Thread by @GeneforTexas

Just got off statewide elected officials call with ERCOT. Trying to relay from memory:

-17 GigaWatt still off line.
-Trying to bring stuff back on line ASAP.
-Combination of gas, coal, solar, wind, and nukes went off line. (Nukes?)
-500 MW (0.5GW) came back during the call

Sun warming up wind turbine blades and shed off ice that formed during cold rain will put wind farms back on line quickly.

Water vapor in gas lines freezing up sensors and regulators in LNG plants.

LNG well heads frozen at the pump.

All cold related outage.

There were cold related measures taken after the freeze of 2011.

But the measures were for 2011 level storm.

2021 far exceeded what was planned or expected.

Just didn't expect this cold and across the entire state.

ERCOT is not responsible for who gets blacked out.

That goes to the transmission entity... oncor, centerpoint, and co-ops decide how to rotate the blackouts. ERCOT just tells them how much load to shed.

The expected blackout cycle is supposed to be 24hr on 24 off.

The only regulation on blackouts is about first responders and critical infrastructure.

(Downtown and hospital districts are critical I would guess)

They apologize for not letting the public know that this was what was going to happen. They knew this was coming last week. (?)

The blackouts are to prevent the entire grid from collapsing. (I'm not sure of the exact mechanism, no one elaborated. But I'll take their word on it)

If you have power, reduce your use to the minimum you need. They said that this will help stuff come back on faster for everyone

Texas (ERCOT) does have some connection with outside grids. With other states and Mexico.

But storm even reached Mexico. Mexico stopped sending power so they would have enough for their own grid. Other states did the same.

Storm covering the entire continent. No one was selling

There's not a decision about what will happen to people who suffered damage due to the outage: hotel costs, broken water systems, broken a/c system.

ERCOT and PUC will discuss.

(Likely need a declared disaster and need federal disaster aid package. Property insurance will hurt)

My biggest takeaway is that the public needed to know when far was coming last week.

If we had known how the rolling blackouts were going to occur, then we could have reacted better.

I felt better prepared for Harvey than this.

Sorry for the typos. Fingers are cold and trying to type too fast.

There was a question on how the state checks if producers are prepared for weather events.

Answer: basically none, there are best practices recommended, and trusting producers to use profit motive to maintain production.

(Except this is not selling pizza, people die w/o power)

Again. I'm doing this from memory on a 1 hour call. Apologies if anything is inaccurate.