What ERCOT is worried about here is the problem of a "Dark Start." Most power plants require power to run. If you have a really serious power outage you can end up in a situation where you don't...
Exemplary
What ERCOT is worried about here is the problem of a "Dark Start." Most power plants require power to run. If you have a really serious power outage you can end up in a situation where you don't have enough power to turn on your power plants.
Adding a whole bunch of battery storage makes the Dark Start problem less likely. It doesn't make it a lot less likely, however, because a battery based solution still requires that you have the forethought to fill and protect battery storage in order to use that power to spin up emergency generation. But... it's something.
The real issue here is that the problems that Texas has faced thus far haven't been Dark Start problems. The 2021 power crisis, for example, wasn't caused because Texas lacked the power to spin up their power sources but because Texas failed to winterize their power generation infrastructure and it couldn't function in the cold. Battery power could have helped there because you could have drained the batteries to stave off the blackout for a little while but that buys you HOURS when the blackout lasted DAYS.
See, what Texas needs is a whole bunch of extra power generation capacity just sitting around idle and waiting for the day when it is needed. Of course, they don't have that because it would cost a giant pile of money and be useless nearly all of the time. No one does that because it would be stupid. Instead, they rely on interconnects. Every other power system in the country has interconnects with other, neighboring power systems and we move power between those systems when there's a shortfall or some other crisis.
But Texas doesn't do that because Texas doesn't want to be subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulations. By isolating their power from the rest of the country, Texas can tell Congress to buzz off because power in Texas isn't inter-state commerce. But that means that Texas has to be an island unto itself which brings us back to the "what if we had a bunch of expensive power stations just sitting idle" option.
And in true Texas fashion, Texas has chosen option C: no interconnects AND no excess capacity, just let people freeze.
If you're a podcast person and interested in how Texas nearly crashed its entire power grid, which would've then remained offline for weeks/months, I highly recommend The Disconnect: Power,...
If you're a podcast person and interested in how Texas nearly crashed its entire power grid, which would've then remained offline for weeks/months, I highly recommend The Disconnect: Power, Politics, and the Texas Blackout. It's from NPR and KUT (our Austin NPR station). It goes into the history of why our grid is regulated (or not) the way it is, explains technical details of the disaster in 2021 in a way that's very approachable, and explores the fallout. It also explores the human consequences, which can be difficult to listen to, especially for those of us who went through it. I haven't heard the most recent episodes, but the first four or five are a great overview. And it might help explain why our entire state now collectively freaks out every time a winter cold front looms, and we all crash the ERCOT website.
Edit: Forgot to mention you're not limited to the website, and can search the podcast on other services, although that might go without saying.
ERCOT really doesn't seem like it's moving quickly to shore up energy concerns, but this legitimately feels like a good plan. It sounds like a combination of solar energy plus battery deployment...
ERCOT really doesn't seem like it's moving quickly to shore up energy concerns, but this legitimately feels like a good plan. It sounds like a combination of solar energy plus battery deployment is going to help give time and space for emergency generators to get online and running.
Hopefully as more folks install rooftop solar answer start to see the need on the grid lessen, even if marginally over time, grid instability will shore up.
To me the biggest challenge will be as lignite and coal plants start to age out. It's just not profitable in the current marketplace to replace old dirty energy, but I worry that renewable capacity won't have offset these sources in time. Would love to see some additional nuclear get built but that's always so fraught.
Yes! Seems to me if you position even just one of these outside every 100,000+ city in the state, we'd never really need to worry about the grid blacking out on us.
Yes! Seems to me if you position even just one of these outside every 100,000+ city in the state, we'd never really need to worry about the grid blacking out on us.
What ERCOT is worried about here is the problem of a "Dark Start." Most power plants require power to run. If you have a really serious power outage you can end up in a situation where you don't have enough power to turn on your power plants.
Adding a whole bunch of battery storage makes the Dark Start problem less likely. It doesn't make it a lot less likely, however, because a battery based solution still requires that you have the forethought to fill and protect battery storage in order to use that power to spin up emergency generation. But... it's something.
The real issue here is that the problems that Texas has faced thus far haven't been Dark Start problems. The 2021 power crisis, for example, wasn't caused because Texas lacked the power to spin up their power sources but because Texas failed to winterize their power generation infrastructure and it couldn't function in the cold. Battery power could have helped there because you could have drained the batteries to stave off the blackout for a little while but that buys you HOURS when the blackout lasted DAYS.
See, what Texas needs is a whole bunch of extra power generation capacity just sitting around idle and waiting for the day when it is needed. Of course, they don't have that because it would cost a giant pile of money and be useless nearly all of the time. No one does that because it would be stupid. Instead, they rely on interconnects. Every other power system in the country has interconnects with other, neighboring power systems and we move power between those systems when there's a shortfall or some other crisis.
But Texas doesn't do that because Texas doesn't want to be subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulations. By isolating their power from the rest of the country, Texas can tell Congress to buzz off because power in Texas isn't inter-state commerce. But that means that Texas has to be an island unto itself which brings us back to the "what if we had a bunch of expensive power stations just sitting idle" option.
And in true Texas fashion, Texas has chosen option C: no interconnects AND no excess capacity, just let people freeze.
What could possibly go wrong?
If you're a podcast person and interested in how Texas nearly crashed its entire power grid, which would've then remained offline for weeks/months, I highly recommend The Disconnect: Power, Politics, and the Texas Blackout. It's from NPR and KUT (our Austin NPR station). It goes into the history of why our grid is regulated (or not) the way it is, explains technical details of the disaster in 2021 in a way that's very approachable, and explores the fallout. It also explores the human consequences, which can be difficult to listen to, especially for those of us who went through it. I haven't heard the most recent episodes, but the first four or five are a great overview. And it might help explain why our entire state now collectively freaks out every time a winter cold front looms, and we all crash the ERCOT website.
Edit: Forgot to mention you're not limited to the website, and can search the podcast on other services, although that might go without saying.
ERCOT really doesn't seem like it's moving quickly to shore up energy concerns, but this legitimately feels like a good plan. It sounds like a combination of solar energy plus battery deployment is going to help give time and space for emergency generators to get online and running.
Hopefully as more folks install rooftop solar answer start to see the need on the grid lessen, even if marginally over time, grid instability will shore up.
To me the biggest challenge will be as lignite and coal plants start to age out. It's just not profitable in the current marketplace to replace old dirty energy, but I worry that renewable capacity won't have offset these sources in time. Would love to see some additional nuclear get built but that's always so fraught.
I'm hoping these types take off to distribute power generation. https://www.nuscalepower.com/en
Yes! Seems to me if you position even just one of these outside every 100,000+ city in the state, we'd never really need to worry about the grid blacking out on us.
That and some battery storage in each house would be lovely.