What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

Re:What went wrong with the Texas power grid? by ed25519FUUU on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @07:35PM (#26161002)

California has rolling blackouts every summer (and winter) with power that cost about 3x more than Texas. Rolling blackouts also affect hospitals. I think OPs sentiment is that overall Texas is a better system. Compared to CA I agree.

Now that doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be improved, but spending 3x more and looking more like California is a huge net loss.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:What went wrong with the Texas power grid? by rconti on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @07:55PM (#26161168)

It seems unlikely and reductionist to think that taking Texas' existing power system, and investing more money in reliability, would make it LESS reliable. But this is what happens when you compare two very complicated things (different states' utilities) and consider price of service to be the only relevant factor.

I'm not familiar with rolling blackouts in the winter in CA. And, in fact, I've never been part of a rolling blackout, period, in my 20 years in CA.

But the rolling blackouts that some areas experience now are by and large due to (fire) risk avoidance by the utility, not by generation issues.

[ Parent | on HN ]