Record for most days over 100 degrees per year in San Antonio

[Winehole23]

As part of demand response, ERCOT will pay big energy users like manufacturers or (more recently) bitcoin miners to reduce the power they use. That frees up more electrons for others and keeps supply and demand balanced on the grid.

Doug Lewin, an energy consultant who writes the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, says other grid operators have successful programs that pay residential ratepayers to conserve as well.

“Residential customers pay higher rates than big customers do outside of even those [demand response] opportunities. So it is inequitable,” he said. “There is every reason from a reliability and an affordability and fairness perspective to give those opportunities to residential consumers.”

In some parts of the state, residential consumers can participate in demand-response programs through their local utility. In Austin, for example, consumers can receive credit toward their electric bills for using "smart thermostats" that lower their AC in response to high demand.

https://www.kut.org/energy-environme...ask-why-not-me

[Winehole23]

In Texas, the computers kept running until just after midnight. Then the state’s power grid operator ordered them shut off, under an agreement that allowed it to do so if the system was about to fail. In return, it began paying the Bitcoin company, Bitdeer, an average of $175,000 an hour to keep the computers offline. Over the next four days, Bitdeer would make more than $18 million for not operating, from fees ultimately paid by Texans who had endured the storm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/b...pollution.html

[leemajors]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/b...pollution.html

delightful

[Winehole23]

Springtime was abnormally hot. That's when thermal plants usually shutter for maintenance. Then we had two months of extreme heat. So maybe there's been more wear and tear this year.

It does seem a bit odd that coal and gas are off 60% in one day.

[Extra Stout]

There is a financial incentive to play a game of chicken with supply.

[baseline bum]

Springtime was abnormally hot. That's when thermal plants usually shutter for maintenance. Then we had two months of extreme heat. So maybe there's been more wear and tear this year.

It does seem a bit odd that coal and gas are off 60% in one day.

I don't think spring was abnormally hot this year (last year it was). This is almost certainly market manipulation, not wear and tear from spring.

[ChumpDumper]

"unexpectedly"

This is what the system is designed to do. It's Enron with a cowboy hat.

[baseline bum]

"unexpectedly"

This is what the system is designed to do. It's Enron with a cowboy hat.

The system as designed by Governor Abbott and Governor Perry since they personally appointed every single member on the Texas Public Utility Commission that regulates our grid.

[baseline bum]

Also, we got to 100 today
https://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KSAT.html

1. 62 days and counting in 2023 as of August 29th
2. 59 days in 2009
3. 58 days in 2022
4. 57 days in 2011
5. 41 days in 2013
6. 36 days in 2020
6. 36 days in 1998
8. 33 days in 1948

[benefactor]

lol hole state

[DarrinS]

Low 90s two days in a row at my house. Lower than the airport, for whatever reason.

[ChumpDumper]

Low 90s two days in a row at my house. Lower than the airport, for whatever reason.

Therefore, no climate change.

[GAustex]

A lovely evening for a walk

[DarrinS]

Therefore, no climate change.

No one was talking when I ran my generator during the generational freeze.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

No one was talking when I ran my generator during the generational freeze.

It got cold so fossil fuels get a pass, amirite?

[benefactor]

No one was talking when I ran my generator during the generational freeze.

Name how many apartment complexes provide their tenants with generators. We will all wait.

[benefactor]

A lovely evening for a walk

It is. Totally erased 62 days of cooking in the 100 plus degree heat.

[monosylab1k]

Low 90s two days in a row at my house. Lower than the airport, for whatever reason.

Well if Darrin is okay, then who cares about everyone else! Crisis averted!

[monosylab1k]

Name how many apartment complexes provide their tenants with generators. We will all wait.

I think you forgot the part where the world is a giant video game, and Darrin is the main character, so he’s the only one who matters.

[ChumpDumper]

No one was talking when I ran my generator during the generational freeze.

Of course we were talking about climate change then, Darrin. You were too busy drinking.

[Winehole23]

It was a white knuckle night in the ERCOT control room. On Thursday, August 17th, reserves on the ERCOT grid dropped below 3,000 megawatts — less than 4% of the total system demand at that point — and got close to the 2,300 megawatts that would require ERCOT to declare emergency conditions.


The same night, industrial-size batteries put 1,800 megawatts of power —more than double the previous record — onto the grid when reserves reached their lowest point. Without batteries, ERCOT probably would’ve declared an emergency that night. We were very close to the edge.


The same thing happened four times over the next week or so: storage put between 1,100 and 1,325 megawatts of power onto the grid between 7:15 - 8:30 p.m., right as reserves reached their nadir on August 20, 23, 24, 25, and 29 — all days when ERCOT issued conservation calls.


These hot summer nights show the vital role that storage should play on the grid, filling the gaps in those moments when demand threatens to overtake supply. The amount of storage on the grid has mushroomed in recent years — and much, much more is on the way.


So is ERCOT opposing its expansion in a key ancillary service market?

https://www.douglewin.com/p/is-ercot...-to-eighty-six

[GAustex]

I noticed how nice it was this early morning

[Extra Stout]

https://www.douglewin.com/p/is-ercot...-to-eighty-six

Battery storage solves the on-demand issue with solar and wind. Together with small modular nuclear reactors to carry the base load (a technology ready for mass deployment by 2030), the path to obsolescence for natural gas is clear. The people who make money off fossil fuels aren’t going to go down without a fight, and if three billion people have to die to protect their short-term profits, so be it.

[Thread]

Battery storage solves the on-demand issue with solar and wind. Together with small modular nuclear reactors to carry the base load (a technology ready for mass deployment by 2030), the path to obsolescence for natural gas is clear. The people who make money off fossil fuels aren’t going to go down without a fight, and if three billion people have to die to protect their short-term profits, so be it.

Amen.

[Thread]

I noticed how nice it was this early morning

Me too. A/C was at 69 degrees and I had a ceiling fan above me at 3/4 strength and a regular fan 6 feet from me at the medium setting and 4 quilts over me.

I was in heaven...till her..."Dale, get up now, we have to go to Wal-Mart before the heat comes in. Dale, get up..."