OT: Nearly Half Of Texas’ Wind Turbines Frozen In Winter Storm, Limiting State’s
Papi_Chulo
Miami, FL (or the nearest big-booty club)
The overall power output of Texas has declined after nearly half of the state’s wind turbines were frozen in a winter storm over the weekend.
“Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt,” the Austin American-Statesman reported. “As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.”
Parts of Texas reportedly dipped down to 0F (-18C) over the weekend and the state continued to experience frigid temperatures on Monday morning. More than 2 million homes and businesses in the state have experienced power outages as a result. Officials have said that the strong winds from the storm have helped spin wind turbines at a faster rate in other parts of the state, helping to make up for some of the loss of power. Fox Business reported that the severe weather was also leading to a reduction in oil and gas production.
“Wind power has been the fastest-growing source of energy in Texas’ power grid. In 2015 winder power generation supplied 11% of Texas’ energy grid. Last year it supplied 23% and overtook coal as the system’s second-largest source of energy after natural gas,” the Austin American-Statesman added. “The frozen turbines come as low temperatures strain the state’s power grid and force operators to call for immediate statewide conservation efforts, like unplugging non-essential appliances, turning down residential heaters and minimize use of electric lighting.”
Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, called the situation a “unique winter storm that’s more widespread with lots of moisture in West Texas, where there’s a lot of times not a lot of moisture.”
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/nearly-ha…
“Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt,” the Austin American-Statesman reported. “As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.”
Parts of Texas reportedly dipped down to 0F (-18C) over the weekend and the state continued to experience frigid temperatures on Monday morning. More than 2 million homes and businesses in the state have experienced power outages as a result. Officials have said that the strong winds from the storm have helped spin wind turbines at a faster rate in other parts of the state, helping to make up for some of the loss of power. Fox Business reported that the severe weather was also leading to a reduction in oil and gas production.
“Wind power has been the fastest-growing source of energy in Texas’ power grid. In 2015 winder power generation supplied 11% of Texas’ energy grid. Last year it supplied 23% and overtook coal as the system’s second-largest source of energy after natural gas,” the Austin American-Statesman added. “The frozen turbines come as low temperatures strain the state’s power grid and force operators to call for immediate statewide conservation efforts, like unplugging non-essential appliances, turning down residential heaters and minimize use of electric lighting.”
Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, called the situation a “unique winter storm that’s more widespread with lots of moisture in West Texas, where there’s a lot of times not a lot of moisture.”
...
https://www.dailywire.com/news/nearly-ha…
42 comments
There’s natural gas - and it’s definitely a useful option.
Coal was useful in the past, but natural gas is likely the best choice.
The irony of Texas using wind - and not oil - is amusing.
Texas produces 24% of all the natural gas in the country.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/elec….
IT NOT A WINDMILL.... we're not making flour. It's a WIND TURBINE.
https://bigthink.com/design-for-good/thi…
Reserves of the raw materials for car batteries are highly concentrated in a few countries. Nearly 50% of world cobalt reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 58% of lithium reserves are in Chile, 80% of natural graphite reserves are in China, Brazil and Turkey, while 75% of manganese reserves are in Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Ukraine.
"While some early reports indicated that frozen wind turbines were causing significant shortfalls, 30GW is roughly equal to the entire state's wind capacity if every turbine is producing all the power it's rated for. Since wind in Texas generally tends to produce less during winter, there's no way that the grid operators would have planned for getting 30GW from wind generation; in fact, a chart at ERCOT indicates that wind is producing significantly more than forecast."
see the chart: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/…
"So while having Texas' full wind-generating capacity online would help, the problems with meeting demand appear to lie elsewhere. An ERCOT director told Bloomberg that problems were widespread across generating sources, including coal, natural gas, and even nuclear plants. In the past, severe cold has caused US supplies of natural gas to be constrained, as use in residential heating competes with its use in generating electricity. But that doesn't explain the shortfalls in coal and nuclear, and the ERCOT executive wasn't willing to speculate."
I will agree that power storage is a key component in a grid with more renewables, but again dispute that batteries are the only option. Pumped hydro and other similar gravity based options, compressed/liquid air and other kinetic, hyrdogen, and yes batteries are all options.
And I gotta throw it out there, even in south Florida we're we're largely nuclear we've had instances where FPL has used those powerpause things in the summer to even out demand.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_mo…
https://twitter.com/laurenboebert
Twentyfive is correct. There is a price to pay for Texas not being fully integrated into the national grid.
1. Solar/wind batteries not holding charges because of cold
2. Turbines frozen
3. Nuke plant sensor shutdown because of cold so the plant had to shut down because of safety issues
4. Nat. Gas lines freezing...
etc.
But people screaming GREEN IS THE WAY TO GO... right here shows you about the batteries that is the issue. Especially when people start to use more and more power. This is a once in a generation type freeze.
Now to the people comparing it to CA.... CA every year has rolling black outs... all because of the HEAT. Every year they know it is going to be hot and people will use AC. This storm took TX and others by surprize. IT is really no comparison to CA.
Texas will find a way to work things out I’m sure.
(And to throw a bone on the opposite side of the spectrum, I had the same opinion about Portland when people not from there put all their opinions in with the necessity of the national guard needing to deal with the zoo animals several months ago)
That’s just my opinion and I’m sticking with it. Unless mikeym comes in with one of his awesome rants. Then I’ll agree with whatever he says.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/202…
I got similar numbers from my industry sources. But this Austin article does a reasonable job with the facts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AALREbJZ…
BTW the last democrats to run the state of Texas were before, George W. Bush in 1995 so it's 25 years of Republican oversight.
Gotta use appropriate lubricants, so they do.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/14/…
Wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a hacker caused problem like the pipeline that was shut down last month.
"We're currently seeing three to four times the number of forced thermal (steam-powered) generation outages on our system than we would typically expect to see this time of year," Sopko said in an afternoon telephone conference. "All of these thermal units are offline due to mechanical failure or the need for repairs," she said.
They could certainly be full of shit, but at least the initial reports are failures. It might make sense, at least to the uninitiated like me, if they're peak generation facilities that have been running more than normal due to the other failures/increased demand/etc.
Also kinda funny, but I was just reading some other article about how Texas is welcoming in bitcoin mining operations being kicked out of China and other places. The draw was allegedly "cheap, reliable, electricity"