Thread by @aitorehm

WSJ news div. explains why the “damn frozen turbines” argument is tired: wind only meets 10% of TX’s winter capacity; natural gas and coal make up 82%. While some wind farms are stopped due to ice, the gas generators with frozen water intake facilities are much more problematic.

https://twitter.com/hshaban/status/1361881607716675586

Other problem: a not-great grid. As @rrocasalamero points out nicely in his thread, Spain was hit with similarly unusual, extreme winter weather last month and went through it without significant blackouts. One can be prepared for extremes without having Arctic-level facilities.

https://twitter.com/rrocasalamero/status/1361607646743306243

Poor market design also has a role: TX’s market-driven energy system is structured so that generators are paid for producing energy but not for keeping reserve capacity on standby to meet potential demand peaks. Having some facilities offline for maintenance compounded the issue.

@guardian has a good write-up about how conservatives are trying to use the fiasco to malign renewables — even as TX’s grid operator insists that failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear systems have been responsible for nearly twice as many outages.
theguardian.com/us-news/2021/f…

Here’s the link to the aforementioned WSJ story: wsj.com/amp/articles/d…

And here’s another to the piece our American cousins have prepped discussing the situation’s political implications: politico.com/news/2021/02/1…

Good morning.

Addendum: following up on that Guardian story on how conservatives are falsely accusing clean energy of being responsible for the fiasco in Texas... 🤦🏻‍♂️