RE:Texas Grid Failure rfguysd wrote:
So some of the other obvious questions are: why did ERCOT not have additional spare capacity? And why there was not agreement with other utilities to import electrical power?
Of course , people deserve to be fired. Who design the grid and its reliability should be fired. There are a lot of people in trouble for thinking cold weather doesn’t happen in Texas. Proven severl times wrong over the years.
PS. Yes the wind Turbines were frozen to the point where zero output capacity due to the cold and rainy conditions. But the problem is more than the wind turbines failing as noteable above.
GLTA
RFguy
Being kind of an expert regarding supply planning and load balancing, I would go easy on throwing blame around.
When you plan grid and supply design, you plan for certain conditions (temperature, reliability, etc). It's easy to say that you should plan for harsher conditions, but the incremental cost is often crazy (say 5% increase in conditions would mean a 15% raise in energy rates across the board). So it becomes a risk vs cost situation.
Btw, how the conditions are determined depends on local jurisdiction. I don't know the specifics about Texas, but in many places its defined by the local energy board. If the regulated energy board states that conditions x, y, z are the ones for which the grid and supply should be designed, then utilities must abide by that. Then, the staff working at the utility can't go around these specific conditions, otherwise costs will be denied when filing rate applications.
Anyway, I doubt they really find the ones responsible for this mess and each company will likely scapegoat some staff (regardless of whether their hands were tied or not).