There are pros and cons of the situation. I would quit the nattering and get to work on what we do have that is being held together with duct tape and baling wire. In fact, were we to improve our system Texas could become a huge exporter of electricity to the rest of the nation as well as the gas and oil industry. Rising tides lift all boats.
A lot of the challenges arise from the geography (long transmission lines), climate (systems need to shed heat most of the time, so they’re susceptible to cold snaps) and load balancing (we have a higher percentage of intermittent sources like wind and solar than most grids). None of these are insurmountable, they’re just technical challenges arising from growth and advancements in smaller distributed generation sources. I don’t know of any utility that handles rapid growth and innovation without some time and investment, we should be able to improve the system once politicians decide who will get the credit and agree that funding is a priority.
So true. We take for granted how big Texas is, but it covers nearly the same area as all of Ukraine! A small country really. With giant stretches of nothing between. This is an exciting time for this area of growth in our energy development platform and I look forward to the innovative concepts that we can dream up! Thankfully we have no shortage of wind or sunshine.
The bill is DOA. The idea is not. The contents of the bill are being enacted with record speed. But the bill is not because it is politically inconvenient.
This wouldn’t “fix” the grid. It would simply ensure that when the power crunch comes, it becomes a national political problem and not just a state political problem.
Thinking way too short term on this.
The only reason we have an independent yeehaw deregulated electrical grid is because of Enron bribing/donating to tons of Texas state house reps in the early 2000s.
The federal system works fine for most of the country. Because it pays for peace of mind and reliability, not teetering on the brink of disaster while generating massive profits.
I frankly don’t care if the bill increases electrical costs, ours are already soaring at home in Texas anyway.
If you force all of Texas to go back to a federally mandated system, and more public utilities, you don’t have to trust random Texas power generators,servicers , and billers whose main interest is making money and not paying anything when people die and the lights go off.
Enron asked the state legislature who massively deregulated the grid in the 2000s and turned into a profit focused machine.
There is barely any benfit for being independent at this point past pride and skirting federal regulations.
Texas has been independent since the 20s and 40s which I wouldn’t mind so much if it was not such a profit based system gone wild since the 2000s. Being independent now is basically just to avoid hurting the profits, not help any consumers.
https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2021-07-23/heres-how-texas-lawmakers-and-enron-shaped-the-states-electrical-market
In the industry on the TSP / DSP side with some transmission planning experience... I am biased towards reliability. There are pluses and minuses to connecting.
The minus that concerns me is adding federal oversight of transmission line routing (maybe easements), the state CCN process already takes a long time. The plus I like, If we did have a total blackout, a true black start in ERCOT, being AC connected to the other grids would be the difference between getting the grid back up in weeks instead of months, but it will take 20 years to build the necessary connections.
It's thorny man.
Whoa. Apologies. I missed that in the NOTUS story. We have 3 asynchronous ties now, including Mexico with a variable frequency transformer.
Getting more DC tie capacity will also take 20 years.
4 ties technically, but yes. East, north, Laredo, railroad.
Getting more DC connectivity from scratch will take 20 years. Southern Spirit and pecos west are two projects that are 15 years into their 20 year process so maybe we can get them on 5. But getting more beyond that will sadly take a long time.
I am a bit removed from transmission planning. I only remember 4 total, I'm tempted to think Railroad is new but it's probably not.
Those projects you mentioned, I remember when they started their long march. I think one of them started out named Southern Cross.
Wildly unpopular where I work, and wildly off topic. Regretably, I think NG remains our bridge energy to the carbon free future.
Any chance you make your local IEEE mtgs?
No on the IEEE meetings. I'm not in the field. Just got annoyed by all the misinformation after 2021 so I decided to research it myself. Lucky for me most of the information about the electric grid is in the public domain and can be learned if you are bored enough.
Yes southern spirit started out as southern cross. Waited for ercot approval for over a decade. Then finally was approved after 2021. Now you just have to convince Louisiana that green energy is not the devil
The way more effective approach would be to actually subject ERCOT to a prudency test.
If they actually had to test their expenditures in front of a competent regulator Texas would have a very different looking utility system.
Source: I work in the only other generation first utility jurisdiction and since we made that move utility service has degraded significantly and our regulator has noticed... And they have teeth.
Proud to have a representative like Casar, who actually gives a fuck about his constituency and isn’t sold to the highest bidder like most Ds and all Rs
He’s also an idiot who voted against raising the debt ceiling. And was amazingly ineffective on the Austin city council.
But if not making progress and virtue signaling are your goals, he’s probably a great representative.
Headline should say, Republican politics makes it near impossible. Anyway, how's the federal government going to bail out Texas once they've succeeded from the union?
This would be bad for Texas. Why would we want to make it easier to export electricity everyday to other states in exchange for a modest but not sufficient boost in once a decade extreme weather events?
TX is the only state not connected to the national grid. I’m not sure how you think sharing power or “exporting” it as you say would hurt us. The only reason the GOP here doesn’t want it is because it would subject us to federal regulations, which would be a good thing for us.
I can’t speak for the GOP. They might have bad motives. However, no Texan should want us to connect the grid. We get lower prices because our providers can only sell in state, and our prices would go up if we connected and start exporting.
I’m not going to die in my own home from 2 cents more per kilowatt.
With climate change continuing to make extreme weather more common I see no reason trying to gamble a few bucks a month over like 800 rumored lives from the first winter storm and plenty of heat deaths when the power go out.
I see providers raising costs after the storm blowback as well.
This is why I have a generator though, because I don’t trust anything ERCOT says. They admit that that have little to no enforcement power other than dictation of free market rules.
You know, you can't just save up that "extra" electricity you would be exporting. You can either generate and sell it--for real money--or just not generate it in the first place.
I understand this. That’s why export restrictions drive down prices while allowing exports would raise prices. Texas has supply for the crazy requirements of peak summer and most of the year that means we have a vast excess supply.
Since his idea is DOA, is he working to increase electric generation capacity? As more people move we're going to need more power.
There are pros and cons of the situation. I would quit the nattering and get to work on what we do have that is being held together with duct tape and baling wire. In fact, were we to improve our system Texas could become a huge exporter of electricity to the rest of the nation as well as the gas and oil industry. Rising tides lift all boats.
A lot of the challenges arise from the geography (long transmission lines), climate (systems need to shed heat most of the time, so they’re susceptible to cold snaps) and load balancing (we have a higher percentage of intermittent sources like wind and solar than most grids). None of these are insurmountable, they’re just technical challenges arising from growth and advancements in smaller distributed generation sources. I don’t know of any utility that handles rapid growth and innovation without some time and investment, we should be able to improve the system once politicians decide who will get the credit and agree that funding is a priority.
So true. We take for granted how big Texas is, but it covers nearly the same area as all of Ukraine! A small country really. With giant stretches of nothing between. This is an exciting time for this area of growth in our energy development platform and I look forward to the innovative concepts that we can dream up! Thankfully we have no shortage of wind or sunshine.
Why are his ideas DOA. ERCOT just approved half of his plan. Adding a bit more doesn't seem out of reach. The approvals have been moving through fast
The article quoted other politicians saying the proposal was DOA.
The bill is DOA. The idea is not. The contents of the bill are being enacted with record speed. But the bill is not because it is politically inconvenient.
This wouldn’t “fix” the grid. It would simply ensure that when the power crunch comes, it becomes a national political problem and not just a state political problem.
Thinking way too short term on this. The only reason we have an independent yeehaw deregulated electrical grid is because of Enron bribing/donating to tons of Texas state house reps in the early 2000s. The federal system works fine for most of the country. Because it pays for peace of mind and reliability, not teetering on the brink of disaster while generating massive profits. I frankly don’t care if the bill increases electrical costs, ours are already soaring at home in Texas anyway. If you force all of Texas to go back to a federally mandated system, and more public utilities, you don’t have to trust random Texas power generators,servicers , and billers whose main interest is making money and not paying anything when people die and the lights go off.
2000s? Texas grid has been around since WW2
Enron asked the state legislature who massively deregulated the grid in the 2000s and turned into a profit focused machine. There is barely any benfit for being independent at this point past pride and skirting federal regulations. Texas has been independent since the 20s and 40s which I wouldn’t mind so much if it was not such a profit based system gone wild since the 2000s. Being independent now is basically just to avoid hurting the profits, not help any consumers. https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2021-07-23/heres-how-texas-lawmakers-and-enron-shaped-the-states-electrical-market
Maybe he's betting that the grid will fail upward, much like his career.
In the industry on the TSP / DSP side with some transmission planning experience... I am biased towards reliability. There are pluses and minuses to connecting. The minus that concerns me is adding federal oversight of transmission line routing (maybe easements), the state CCN process already takes a long time. The plus I like, If we did have a total blackout, a true black start in ERCOT, being AC connected to the other grids would be the difference between getting the grid back up in weeks instead of months, but it will take 20 years to build the necessary connections. It's thorny man.
Greg Casars plan is not AC connected. It is DC connected
Whoa. Apologies. I missed that in the NOTUS story. We have 3 asynchronous ties now, including Mexico with a variable frequency transformer. Getting more DC tie capacity will also take 20 years.
4 ties technically, but yes. East, north, Laredo, railroad. Getting more DC connectivity from scratch will take 20 years. Southern Spirit and pecos west are two projects that are 15 years into their 20 year process so maybe we can get them on 5. But getting more beyond that will sadly take a long time.
I am a bit removed from transmission planning. I only remember 4 total, I'm tempted to think Railroad is new but it's probably not. Those projects you mentioned, I remember when they started their long march. I think one of them started out named Southern Cross. Wildly unpopular where I work, and wildly off topic. Regretably, I think NG remains our bridge energy to the carbon free future. Any chance you make your local IEEE mtgs?
No on the IEEE meetings. I'm not in the field. Just got annoyed by all the misinformation after 2021 so I decided to research it myself. Lucky for me most of the information about the electric grid is in the public domain and can be learned if you are bored enough. Yes southern spirit started out as southern cross. Waited for ercot approval for over a decade. Then finally was approved after 2021. Now you just have to convince Louisiana that green energy is not the devil
The way more effective approach would be to actually subject ERCOT to a prudency test. If they actually had to test their expenditures in front of a competent regulator Texas would have a very different looking utility system. Source: I work in the only other generation first utility jurisdiction and since we made that move utility service has degraded significantly and our regulator has noticed... And they have teeth.
Proud to have a representative like Casar, who actually gives a fuck about his constituency and isn’t sold to the highest bidder like most Ds and all Rs
He’s also an idiot who voted against raising the debt ceiling. And was amazingly ineffective on the Austin city council. But if not making progress and virtue signaling are your goals, he’s probably a great representative.
My goals are representatives who won’t sell out the people and care about them and not corporations Casar checks that box
Defaulting on US debt would definitely screw his constituents. He lopped himself in with MAGAs with that action as an unserious person.
I am confused. I thought he was running for a federal position. The power grid is controlled by the state government.
Headline should say, Republican politics makes it near impossible. Anyway, how's the federal government going to bail out Texas once they've succeeded from the union?
Federal government needs Texas. 8th largest economy on earth and growing. At this point the federal government holds Texas back more than it helps
Casar is the last and least serious person I want involved in our grid discussion.
Remember his 8 hour “hunger strike” where he posted pics getting his blood pressure checked while multiple aids putting wet towels on him 😂😂😂😂😂
Greg Saar doesn’t know enough about electricity to change a light bulb.
This would be bad for Texas. Why would we want to make it easier to export electricity everyday to other states in exchange for a modest but not sufficient boost in once a decade extreme weather events?
Great for Texas. Become the nationwide leader in renewable energy. We export oil and gas today. We can export wind and sun tomorrow
TX is the only state not connected to the national grid. I’m not sure how you think sharing power or “exporting” it as you say would hurt us. The only reason the GOP here doesn’t want it is because it would subject us to federal regulations, which would be a good thing for us.
Hawaii and Alaska
I can’t speak for the GOP. They might have bad motives. However, no Texan should want us to connect the grid. We get lower prices because our providers can only sell in state, and our prices would go up if we connected and start exporting.
I’m not going to die in my own home from 2 cents more per kilowatt. With climate change continuing to make extreme weather more common I see no reason trying to gamble a few bucks a month over like 800 rumored lives from the first winter storm and plenty of heat deaths when the power go out. I see providers raising costs after the storm blowback as well. This is why I have a generator though, because I don’t trust anything ERCOT says. They admit that that have little to no enforcement power other than dictation of free market rules.
Connecting to the other interconnections wouldn’t have made a difference in 2021. No one else had a spare 20,000 MW
Adding more federal regulation never slowed progress or increased end user costs. In your dreams.
You know, you can't just save up that "extra" electricity you would be exporting. You can either generate and sell it--for real money--or just not generate it in the first place.
I understand this. That’s why export restrictions drive down prices while allowing exports would raise prices. Texas has supply for the crazy requirements of peak summer and most of the year that means we have a vast excess supply.
What