ERCOT expresses confidence and maybe it should -- solar and battery storage have made the Texas grid more reliable
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/we...m-21307004.phpAs fears grow around the impending wintry weather expected this weekend, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is now issuing a warning to Texans across the state. ERCOT has issued a Weather Watch from Saturday, January 24, through Tuesday, January 27 due to "forecasted below-freezing temperatures with the possibility of frozen precipitation, higher electrical demand, and the potential for lower reserves," the company said in a news release.
Despite the warning, the release says energy grid conditions are expected to be normal.
"ERCOT is monitoring weather conditions closely and will deploy all available tools to manage the grid, continuing a reliability-first approach to operations," ERCOT wrote in the release. "In anticipation of the extreme cold weather, ERCOT is coordinating preparation efforts with the Texas Energy Reliability Council, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Texas Division of Emergency Management and other state agencies, as well as with Market Participants."
decarbonization is already happening
https://www.fox4news.com/news/ted-cr...s-winter-stormbad weather coming this weekend
be prepared for local outages, especially in the northern 2/3 of the state
An ERCOT Weather Watch is an advance notification of forecasted significant weather with higher electrical demand and the potential for lower reserves. No action is needed but ERCOT encourages all Texans to sign up for grid condition notifications through theTexas Advisory and Notification System (TXANS). Texans can also monitor real-time and extended grid conditions at ercot.com.
if there's ice on the road, people need to know
encouraging staff to refer to ice as freezing rain is inaccurate at best, deadly at worst
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/23/politics/fema-ice-storm-memesHomeland Security officials have urged disaster response staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to avoid using the word “ice” in public messaging about the massive winter storm barreling toward much of the United States, according to two sources familiar with the directive.
The concern is that the word could spark confusion or online mockery, given the ongoing controversy surrounding US Immigration and Customs Enforcement — also known as “ICE.”
The guidance, informally delivered to a group at FEMA Thursday by officials from the Department of Homeland Security – which oversees both FEMA and ICE – comes as states across the South brace for potentially devastating ice ac ulations, with some areas expecting a quarter -inch or more.
Officials told staff they worry that certain phrasing – like “watch out for ice” – could be misinterpreted or quickly turned into internet fodder, especially as ICE operations remain a flashpoint in cities like Minneapolis and beyond. That would take away from the purpose of the messages, meant to protect people in danger over the next few days, the officials said.
lol DHS urging FEMA to lie about the weather
lol DHS afraid of memes
softest es in the world
data centers present their own grid issues
https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...ts-2026-06-05/When large customers abruptly cut their power use, it can knock the grid off balance and trigger wider outages.
ERCOT, which manages electricity for most of Texas, said it reviewed about 20 gigawatts of large customers seeking to connect to the system, including eight projects totaling roughly 3.9 gigawatts aiming to start up before July 1. It said it identified #four groups of large power users that could each trigger more than 5,000 megawatts of demand tripping under certain fault conditions, based on simulations of transmission system disturbances.
Those abrupt drops in demand were equivalent to the electricity consumption of a large city such as Boston.
ERCOT said it is reviewing the test failures and drawing up plans to protect the grid from disruptions. So-called voltage ride-through failures have become a top priority for ERCOT’s board as the risk grows with more data centers and crypto miners connecting to the grid.
Since 2023, ERCOT has identified at least 26 events in which data centers or crypto mining facilities have abruptly disconnected from the grid because they could not handle disturbances in the flow of electricity.
In December 2022, a failed transformer at a substation in west Texas caused nearly 400 crypto miners, data centers and oil and gas production facilities to unplug without warning. The mass disconnection produced a surplus of nearly 1,700 megawatts of electricity, about 5% of the grid's total demand, and forced 112 megawatts of power generation to shut down, according to ERCOT.
ERCOT and regulators have been tightening interconnection and performance requirements, including new rules aimed at ensuring such facilities can ride through voltage and frequency disturbances without disconnecting.
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