weatherproofing and other risk
management.
They allow the wholesale price of power which is usually about 4c/kwh
to spike as high as $9, in the absurd belief that super high prices
will magically cause power to appear. This had the effect of dumping
giant power bills on users who couldn't pay them, and the costs and
defaults are now making lawyers rich.
Meanwhile, the politicans are involved in an extensive effort to pin
the blame on anyone but themselves, which is where the nonsense about
green power comes from. Texas' windmills aren't weatherproofed any
better than rest of the system but nontheless were providing slightly
more power than Ercot expected while the grid collapsed.
So, yeah, if you're in Texas, better make your own arrangments because
the state is paralyzed.
I would say that under normal circumstances, 45 days might work (Personally, I would prefer 90 days).
However, I suggest we are not dealing with a normal circumstance because of the fall out from the winter incident.
Agreed.
Mark.
This is patently absurd. It's an industry group/organization. It's raison d'etre is to serve its industry which definitely has a profit motive. That and even non-profits have a profit motive to stay afloat. See the NRA for one that has gone terribly wrong.
Mike