Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by nyokodo on Monday February 15, 2021 @02:36AM (#26140133)

Texas has 5X the population of Denmark and 5X the wind energy generation. That doesn’t sound like a great justification for your smug comment. Also, that is current generation as the rate of increase of wind and solar appears to far outstrip Denmark on a per capita basis. If the WSJ is reliable, Texas is supposed to add an additional ~17GW of solar by 2023, reaching 21GW![1] If they reach that it’d beat Denmark’s 2030 goal by 23% and 7 years on a per capita basis.[2]

1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/solar-power-booms-in-texas-1160...

2. https://um.dk/en/news/newsdisplaypage/?newsid=25147b44-3dce-...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by tolien on Monday February 15, 2021 @04:54AM (#26141063)

Per capita doesn't seem like the most useful measure here unless you're expecting people to spin the turbines by hand. Texas has (by GP's numbers) 16 times the land area and 2.5x the annual sunshine hours [1,2] (given Texas's proximity to the equator relative to Denmark, I'd be shocked if those hours didn't confer significantly more power too) but "only" 5x the generation?

Edit: Of course, it's 5x the wind power. For solar power in Texas and Denmark the difference is about 4x - 4,324.3 versus 1,079 MW [3, 4] so the point stands that Texas still has a way to go relative to the resources available to them.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_sunshine_dur...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Climate

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Denmark

4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Texas

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by kgermino on Monday February 15, 2021 @07:44AM (#26142186)

> Per capita doesn't seem like the most useful measure here unless you're expecting people to spin the turbines by hand.p

“Percentage of energy generated” is probably better, but per-capita is better than per-acre. Broadly speaking, people use power, not cornfields.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by tolien on Monday February 15, 2021 @08:20AM (#26142449)

Not when acres directly correlate with the amount of energy being generated. The Sahara has very few people but would be ripe energy-generation space.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by DetroitThrow on Monday February 15, 2021 @08:57AM (#26142778)

I think far-off deserts aren't nearly lofty enough in the context of which nations are furthest ahead in renewable energy generation...

Why not set the baseline with Mercury? That's an entire planet with much more solar capacity than any measly desert!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid by tolien on Monday February 15, 2021 @09:21AM (#26142952)

I mean, if we're going for complete absurdity why not build a Dyson Sphere?

Getting back into the real world (and the original point, although accidentally I think you've made my point that energy generated per-capita isn't relevant) and putting aside that there are actual thoughts to build a solar farm in the north Sahara [1]...

Texas has lots of surface area currently used by agriculture so while it's cute to suggest cornfields don't need electrical power there's a conversation about whether there's space which could productively generate power and send it over the grid which the rest of the state (and through HVDC interconnects, the rest of North America) is connected to?

1: https://theconversation.com/solar-panels-in-sahara-could-boo...

[ Parent | on HN ]