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A comment on Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsidies for wind and solar. Parent comment

Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by electronWizard on Thursday April 08, 2021 @05:55AM (#26736928)
This article from Mises actually goes into the numbers, demand was up 24% compared to normal and natural gas made up most of the short fall.

https://mises.org/wire/wind-power-disaster-texas-no-matter-w...

The author compares the day of the Texas Energy Crisis to the same day of the previous year, but I'm taking his word that this is a fair representation of an average mid-February day for the Texas power grid.

There were issues with some natural gas generators having supply issues due to the cold weather, but natural gas provided 91% more electricity (measured in MWh) compared to an average winters day, and was down only 7% from what it provides during the peak summer demand. Wind was down 72% compared to an average winters day.

Renewables do have some downsides despite all their benefits, and maybe there should be an honest discussion about how public policy should address this. Subsidies for intermittent energy supplies should probably be partly contingent on also providing grid storage.

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Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by soco on Thursday April 08, 2021 @06:11AM (#26737012)
There are wind farms currently running in Alaska[1] which is arguably colder than Texas. The cold-related downsides seem to be well known and already addressed, so it's definitely not a technical issue here.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Alaska

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Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by akvadrako on Thursday April 08, 2021 @06:29AM (#26737118)
It's a technical issue because the investment and power required to for the deicing necessary greatly reduces their efficiency.

It's an interesting question if Texas should require all turbines to have deicing capabilities which are almost never used.

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Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by enraged_camel on Thursday April 08, 2021 @07:33AM (#26737516)
>> It's a technical issue because the investment and power required to for the deicing necessary greatly reduces their efficiency.

Interesting. Can you provide sources for reading?

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Re:Texas Senate passes bill aiming to counter federal subsid... by megaman821 on Thursday April 08, 2021 @09:33AM (#26738483)
The natural gas plants are built to pick up the slack. The energy operators know that during the winter there will be several cold, windless weeks, so they don't count on wind power providing very much to the grid. When wind and solar are good, the gas plants can be shut down since the power from natural gas is more expensive than the renewables.
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