A good look at the variability of wind and solar resources in Texas, from @VibrantCE. They show that wind power can exhibit significant inter-annual variability, and some extreme years exhibit winter months with near-zero output from wind. This is rare, but happens.
Solar exhibits less interannual & monthly/weekly variation than wind, but there is, of course, this thing called night. That said, batteries + solar can mitigate diurnal cycles well. So solar+storage can be counted on a bit more than wind it seems, with higher capacity value.
This variability needs to be accounted for in resource adequacy planning, including the potential for correlated extreme low wind events during periods of system stress.
So long as system planners/grid operators consider wind (and to a lesser extent solar, provided it is paired with sufficient storage) to be "reliably unreliable," as I called it in my @NYTimes op ed (nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opi…), electricity systems can be resilient to these extremes
PS, @VibrantCE, does the solar data account for snow/ice covering panels?
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Wow, this graphic from a new @ERCOT_ISO report on the #TexasBlackouts shows how close the ERCOT grid was to a cascading failure that could have easily blacked out the whole system. ercot.com/content/wcm/ke… 1/
Going into the night of Valentine's Day, February 14th, a new winter peak demand of 69,222 MW was set at 7:06pm. By 1:23am in the middle of the night on February 15th, frigid temps had left more than 35,000 MW of generating capacity offline. 2/
Faced with greater demand & diminished generation capacity, ERCOT, the grid operator, ordered transmission utilities to start disconnecting millions of customers. The initial order was to shed 10,500 MW of demand. This grew to a height of 20,000 MW by the end of Feb 15th. 3/
Today's @nytimes editorial cites and echoes my recent op ed on what went wrong in Texas and what it means for building a cleaner & more resilient energy system.
For more on what went wrong in Texas, see my op ed in the @nytimes here
For a forward looking view on how to ensure adequate firm resources in a clean electricity system, my seminar on The Critical Role of Clean Firm Resources here:
Finally, check out this week's issue of @TheEconomist, which has a cover story building on the @Princeton Net-Zero America study about how the United States can regain it's leadership on #ClimateAction and build a clean energy economy
It takes a lot of gall -- or deliberate ignorance -- to see widespread failures of gas wells, pipelines, & power plants resulting in days-long loss of ~28,000 MW of thermal power plants, mostly gas, and say, "this proves we need more gas and coal plants!"
Some facts on the #TexasBlackouts for @KimStrassel and others peddling false narratives that do nothing but mislead and distract from the key steps Texans need to take.
2. "nearly half of the state’s natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures, while freezing components at natural gas-fired power plants have forced some operators to shut down."
PSA for reporters looking for good experts on how climate change is changing the risk profile for electricity systems and critical infrastructure, here's some recommended sources I know in the thread below...
Update: it looks like the Texas Commission ordered ERCOT to be prepared to further increase electricity price cap from $9,000/MWh to up to 50x the spot price for natural gas, if necessary to keep incentive for gas generators to run.
That means is spot gas prices are above $180/MMBtu, the market price for electricity could rise above the $9,000/MWh cap that normally occurs during power supply scarcity. @EIAGov is reporting $350/MMBtu spot price in Houston today, so that may be in effect now!
Maybe they will do this retroactively? The current prices reported by ERCOT are still $9,000/MWh including adder to reflect demand shutoffs ongoing. ercot.com/content/cdr/ht…
#TexasBlackout update, 9:24am Central time: the grid operator @ERCOT_ISO's latest data is STILL reporting over 30 GW of thermal generators offline. ERCOT's 'extreme' generator outage scenario planned for just 14 GW.
Wind power is also at only 1,000 MW, below ~1,500 MW ERCOT planned for in an 'extreme low wind' scenario. So that's not helping either, but a far smaller contribution to supply shortage than the 30,000 MW of thermal plant outages that have persisted since Monday morning.
Demand served now is 44,539 MW, well below ~69,000 MW of peak demand experienced on Sunday in similar temps as today. We can't know the counterfactual of how much demand there would be if supply was adequate, but its probably on order of 20,000 MW higher than current levels.