DRich
DRich
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February 16th, 2021 at 10:54:24 AM permalink
Quote: Hunterhill

most wood pellet stoves also require electricity that’s why I went with a wood stove.



Yes, the ones that I have seen have an electronic igniter. I would guess that the pellet feeder timer is also electric.
At my age, a "Life In Prison" sentence is not much of a deterrent.
EvenBob
EvenBob
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February 16th, 2021 at 12:29:13 PM permalink
Quote: gamerfreak



What ever happened to indoor kerosine heaters? Weren’t they all the rage 30-40+ years ago?



They're still around. I had 3 of them in
the 80's, man they produce a lot of
heat. Expensive to run though. When
I had the cab co in certain neighborhoods
I had to go to the door. In the winter a
blast of hot air would hit me and they
had their furnace cranked and the
inevitable huge kero heater in the
middle of the living room. Was 90
in there at least.

"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
ChumpChange
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February 16th, 2021 at 12:42:08 PM permalink
Comment: A great Kerosene heater that works very well when used with the proper fuel. Some slight odor when turning off, should be expected with this type of heater, as with all kerosene heaters, wick type. A great heater for the price, puts out plenty of heat, and burns 8-9 hours per tank of fuel.

Dyna Glo 23k Btu Indoor Kerosene Heater - Black
$134.00 in-store pickup only
Walmart link: https://tinyurl.com/ybkut9f2

Klean-Strip® 1-K Kerosene Heater Fuel, 2.5 Gallons
$21.68 ($8.67/gal)
Only 1 left! - in-store pickup only
WalMart link: https://tinyurl.com/ydgdyhvp
Last edited by: ChumpChange on Feb 16, 2021
AxelWolf
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February 16th, 2021 at 1:37:48 PM permalink
I have been looking at bio-ethanol indoor fireplaces. They cost $350 and up. There are all kinds of styles, shapes, forms, wall mounted, standalone, corner fit, table top, floor stand. https://www.a-fireplace.com/ethanol-fireplace/. I wish I knew about theses years ago before I set up our living room. I know they are not cost effective, I just want one because they look nice.

I ordered a small one just to see how they look and work.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
EvenBob
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February 16th, 2021 at 2:10:43 PM permalink
Quote: AxelWolf

I have been looking at bio-ethanol indoor fireplaces



My bedroom heat tonight.

"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
SanchoPanza
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February 16th, 2021 at 3:00:37 PM permalink
Quote: ChumpChange

"Backup generators at towers are freezing or running out of fuel or both," tweeted County Judge KP George.

Don't they have gas mains, or is too demanding to expect them not to be outmoded, just like a third world country?
rdw4potus
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February 16th, 2021 at 3:05:34 PM permalink
The utility commission in Texas has chastised ERCOT for curtailing firm customers yesterday when prices were "only" $8800/mwh and not at the $9000 cap. Pricing on 2/12 was $22/mwh.....
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
ChumpChange
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February 16th, 2021 at 3:18:40 PM permalink
'Dire and unpredictable' Texas power problems the result of 10 years of GOP governors: Dallas judge - Raw Story - Celebrating 16 Years of Independent Journalism https://www.rawstory.com/reason-texas-republican-power-failures/

One-third of Texas power grid officials do not live in Texas: report - Raw Story - Celebrating 16 Years of Independent Journalism https://www.rawstory.com/one-third-texas-power-officials/

Texas has a new crisis compounding blackouts — natural gas is ‘just frozen right now’: GOP governor - Raw Story - Celebrating 16 Years of Independent Journalism https://www.rawstory.com/texas-power-outage-blackout-gas/

No warmup until Sunday the 21st.
Last edited by: ChumpChange on Feb 16, 2021
coilman
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SOOPOO
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February 16th, 2021 at 3:59:27 PM permalink
Not sure if I understand this. I ‘think’ my electric bill is a defined rate approved by some government agency, multiplied by how much I use? And if the utility wants a raise, it requests it from the government agency, maybe like once a year? I ‘think’ I don’t pay a different rate today versus tomorrow?

Can anyone verify!?
ChumpChange
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February 16th, 2021 at 4:24:58 PM permalink
If a 100 kwhr Tesla battery takes 120 kwhr to charge, at $9/kwhr you'd pay $1080 to charge up.
rdw4potus
rdw4potus
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February 16th, 2021 at 4:26:39 PM permalink
Quote: SOOPOO

Not sure if I understand this. I ‘think’ my electric bill is a defined rate approved by some government agency, multiplied by how much I use? And if the utility wants a raise, it requests it from the government agency, maybe like once a year? I ‘think’ I don’t pay a different rate today versus tomorrow?

Can anyone verify!?



Where are you now? Florida? If so, you've got it right. But in, say, Buffalo there are options for variable rate pricing. It's cheaper over time, but when it spikes.....
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
AxelWolf
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February 16th, 2021 at 4:42:53 PM permalink
Quote: EvenBob

My bedroom heat tonight.

Now you just need some soft music, wine and a bubble bath.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
MDawg
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February 16th, 2021 at 4:50:40 PM permalink
Just be careful though.

Candles igniting curtain cause of fire at Cosmopolitan
I tell you it’s wonderful to be here, man. I don’t give a damn who wins or loses. It’s just wonderful to be here with you people. https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/betting-systems/33908-the-adventures-of-mdawg/
mcallister3200
mcallister3200
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February 16th, 2021 at 8:22:25 PM permalink
Quote: EvenBob

My bedroom heat tonight.



That set up looks like waiting for an altar boy to come light the rest of them lol.
EvenBob
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February 16th, 2021 at 8:29:11 PM permalink
Quote: mcallister3200

Quote: EvenBob

My bedroom heat tonight.



That set up looks like waiting for an altar boy to come light the rest of them lol.



Probably is, it's a stock photo
I found on the net.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
AxelWolf
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February 16th, 2021 at 9:43:56 PM permalink
Quote: mcallister3200

Quote: EvenBob

My bedroom heat tonight.



That set up looks like waiting for an altar boy to come light the rest of them lol.

there won't be any need for candle heat then.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
ChumpChange
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February 17th, 2021 at 6:49:27 AM permalink
20 Dead Across US Amid Wild Weather As Texas Blackouts Plunge Up To 15 Million People Into Darkness | ZeroHedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/real-size-texas-blackouts-could-have-plunged-15-million-people-darkness

Nearly all of Houston has low -- or no -- water pressure, OEM says
Water utilities are being impacted by the state power issues.
https://tinyurl.com/ycxt48fg
Fires started by candles or burning other things for heat met with 911 backlogs and fire crews with inadequate water pressure.
(Another few days of this and cities will burn down like Chicago did way back when.)
Last edited by: ChumpChange on Feb 17, 2021
EvenBob
EvenBob
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February 17th, 2021 at 8:56:06 AM permalink
Quote: ChumpChange


Fires started by candles



I burned 12 candles last night and
survived. Amazing feat.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
ChumpChange
ChumpChange
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February 17th, 2021 at 9:01:48 AM permalink
Rick Perry calls on Texans to endure frigid temps without heat to ‘keep the feds out of their business’ - Raw Story - Celebrating 16 Years of Independent Journalism https://www.rawstory.com/rick-perry/
SOOPOO
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February 17th, 2021 at 9:51:35 AM permalink
Quote: EvenBob

I burned 12 candles last night and
survived. Amazing feat.



Bob... I missed the beginning... Do you use candles as your main source of heat? Or mostly decorative? Do you also use ‘regular’ furnace? Or fireplace?
rxwine
rxwine
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February 17th, 2021 at 10:59:05 AM permalink
EB smells like scented candles. Fresh strawberries in Spring.
There's no secret. Just know what you're talking about before you open your mouth.
AxelWolf
AxelWolf
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February 17th, 2021 at 12:01:24 PM permalink
Quote: EvenBob

I burned 12 candles last night and
survived. Amazing feat.

I burned one space heater last night and almost died.
♪♪Now you swear and kick and beg us That you're not a gamblin' man Then you find you're back in Vegas With a handle in your hand♪♪ Your black cards can make you money So you hide them when you're able In the land of casinos and money You must put them on the table♪♪ You go back Jack do it again roulette wheels turinin' 'round and 'round♪♪ You go back Jack do it again♪♪
ChumpChange
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February 18th, 2021 at 6:19:28 PM permalink
Texas Was "Seconds And Minutes" From Complete Disaster | ZeroHedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/texas-was-seconds-and-minutes-complete-disaster

TV says more cold weather coming tonight and more rotating blackouts are likely.
3.3 million are under a boil water order because the water pressure fell below 20 psi. It was reported to be 30 psi a few hours ago. I need 50 psi myself.
Burst pipes will be worse than Flint, MI.
Federal supplies have arrived but state officials haven't done anything with them, eg generators and fuel.
Tanko
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February 19th, 2021 at 5:27:08 PM permalink
Quote: ChumpChange

Electric prices could double, quadruple, 10X, or 100X imminently because of supply problems in the deep freeze. Will casinos close (especially in the midwest & east) because the electric bill just went off the charts?

No word on when prices will recover, but it's not this week, and prices will continue to skyrocket. Texans could be paying $5-$10 per kilowatt-hour today, and multiples of that by the end of this week.

For a low user on 20 kw-hr/day, that'd be $100-$200 a day for electricity now.



"Homeowners hit with electric bills as high as $17K amid Texas winter storm" - NY Post
rxwine
rxwine
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February 20th, 2021 at 10:27:29 AM permalink
Quote: Tanko

"Homeowners hit with electric bills as high as $17K amid Texas winter storm" - NY Post



17k or freeze to death?

Might be worth spending a couple nights sleeping in the car with the motor on. With the garage door open of course.
There's no secret. Just know what you're talking about before you open your mouth.
rxwine
rxwine
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February 20th, 2021 at 12:41:02 PM permalink
I was just now wondering what the return on investment of Hoover Dam. And a quick Google says...

Quote:

To pay all operation, maintenance and replacement costs (including interest expense and repayment of investments) to meet the requirements of the project. The cost of construction completed and in service by 1937 was repaid from power revenues by May 31, 1987, except for costs relating to flood control. Repayment of the $25 million construction costs allocated to flood control will be repaid by 2037. Any features added after May 31, 1987 will be repaid within 50 years of the date of installation or as established by Congress. In addition, Arizona and Nevada each receive $300,000 annually in lieu of taxes.

There's no secret. Just know what you're talking about before you open your mouth.
SOOPOO
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February 20th, 2021 at 3:57:31 PM permalink
Can you spell ‘class action lawsuit’? I just don’t see customers paying the ridiculous electric bills. And I expect them to be protected by the government.
rdw4potus
rdw4potus
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February 20th, 2021 at 4:12:09 PM permalink
Quote: SOOPOO

Can you spell ‘class action lawsuit’? I just don’t see customers paying the ridiculous electric bills. And I expect them to be protected by the government.



Not a chance. It's a fully open market. Even the residential customers *must* buy from a retailer. They sign contracts, and contracts for variable rates include disclosure statements about the risks. In broad terms, those residential customers could have paid $0.08/kwh under a fully fixed price. They picked a variable rate. That rate is $0.065/kwh...unless it's $9/kwh instead.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
SOOPOO
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February 20th, 2021 at 5:34:30 PM permalink
Quote: rdw4potus

Not a chance. It's a fully open market. Even the residential customers *must* buy from a retailer. They sign contracts, and contracts for variable rates include disclosure statements about the risks. In broad terms, those residential customers could have paid $0.08/kwh under a fully fixed price. They picked a variable rate. That rate is $0.065/kwh...unless it's $9/kwh instead.



Wanna bet the guy with the $17k bill doesn’t pay the bill? It’s an open market... until the government decides you are price gouging.
rdw4potus
rdw4potus
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February 20th, 2021 at 5:52:42 PM permalink
Quote: SOOPOO

Wanna bet the guy with the $17k bill doesn’t pay the bill? It’s an open market... until the government decides you are price gouging.



But it is demonstrably not price gouging. Power prices are set by the market as a whole. It isn't as though NRG decided to kick John Doe in the nuts for sport. The exchange cleared price for all customers in John's town was published in advance and cleared at $9/kwh. John also exercised free will and signed a contract that specified the risks he was taking. All that said, the bill could go unpaid, sure. The consumer would be reported to credit agencies for non payment, and his power would be turned off until the debt was paid. But he could fail to pay, sure.

The residential bills are gonna take all the spotlight. But the commercial and industrial costs are going to be so much worse. I have a customer who has on-site natural gas fired backup generation. They went through the week alternating between $9/kwh grid power, $15/kwhe gas-fired gen, and failure when gas pressure failed and the grid was blacked out. That's gonna be 2 8 figure bills + the cost of spoilage from when they were offline.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
rdw4potus
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February 20th, 2021 at 6:04:53 PM permalink
Really can't stress this enough - the state literally complained when ERCOT implemented rolling blackouts before pricing hit the $9000/mwh cap. The state wanted prices to hit the cap. The state really can't credibly now try to lower the price for anyone after the fact.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
rdw4potus
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Thanked by
petroglyph
February 20th, 2021 at 6:10:07 PM permalink
I really hate this market. For as proud at Texas was of it before last week, the sentiment from the rest of the industry is that its a backwards, under-regulated dumpster fire of a grid that is perpetually 3 steps too close to calamity. It's the electricity market version of a drunk guy playing a 5 step Marty and thinking he is invincible.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
SOOPOO
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February 20th, 2021 at 7:05:10 PM permalink
Quote: rdw4potus

But it is demonstrably not price gouging. Power prices are set by the market as a whole. It isn't as though NRG decided to kick John Doe in the nuts for sport. The exchange cleared price for all customers in John's town was published in advance and cleared at $9/kwh. John also exercised free will and signed a contract that specified the risks he was taking. All that said, the bill could go unpaid, sure. The consumer would be reported to credit agencies for non payment, and his power would be turned off until the debt was paid. But he could fail to pay, sure.

The residential bills are gonna take all the spotlight. But the commercial and industrial costs are going to be so much worse. I have a customer who has on-site natural gas fired backup generation. They went through the week alternating between $9/kwh grid power, $15/kwhe gas-fired gen, and failure when gas pressure failed and the grid was blacked out. That's gonna be 2 8 figure bills + the cost of spoilage from when they were offline.



I understand people signed contracts. Are you aware of the MILLIONS of people that signed rental agreements that are now LEGALLY just not paying and can’t be evicted, because of the COVID-19 ‘emergency’. Expect a similar occurrence with this. No one will have their power turned off because of non payment from this situation. There will be a Governor’s emergency executive order, followed by some state legislation. And since it is a big bad utility, no one will care about the signed contracts they can show.
TomG
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February 20th, 2021 at 7:23:51 PM permalink
Quote: SOOPOO

I understand people signed contracts. Are you aware of the MILLIONS of people that signed rental agreements that are now LEGALLY just not paying and can’t be evicted, because of the COVID-19 ‘emergency’. Expect a similar occurrence with this. No one will have their power turned off because of non payment from this situation. There will be a Governor’s emergency executive order, followed by some state legislation. And since it is a big bad utility, no one will care about the signed contracts they can show.



Here is a report of a Texas electric company that already took $6k out of someone's bank account. I'm guessing they had it set up on auto-pay: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-bills.html

It is one thing to walk out on a bill and not give money to the power companies. To get them to pay back money they've already received is a whole other issue.
rdw4potus
rdw4potus
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February 20th, 2021 at 7:29:31 PM permalink
Quote: SOOPOO

I understand people signed contracts. Are you aware of the MILLIONS of people that signed rental agreements that are now LEGALLY just not paying and can’t be evicted, because of the COVID-19 ‘emergency’. Expect a similar occurrence with this. No one will have their power turned off because of non payment from this situation. There will be a Governor’s emergency executive order, followed by some state legislation. And since it is a big bad utility, no one will care about the signed contracts they can show.



It's not a utility. It's a retail marketer. Or, several dozen of them really. If it was a utility, the costs could be amortized and pushed to the rate base over time. Thats a sane model, so you know darn well Texas did it differently.

And power gets cut in Texas for non payment all the time. Of my 15,000 customer accounts in TX, a handful are off at any given time because of late payment of normally sized bills. Larger a/r exposure isn't going to slow that process.

Greg Abbott owes his whole career to the energy industry. He's not really in a position to screw them now. Especially when the grid's pricing mechanism worked exactly as designed. It has a cap. That's $9000/mwh. It's the highest in the country by far because everything is bigger in Texas. There was an emergency event. The cap was reached. Now, of course the people who participated in that market have to pay. They enjoyed the nation's lowest rates for a decade between calamities. Hopefully they accrued some of those savings.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
SOOPOO
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February 21st, 2021 at 4:37:27 AM permalink
Rdw4potus... you clearly know more about the energy industry than I do, and more about Texas than I do. Maybe I know more about politicians than you do, and I expect them to ‘protect’ their constituents from those ‘unethical, greedy, mercenaries’! Once it makes the news....
marcel55
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February 21st, 2021 at 6:18:33 AM permalink
Do you have more information regarding this?
TumblingBones
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Mission146rdw4potusOnceDearJoemanpetroglyph
February 21st, 2021 at 1:14:36 PM permalink
[TLDR]
Utilities run both Short-Term and Long Term Load Forecasts. The STLF is an hourly forecast covering the next 7 days. The LTLF is for the next one to ten years. The purpose of the LTLF is to allow informed decision making about both fuel purchases and scheduling of generation plant maintenance. The purpose of the STLF is to ensure sufficient capacity is spun-up and ready to bring on-line quickly (depending on the type of generator it can take hours to weeks to bring a generator on-line). The key point is that unless there has been some completely unpredictable event, having insufficient capacity is an indicator of poor planning (i.e., you did a crappy forecast, you ignored the forecast and cut things too close, or you left this all to somebody else to do while you went golfing). Let's look at all these possibilities.

ERCOT's forecast a/o Nov 2020 states:
Quote: ERCOT

“We studied a range of potential risks under both normal and extreme conditions, and believe there is sufficient generation to adequately serve our customers.”


The ERCOT report also states
Quote:

The winter SARA includes a unit outage forecast of 8,616 MW during the winter months, which is based on historical winter outage data compiled since 2017


A three year history isn't much, especially considering a point noted in a number of articles that almost exactly a decade ago, in February 2011, Texas suffered a significant series of rolling blackouts when cold weather forced dozens of coal and natural gas power plants offline. In addition to the 2011 cold snap, cold weather events in 1983, 1989, 2003, 2006, and 2010 were all taken into account in FERC's study of the 2011 winter and how well the southwest power grid handled it. Also, while a number of news stories and politicians have focused on this being a such an extreme low temperature, that's not necessarily relevant. The real question is how often temperatures fall below a threshold that will impact the grid. If temperatures below 32 F (i.e., freezing) are the trigger point, the fact that the temperature was -2 in Dallas, although it will make a bad situation worse, isn't that relevant in so far as grid reliability.

Bottom line: this was not an event that was so unexpected that no competent capacity planner should have been surprised by it.

Next, also regarding capacity planning (from Wikipedia):
Quote:

The NERC's 2019 Summer Reliability Assessment report found that ERCOT grid had one of the United States' lowest anticipated reserve margins (i.e., the margin of unused electric generating capacity during peak load). The report found that ERCOT was the sole part of the country without sufficient resources available to meet projected peak electricity demand in summertime.


In other words, ERCOT has a history of cutting things close.

Finally, regarding the last possibility I mentioned (i.e., you left this all to somebody else to do while you went golfing) I believe that this might have been a big part of the problem due to the way the power grid in Texas has been deregulated. Once upon a time (i.e., when I was working in this field) the power grid was similar to the telcom grid before AT&T was broken up. The power grid has 3 components: generation, transmission, and distribution. In any given part of the country, from the POV of the consumer, all 3 used to be handled by a single utility. Each service area had an incumbent utility that did a forecast of expected demand for all of it's customers and then scheduled it's generation capacity and bulk power purchases accordingly. But that was in the old days before deregulation. From Wikipedia;
Quote:

Texas power consumers (those served by a company not owned by a municipality or a utility cooperative) could choose their electricity service from a variety of retail electric providers (REPs), including the incumbent utility. The incumbent utility in the area still owns and maintains the local power lines (and is the company to call in the event of a power outage) and was not subject to deregulation. Customers served by cooperatives or municipal utilities could choose an alternate REP only if the utility has opted in to deregulation;........

Since 2002, approximately 85% of commercial and industrial consumers have switched power providers at least once. Approximately 40% of residential consumers in deregulated areas have switched from the former incumbent provider to a competitive REP.


What this means is that each REP would be responsible for ensuring that they have sufficient generating capacity for their customers. But the REPs are supplying the power via the shared pool of transmission and distribution lines. That means that, due to the physics of power generation/transmission, if one REP screws up it can have an impact on all customers in that service area. Now I have to state that the problem of running a deregulated grid is one I have not had any experience with as it happened after I had moved on but it's got to be a bitch. The greater the number of links in the chain, the greater the opportunity for some problem. And when there is a supply/demand issue who is on the hook to fix it ASAP: the REP, the incumbent utility, or ERCOT?

I've seen a number of stories addressing how utilities plan for this kind of extreme weather but the focus is mostly on the infrastructure engineering required (e.g., well-head heaters). None of this complexity re the division of responsibilities is mentioned. In fact, the word deregulation frequently doesn't even appear in these article.s In my opinion, deregulation was a large part of the problem. The REPs are operating in a competitive environment, all vying for the same customers. Electricity isn't something that you sell like cars or clothes: it all looks the same and provides the same functionality. The only way you can compete is based on price (if this was for example, Vermont, you could probably get a share of the market power from selling green power but we're talking here about Texas). At the same time, deregulation has also turned power generation into a competitive (i.e., profit-oriented) business. This is as opposed to the old days when it was utilities were a dull but safe investment. The utility commissions promised to set rates to allow a modest but guaranteed profit margin while the utilities promised to provide reliable power. Back then, utilities were run by engineers. Now they're run by hedge funds. This means that cutting operating overhead and capital expenditures is much more important to a REP then maintaining reliability.

The end result is that a statement like "Utilities work year-round to harden the grid against extreme weather" is in Texas no longer as true as it once was. The FERC study mentioned previously identified all the problems currently impacting the ability of the Texas grid to meet demand. The weaknesses still exist so the bottom line here seems to be that nobody wanted to spend the necessary money to harden the infrastructure.

So at this point we've concluded that:
  • ERCOT did a poor job of forecasting demand
  • ERCOT wasn't doing enough to make sure it had sufficient spare capacity in peak situations
  • a decentralized /deregulated architecture increased the odds of one or more suppliers (i.e., REP) failing to generate the power their customers would need


Now at this point the final nail gets driven into the coffin and, in this case, it's one that seem to get mentioned in a lot of the news coverage. One form of insurance that utilities use is participation in the regional power grids. Insufficient generation capacity in one part of the country can be compensated for by buying power on the spot market from somewhere else. This, apparently, is the main reason that Oklahoma hasn't been impacted the way Texas has. Participation in the Southwest Power Pool reduced the scope and duration of any weather-induced outages. Texas, as everybody probably knows by now, is not part of any regional pool and the result of this "avoid Federal regulations at all cost" approach is now obvious.

I've seen a lot of news stories where they highlight the isolation of the Texas grid with statements like "Texas is an island in the US electrical system" but I think a more accurate metaphor is that it's an isolated archipelago made up of many small islands, each run by a clique of greedy and incompetent rulers.

p.s. a good web site for seeing in real-time the state of the entire US power grid is PowerOutage.us
My goal of being well informed conflicts with my goal of remaining sane.
Mission146
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February 21st, 2021 at 1:18:47 PM permalink
Quote: TumblingBones

[TLDR]
Utilities run both Short-Term and Long Term Load Forecasts. The STLF is an hourly forecast covering the next 7 days. The LTLF is for the next one to ten years. The purpose of the LTLF is to allow informed decision making about both fuel purchases and scheduling of generation plant maintenance. The purpose of the STLF is to ensure sufficient capacity is spun-up and ready to bring on-line quickly (depending on the type of generator it can take hours to weeks to bring a generator on-line). The key point is that unless there has been some completely unpredictable event, having insufficient capacity is an indicator of poor planning (i.e., you did a crappy forecast, you ignored the forecast and cut things too close, or you left this all to somebody else to do while you went golfing). Let's look at all these possibilities.

ERCOT's forecast a/o Nov 2020 states:

The ERCOT report also states
A three year history isn't much, especially considering a point noted in a number of articles that almost exactly a decade ago, in February 2011, Texas suffered a significant series of rolling blackouts when cold weather forced dozens of coal and natural gas power plants offline. In addition to the 2011 cold snap, cold weather events in 1983, 1989, 2003, 2006, and 2010 were all taken into account in FERC's study of the 2011 winter and how well the southwest power grid handled it. Also, while a number of news stories and politicians have focused on this being a such an extreme low temperature, that's not necessarily relevant. The real question is how often temperatures fall below a threshold that will impact the grid. If temperatures below 32 F (i.e., freezing) are the trigger point, the fact that the temperature was -2 in Dallas, although it will make a bad situation worse, isn't that relevant in so far as grid reliability.

Bottom line: this was not an event that was so unexpected that no competent capacity planner should have been surprised by it.

Next, also regarding capacity planning (from Wikipedia):

In other words, ERCOT has a history of cutting things close.

Finally, regarding the last possibility I mentioned (i.e., you left this all to somebody else to do while you went golfing) I believe that this might have been a big part of the problem due to the way the power grid in Texas has been deregulated. Once upon a time (i.e., when I was working in this field) the power grid was similar to the telcom grid before AT&T was broken up. The power grid has 3 components: generation, transmission, and distribution. In any given part of the country, from the POV of the consumer, all 3 used to be handled by a single utility. Each service area had an incumbent utility that did a forecast of expected demand for all of it's customers and then scheduled it's generation capacity and bulk power purchases accordingly. But that was in the old days before deregulation. From Wikipedia;

What this means is that each REP would be responsible for ensuring that they have sufficient generating capacity for their customers. But the REPs are supplying the power via the shared pool of transmission and distribution lines. That means that, due to the physics of power generation/transmission, if one REP screws up it can have an impact on all customers in that service area. Now I have to state that the problem of running a deregulated grid is one I have not had any experience with as it happened after I had moved on but it's got to be a bitch. The greater the number of links in the chain, the greater the opportunity for some problem. And when there is a supply/demand issue who is on the hook to fix it ASAP: the REP, the incumbent utility, or ERCOT?

I've seen a number of stories addressing how utilities plan for this kind of extreme weather but the focus is mostly on the infrastructure engineering required (e.g., well-head heaters). None of this complexity re the division of responsibilities is mentioned. In fact, the word deregulation frequently doesn't even appear in these article.s In my opinion, deregulation was a large part of the problem. The REPs are operating in a competitive environment, all vying for the same customers. Electricity isn't something that you sell like cars or clothes: it all looks the same and provides the same functionality. The only way you can compete is based on price (if this was for example, Vermont, you could probably get a share of the market power from selling green power but we're talking here about Texas). At the same time, deregulation has also turned power generation into a competitive (i.e., profit-oriented) business. This is as opposed to the old days when it was utilities were a dull but safe investment. The utility commissions promised to set rates to allow a modest but guaranteed profit margin while the utilities promised to provide reliable power. Back then, utilities were run by engineers. Now they're run by hedge funds. This means that cutting operating overhead and capital expenditures is much more important to a REP then maintaining reliability.

The end result is that a statement like "Utilities work year-round to harden the grid against extreme weather" is in Texas no longer as true as it once was. The FERC study mentioned previously identified all the problems currently impacting the ability of the Texas grid to meet demand. The weaknesses still exist so the bottom line here seems to be that nobody wanted to spend the necessary money to harden the infrastructure.

So at this point we've concluded that:

  • ERCOT did a poor job of forecasting demand
  • ERCOT wasn't doing enough to make sure it had sufficient spare capacity in peak situations
  • a decentralized /deregulated architecture increased the odds of one or more suppliers (i.e., REP) failing to generate the power their customers would need


Now at this point the final nail gets driven into the coffin and, in this case, it's one that seem to get mentioned in a lot of the news coverage. One form of insurance that utilities use is participation in the regional power grids. Insufficient generation capacity in one part of the country can be compensated for by buying power on the spot market from somewhere else. This, apparently, is the main reason that Oklahoma hasn't been impacted the way Texas has. Participation in the Southwest Power Pool reduced the scope and duration of any weather-induced outages. Texas, as everybody probably knows by now, is not part of any regional pool and the result of this "avoid Federal regulations at all cost" approach is now obvious.

I've seen a lot of news stories where they highlight the isolation of the Texas grid with statements like "Texas is an island in the US electrical system" but I think a more accurate metaphor is that it's an isolated archipelago made up of many small islands, each run by a clique of greedy and incompetent rulers.

p.s. a good web site for seeing in real-time the state of the entire US power grid is PowerOutage.us



I just wanted to say that this post was terrific and I learned a lot of interesting stuff from it, thank you.
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/gripes/11182-pet-peeves/120/#post815219
TumblingBones
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Mission146
February 21st, 2021 at 1:24:15 PM permalink
Glad lessons learned in my misspent youth has proved beneficial in some way.
My goal of being well informed conflicts with my goal of remaining sane.
Mission146
Mission146
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February 21st, 2021 at 1:26:35 PM permalink
Quote: TumblingBones

Glad lessons learned in my misspent youth has proved beneficial in some way.



Since I didn't learn anything from my own misspent youth, I might as well learn from someone else's.
https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/gripes/11182-pet-peeves/120/#post815219
rdw4potus
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February 21st, 2021 at 4:20:22 PM permalink
Quote: SOOPOO

Rdw4potus... you clearly know more about the energy industry than I do, and more about Texas than I do. Maybe I know more about politicians than you do, and I expect them to ‘protect’ their constituents from those ‘unethical, greedy, mercenaries’! Once it makes the news....



Omg, exhusband-of-soopoo, you might be right. It never occurred to me that the federal government might be the entity that stepped in to provide payment assistance. There is next-to-0 federal oversight of the power market in Texas as a result of Texas's careful design. Texas worked very hard to limit federal involvement when the system was mostly working well. If federal emergency assistance funds can be used to pay these bills, well, wow.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
unJon
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February 21st, 2021 at 5:25:25 PM permalink
https://www.kbtx.com/2021/02/21/texas-officials-block-electricity-providers-from-sending-bills-disconnecting-utilities-for-nonpayment/

So it begins . . .
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.
onenickelmiracle
onenickelmiracle
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February 22nd, 2021 at 1:03:31 AM permalink
If the people didn't understand their life savings could be wiped out if it went below freezing for a few days, they do now. If they were really smart, they would have just bet on black like we all know. I do know who understood for sure, the people selling it and the people making the electricity. People can be foolish, seems more like something from the Enron days when all this stuffed was conveniently orchestrated in conspiracy. As they always say, follow the money. Someone got rich over this, it's otherwise a disgrace for everyone else. Seems like there isn't even a bill to wipe clean, many have paid already and the money will not come back to them. Wonder how many people are wishing now, they would have just knocked down the electric pole when they still had a chance.
I am a robot.
marcel55
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February 24th, 2021 at 6:28:12 AM permalink
Yeah same here. But you know we could learn more and share ideas. It will help us to learn more about this and others can also learn. So when you are about to do the research?
unJon
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rdw4potus
February 24th, 2021 at 9:29:05 AM permalink
Quote: marcel55

Yeah same here. But you know we could learn more and share ideas. It will help us to learn more about this and others can also learn. So when you are about to do the research?

In just 13 more posts, you can share your research with us. I expect it will be very interesting.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.
onenickelmiracle
onenickelmiracle
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February 24th, 2021 at 4:03:22 PM permalink
Quote: unJon

In just 13 more posts, you can share your research with us. I expect it will be very interesting.

Almost every post is vague, about nothing almost, usually difficult to even relate to any thread, the context is almost non-existent if not non-existent.
I am a robot.
ChumpChange
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March 2nd, 2021 at 8:20:42 AM permalink
Texas power company files for bankruptcy protection after storm left millions in the dark
Brazos Electric Power Cooperative filing for Chapter 11 the same day the state's attorney general announced a lawsuit against another power provider.
NBC News link: https://tinyurl.com/yc3onccu

Oldest Texas electricity co-op goes bust after getting hit with $2 billion bill
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brazos-electric-power-cooperative-bankruptcy-texas/
Last edited by: ChumpChange on Mar 2, 2021
EvenBob
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March 2nd, 2021 at 9:15:55 AM permalink
Quote: ChumpChange


Brazos Electric Power Cooperative filing for Chapter 11



Isn't that right across the county
line from BillyBob's BBQ Joint
& Electric Company? Texas, good
grief..
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
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