02-17-2021, 03:20 PM
(02-17-2021, 11:18 AM)dukealien Wrote: Spoke too soon - this instant poem from yesterday:It is well known that wind only accounts for 25% of Texas's energy output on average. But the % can dip across hours, and there is enough slack in the system to absorb this.
Folly,Folly
Our trouble here in Texas
isn’t like poor California’s
which shut down electric power
at its source just to avert
consumerism and in woods
to save trees from their path
to resurrection - fire.
No, in Texas we bought into wind
so hard when winter storms
come overspeeding fragile fans
we haven’t left enough of coal
and gas and nuclear to keep
our state from freezing.
Eg from 21:30 of 11th Feb to 12 AM of 12th Feb last year, wind output dropped to 166 MW (average), and a nadir of 116 MW at 23:45. During this 2.75 hr period, wind produced between 4.6% and 8.4% of the energy demand.
However, guess what, the grid did NOT collapse during this time, because there IS, in fact, enough gas and coal capacity in Texas to account for these very well known, always modelled, basic information to any power systems engineer, fluctuations in wind output.
Because there IS wind and gas capacity, even if the turbines remain frozen for a month, there should be no interruption in power. However, that has not happened because.....the gas and the coal plants tripped due to the weather too. So the issue is that Texas power plants were not adequately prepared for extreme cold conditions ie scrimped on winterising their equipment.
This time, from ERCOT: http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225210
AUSTIN, TX, Feb. 15, 2021 – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) entered emergency conditions and initiated rotating outages at 1:25 a.m. today.
About 10,500 MW of customer load was shed at the highest point. This is enough power to serve approximately two million homes.
Extreme weather conditions caused many generating units – across fuel types – to trip offline and become unavailable.
There is now over 30,000 MW of generation forced off the system
See that last line?