Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
by bombcar on Monday February 15, 2021 @05:22AM
(#26141234)
They've already done that - that is EEA 1 and 2 (1 being voluntary shutdown, 2 being involuntary shutdown).
They've asked everyone who CAN go to backup generators (think: hospitals, datacenters) to do so. If short-term shedding of residential load doesn't work, the next step is to blackout commercial players - think Walmart, etc. Those usually occur for longer periods of time and have security risks involved.
Natural gas pipelines have some water in them, they can freeze if they're not buried deep enough.
Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
by nottorp on Monday February 15, 2021 @05:39AM
(#26141361)
> the next step is to blackout commercial players
Yeah, my point is they have the order wrong. They're shutting down residential first with the associated health risks instead of shutting down commercial which will just send people home for a day or three.
Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
by bombcar on Monday February 15, 2021 @05:51AM
(#26141446)
I was wrong - there is no EEA 4. It's up to the local utilities to determine how to shed load; I suspect many office parks are already without power (but at 4 AM they're also probably not using much power).
Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
by baq on Monday February 15, 2021 @07:01AM
(#26141918)
that's the scary part: daytime demand is much higher.
Re:Ercot nearly at capacity for Texas power grid
by cwhiz on Monday February 15, 2021 @09:49AM
(#26143239)
http://www.ercot.com/
You can see the forecasted gap on the home page. It’s going to her worse.
I don't understand. Here they shut down a couple large factories (that have agreed beforehand to emergency shutdowns) when there are capacity problems. Those eat so much power that it usually solves the problem.
They don't shut down power to residential just for capacity, if you're without power at home it means something blew up on the path that delivers to you.
Also, how can a gas pipeline freeze? Almost everyone is heating with natural gas here, we have a cold wave, and the only question is if they can deliver enough volume. Which is again fixed by shutting down some large industrial consumers, not by freezing homes.