Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by shiftpgdn on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:37PM (#26138775)

My house normally uses 70kwh/day. We have an electric heater and with this cold weather we were on track to use 150-200kwh day. At $5/kwh for 5 days of 200kwh due to the cold puts me at $5,000.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by pfdietz on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:27PM (#26139098)

It would make sense for you to turn off your water, drain all the pipes, turn off the heat and go somewhere else for a few days.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by tonyedgecombe on Monday February 15, 2021 @09:14AM (#26142903)

and go somewhere else for a few days

Or put a tent up in the living room.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by pilom on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:08PM (#26138964)

Holy cow! How in the world do you use that much? My old house in Colorado would use ~350kwh/month. Swap out that electric heater for a heat pump asap!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by shiftpgdn on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:13PM (#26139002)

Big house (3700sqft or so), tall ceilings, four people working/schooling from home and an electric car as the primary family car. In 2019 I literally did not turn the heater on a single time, I don't think the investment in a heat pump would be worth it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by jbm on Monday February 15, 2021 @03:14AM (#26140342)

We have colder weather where I live, but I see I used 550 kwh per month (at most). Even if my house is half your size, 70 kwh seems like a lot for a daily baseline. I have a similar situation (kids at home studying, me working at home).

Does the the car that drives up your electricity usage that much?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by shiftpgdn on Monday February 15, 2021 @11:23AM (#26144149)

Car adds about 500kwh/mo. During offpeak rates charging this amount cost between $1 and $12 for the month.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by dzhiurgis on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:05AM (#26139614)

Does your AC has not heating function (I assume everyone in Texas has AC)?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by toast0 on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:46AM (#26139848)

I'm guessing most Texas AC systems don't have a reversing valve, and a defrost system and all the other goodies you need to run it for heat. It adds to the equipment cost when many years heat isn't needed, and if the temperatures are 10F, you'd still likely need other heat sources.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by dzhiurgis on Monday February 15, 2021 @05:15PM (#26148225)

> a defrost system

What does a defrost system includes? My dad manages a place where defrost system on one of the devices broke. Technician replaced something and hence it was fixed. IIRC it was temperature sensor. All defrost system does is periodically warms up the outside grill basically. It used to get stuck at -15C or so.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by toast0 on Monday February 15, 2021 @06:12PM (#26148910)

That's the gist. It's not much, but if the outside unit is iced over, there's not going to be a lot of heat exchange into the working fluid, so you're not going to get heat into your conditioned environment.

So, a defrost system will include a temperature sensor, and a resistance heater, and often something to signal the inside unit to run the emergency/auxiliary heat until (unless) the outside unit can get up to a temperature where it will work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by lgats on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:00AM (#26139586)

Heat pump systems can sometimes be an upgrade to standard air conditioning systems

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by selimthegrim on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:06AM (#26139628)

Have you seen how houses are insulated in TX/LA?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by bluGill on Monday February 15, 2021 @06:53AM (#26141877)

New construction is actually pretty good in Texas. But most houses are not new and have little.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by sangnoir on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:13AM (#26139344)

A don't think a heat pump would help them in this weather.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by dzhiurgis on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:05AM (#26139619)

Modern ones and designed for purpose go to -20C.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by happosai on Monday February 15, 2021 @03:17AM (#26140356)

I bet absolutely nobody in texas asked "how efficent is the heatpump at -20c" when buying them. Same reason why all the windmills froze: "would like this wind mill model that produces eletricity at -20, or this cheaper one that freezes at 0c?"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by bluGill on Monday February 15, 2021 @06:54AM (#26141884)

No, but those who make heat pumps know that to sell in the north people care so they try to make one model that works anywhere.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by etimberg on Monday February 15, 2021 @10:06AM (#26143372)

Even higher this morning. Up to ~ $6000/MWh or $6/kWh. http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/contours/rtmLmp.html

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by oezi on Monday February 15, 2021 @06:47AM (#26141833)

Wow! European here. Family of 5 and we are at 8kwh per day. Total yearly electricity bill is < 1000 EUR.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by ev1 on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:17PM (#26138667)

$0.05 to $0.10/kWh seems like normal pricing.

Average US house uses ~1100-1200 kWh (I don't actually know this, based on googling, assuming most places in Texas are standalone houses) per month.

If prices are $3000-9000 per MW, then ~40 to 60 kWh/day (let's be generous, people are explicitly turning on heat for this extreme cold) for a week...

Even $2/kWh (which was exceeded days ago) would demolish peoples' budgets.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by maxerickson on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:27PM (#26138717)

I think most people are on fixed prices though. The supplier gets a big mark up over the wholesale cost and then is expected to have a plan to deal with situations like this.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by rstupek on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:34PM (#26138759)

Griddy is a different provider which gives you grid prices for power

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by maxerickson on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:35PM (#26138768)

Yeah, this is the answer to slater's question, that some people have signed up for exposure to wholesale prices.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by ev1 on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:43AM (#26139484)

griddy's twitter is full of people angrily demanding refunds because "i signed up for cheaper rates and it's been cheaper til now why am i paying higher rates??? this is a scammer"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by phonebanshee on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:53PM (#26138860)

Those prices are far below normal prices. Normal is 28-50 cents in places like San Diego (https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s...).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by shiftpgdn on Sunday February 14, 2021 @10:58PM (#26138900)

In Texas griddy exposes you to real time spot pricing. I was frequently getting paid to use electricity at night due to excess generation by wind. As an electric car owner this was fantastic as I frequently got paid to recharge my car. My average delivered rate before this week was 7c/kwh all in.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by tzs on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:11PM (#26138986)

Does anyone there get a battery system, like a Tesla Powerwall, to save up negative priced night electricity to use in the daytime?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by rstupek on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:22PM (#26139054)

It doesn't happen enough that I've seen to make it worthwhile

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by manyes on Monday February 15, 2021 @08:56AM (#26142763)

Of course, during these cold snaps, the battery doesn't really work well, right?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by tzs on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:47PM (#26145752)

Powerwalls have an operating temperature range of -4 F to 122 F (-20 C to 50 C), although they recommend 32-86 F (0-30 C).

They can also be mounted indoors.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by xxpor on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:15PM (#26139016)

CA power is hilariously expensive compared to the rest of the country. 10c is much closer to average.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by jeffbee on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:53PM (#26139236)

The weighted average price is 10.54¢ per kwh. In California it's 16. Both 5 and 35¢ are pretty poor estimates.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by kevinventullo on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:38AM (#26139454)

I paid $.36 last month living an hour north of SF.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by jeffbee on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:39AM (#26139464)

Average or marginal? Most PG&E customers have a “baseline allowance” with a higher marginal cost as you draw more energy over the month.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by kevinventullo on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @08:51PM (#26174492)

Marginal. I was doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation about getting an EV and realized that the $/mile cost to charge it would be about the same as paying for gasoline on a car which gets 30 mi/gallon.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by maxerickson on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:06PM (#26138950)

My power comes from, I believe, a nuclear plant in Wisconsin.

$0.098 per kW-h, with $15 a month connection fee.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by bfrog on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:22AM (#26139379)

Wi has a lot of coal by the lake, where is there a nuke? Chicago was almost all nukes at one point

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by khuey on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:11AM (#26139655)

Point Beach is still operating afaik. Kewaunee shut down several years ago though.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by Aloha on Sunday February 14, 2021 @11:44PM (#26139189)

I'm paying 8.5-8.3 cent kWh on a fixed contract.

Power is very very very cheap in Texas.

[ Parent | on HN ]