RE:RE:RE:RE:Texas Grid Failure Texs has been evading regulation on winterization since 1989 at the least, as this 2011 article shows:
https://www.statesman.com/article/20110411/NEWS/304119704
You know more about electric grids and their workings than I do, and I understand the limitations of wind power, but there is a reason why Texas is out of power and not Oklahoma or Alaska or basically anybody else. Oklahoma derives 34% of its power from wind, and it's not any warmer in OK right now than in TX. This isn't a wind power problem nor a cold problem. It's a Texas problem.
Capharnaum wrote:
Like I said before, I don't know the particularities of Texas energy distribution (that's my disclaimer, as they could have specific flaws in their system that means the following wouldn't apply to them).
However, you'd be surprised that regulators are often the ones putting the breaks on extra investments in supply (to improve network responses and reliability when facing extreme weather conditions). Consumer groups often advocate that the expense (which would result in a raise of rates for consumers) is unnecessary. I know energy companies that have put forward plans to add peak capacity and redundancy to their system to face potential cold waves that were shot down by the regulator. Here, we need to file for approval for any spending (even 5k... on overall expenses of over $1B) if we buy power in excess of what the regulator deems sufficient. If we have a polar vortex, we'll have to shutdown customers because our system can't support that, but it's out of our hands as the regulator wouldn't approve the required spendings.
From what I've read about Texas, the equipment on their grid can't even support the required loads based on the weather. So, even if they had the peak power to supply the load, the grid wouldn't support it. That's a lot of investments to reinforce the grid. Then, you need to have backup power for all the wind power. While wind power can work in winter conditions, it's not a suitable peak power management source as they are providing irregular loads even when working fully. Putting backup contracts in place for peak power to replace the wind farms is costly. Nat gas power plant should definately be winterized, overall that shouldn't be a huge cost. All those investments will show up on customer's bills.