Sunday, February 21, 2021

Report: The Collapse Of Wind Power Followed By Natural Gas Not Able To Make Up For The Shortfall Caused The Texas Grid To Collapse

Zero Hedge: Cascend: Data Shows Wind-Power Was Chief Culprit Of Texas Grid Collapse 

With the worst of the Texas power crisis now behind us, the blame and fingerpointing begins, and while the jury is still out whose actions (or lack thereof) may have led to the deadly and widespread blackouts that shocked Texas this week, Cascend Strategy writes that "in case there was any doubt why the Texas grid collapsed, the data is clear" 

 * Wind failed as “Ice storms knocked out nearly half the wind-power generating capacity of Texas on Sunday as a massive deep freeze across the state locked up wind turbine generators, creating an electricity generation crisis." 
 * Natural gas made up the difference for a while 
 * But then everything else followed down 

 Some more detail from Cascend which lays out the events of this week in sequence: 

 * A massive cold snap drove demand for electricity well beyond normal levels 
 * Wind power failed to deliver it’s expected power – almost 40% of expected power – in part due to lack of winterized wind turbines 

Read more .... 

WNU Editor: Cascend's recommendations are the following .... 

1) Winterize equipment 
2) Require power reserve 
3) Connect the Texas grid better 
4) Add solar with storage (storage is key) 
5) And add more natural gas 

I lived through the Quebec ice storm of 1998 (read my commentary here .... Texas Was "Seconds And Minutes" Away From A Catastrophic Months-Long Blackout). 

I concur with the above Cascend recommendation that Texas must spend money on winterizing their equipment, and connecting the grid better. We did it in Quebec, and we have fared (so far) quite well. 

As to the limits of wind-power. Canada has also learned how unreliable they can be in winter, and why they must be constructed to withstand harsh conditions like ice.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

But Greta and the left demanded..surely a bit of pain and a few dozen dead don't count
Next time they'll manage to kill even more. The left has big plans for Texas and people who vote wrong

Anonymous said...

Supposing Texas had zero wind power but more natural gas power to make up the difference. When the cold set in, the gas-powered sites would have failed, just as they did in the real world. Then, there would have been similar results to what actually happened. The fault is with past Texas governments that did not legislate standards for extreme weather. As the old Fram oil filter slogan went, "Pay me now, or pay me later."
kk

Dave Goldstein said...

It also helps that 1 of 2 nuclear reactors went off line. Thats a huge amount of electricty gone

Blackdog said...

Zero Hedge is a excellent source of unbiased information. Not!

Anonymous said...

"3) Connect the Texas grid better"

The weight of the edge(s) and number of connecting vertices did not matter. There was not sufficient supply to be had in surrounding electrical grids.

Anonymous said...

CONNECT BETTER? HAD THEYH JOINED THE OTHER STATES AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL THEYH WOULD HAVE HAD POWER SENT THEM INSTANTLY

NUCLEAR POER REMAINED FINE

Anonymous said...

SCREAMING MORON,

Identify the supplies. Nearby Oklahoma was barely keeping up with demand. Same for two other adjacent grids.

Now what would be funny is if they were totally connected like how you want and they brought down the whole grid in the US. I could see pipe bursting throughout the US and the grid down until May.


Your the moron that blamed a drought for Venezuela's lack of hydro power. You ignored little tiny things such as capital reinvestment in equipment. You would never think much about maintenance and the cost. You do not know that motors after long service have to be rewound or replaced.

"Motors can benefit from rewinding if the insulation around the copper wiring fails. As long as the core of the motor isn't damaged, rewinding it with new wire can revitalize the motor and extend its lifespan. It's also generally cheaper than replacing the whole motor."

https://www.wikihow.com/Rewind-an-Electric-Motor

Never once did you admit that you favorite socialist Maduro and other parasite deferred maintenance, so they could pocket the money. No, you blamed it all on the drought.

Well it figures. You are one of the morons that were hidden off on the side from the regular students taking "photography" classes in college.

All state utilities are regulated. The utilities have to have their rate approved by a government board. Rates have to be high enough to I don't know ... perhaps pay for "upgrayds" ?

You do not know shit.

You don't know about transformers and EMP
You don't know about generators
You don't know about motors
...


You do not know shit!

Anonymous said...

Connecting to the rest of the national power grid would not have helped. There were 14 other states which had the same issues, and they also surrounded Texas. This was a once in a multi-lifetime event, preparing for it after the fact is likely just a waste of money at this point.

I am more concerned about wind-power's lack of surge generation capability for the yearly hot summers than their lack of ability to function fully in a rare severe winter.

The biggest problems were related to the fact that nobody down here expected a severe winter storm, nor did they know how to prepare for it and mitigate the damage.

Anonymous said...


The new batteries have more capacity. We are told this. I believe it. If it were economically feasible to back up wind and solar with batteries, they would have done more of it with or without subsidies. Maybe we get there. Maybe we don't.

What bugs me is that we have these ignorant people. I am pretty ignorant, but it seems not as ignorant of all these pie in the sky, unicorn fart types. Having cracked an electrical engineering book. I know that the power you get out of a battery depends on temperature. At least it does for a lead acid battery. With the new batteries we are talking lithium or something more exotic, but I suspect they are still affected by temperature.

If it were me, I would store battery back up in cave perhaps where the temperature is constant. Not many of those lying around or unused.

So you put these batteries would be put in warehouse and they would probably need HVAC, which would decrease their utility as they themselves are gobbling up power. It is just another problem. How many of these unicorn fart sniffers has ever worked or walked through a warehouse? It usually is hard or expensive to control temperature.

Temperature Characteristics

"Cell performance can change dramatically with temperature. At the lower extreme, in batteries with aqueous electrolytes, the electrolyte itself may freeze setting a lower limit on the operating temperature. At low temperatures Lithium batteries suffer from Lithium plating of the anode causing a permanent reduction in capacity. At the upper extreme the active chemicals may break down destroying the battery. In between these limits the cell performance generally improves with temperature. "

https://mpoweruk.com/performance.htm

Anonymous said...

Texas is already connected to the grid. I believe there are only 3 interconnects.

If those 3 interconnects have enough throughput and were no where near t capacity, then the problem is not connectivity.

The problems was supply outside of Texas not being there.

The 3 interconnects have been brought up, because it was noted that it would be easy for Texas to disconnect from a Democrat Diktat.