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Daniel Cohan Profile picture
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13 Apr, 9 tweets, 5 min read
Back near $2,000/MWh on a mild spring day, with many of our power plants down for maintenance
Awfully tight for a mild spring day
Power plant outages have remained high since the February blackouts
ercot.com/content/wcm/ke…
ERCOT planned to have 88 GW of resources to meet peak spring demand of 65 GW with a healthy margin. Today it's struggling to satisfy 49 GW demand on a mild day, pushing prices near the $2,000/MWh cap (avg is $20s/MWh). Over 30 GW of "firm" power plants are down for maintenance.
Here we go again
#ERCOT #TexasWeather
Yesterday's tight power supply is being portrayed as an anomaly. In fact, it was tight twice last week too. Even with mild weather, 30+ GW of "firm" power plants is a lot to be down at once.
ERCOT has been reporting 32 GW outages, but not specifying where. EIA data show coal output has been peaking at 8.6 GW (out of 15 GW capacity), nuclear at 3.7 GW (out of 5.1 GW; one reactor down at STP). Most outages must be gas.
eia.gov/beta/electrici…
Power demand in ERCOT did exceed forecasts yesterday, but was by no means exceptional. Weather has been mild all week. Demand reached 49 GW yesterday, compared to 65 GW peak forecast for spring and 80 GW for summer.
eia.gov/beta/electrici…

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More from @cohan_ds

Daniel Cohan Profile picture
30 Mar
Article leads with two companies that went bust, before eventually noting that DOE loan guarantees netted a $2B profit, funded Tesla and other successes, and brought down the costs of solar, wind, and EVs. Sounds like a success to me. nytimes.com/2021/03/29/cli…
So Obama’s program netted $2B, helped turn wind and solar into thriving industries, boosted Tesla and EVs, and created jobs, but it's called "not particularly effective?” Sounds like a success worth emulating, rather than focusing on “Solyndra syndrome” yet again.
So the bill “didn’t have a big impact,” but it made it “cheaper to reduce emissions,” “created political support for doing so,” and “gave a jolt to EV manufacturing”?? Sounds like Dems are right to “go bigger — much bigger,” rather than get hung up on “Solyndra syndrome.”
Read 4 tweets
Daniel Cohan Profile picture
17 Feb
So many of the misleading narratives about the #TexasBlackout are missing a fundamental understanding of our electric power supply, and its mutual vulnerabilities with our gas systems. We're facing an _energy systems_ crisis, not just an electricity crisis.
To understand why, we can begin by seeing how ERCOT generates power on average. Nearly half is from gas. Wind topped coal last year for the first time. We have just 4 nuclear units, little hydro, and solar soaring from a small base.
That supply provides power for most but not all of the state. And the grid is contained within Texas, with very little transmission linking to the rest of the country or Mexico. So what happens in Texas, stays in Texas.
Read 31 tweets
Daniel Cohan Profile picture
16 Feb
Wind has been producing ~1.5 GW less than ERCOT expected for a winter peak event, solar ~1 GW more than expected, & nuclear running 100%. Meanwhile, >30 GW of fossil plants, mostly natural gas, went down. So of course the narrative is -- frozen wind turbines! 🤦‍♂️
#RollingBlackouts
See here for more details
#TexasFreeze #RollingBlackouts
Correction to my earlier tweet: It appears there was a temporary outage at one of the four nuclear units in Texas, around 6 am Monday, according to this post by @Atomicrod. Others remained at 100% output.
atomicinsights.com/south-texas-pr…
Read 4 tweets
Daniel Cohan Profile picture
15 Feb
ERCOT expected to get low capacity factors from wind and solar during winter peak demand. What it didn't expect is >20 GW of outages from thermal (mostly natural gas) power plants.
ercot.com/gridinfo/resou…
#TexasFreeze #RollingBlackouts
Note that ERCOT's worst case scenario, based on 2011 freeze, included 9,509 MW of outages, not the >20,000 MW that's down today. Much deeper freeze this time, and natural gas is scarce given heating needs.
ercot.com/content/wcm/li…
Although ERCOT only expected 269 MW of solar during winter peak demand, we may actually get over 3,000 MW at times today. That's more solar than existed in ERCOT two years ago.
#TexasFreeze #RollingBlackouts
Read 11 tweets
Daniel Cohan Profile picture
1 Feb 20
Following up on last year's thread, time to look at Annual Energy Outlook 2020, released by EIA Wednesday: eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/
A huge step forward this year is considering alternate cases for renewables costs. As I wrote last year, the lack of such scenarios had been a persistent blindspot in EIA outlooks. Thank you EIA!!
thehill.com/opinion/energy…
In the reference case, CO2 emissions stay flat through 2050, with transportation the largest source and more industrial gas use offsetting less power plant coal. Nowhere near Obama's Paris pledge of 80% reduction by 2050, or Dems' targets of net-zero by then.
Read 18 tweets
Daniel Cohan Profile picture
29 Dec 19
After a not too bad track record the past two years, might as well make some predictions for 2020 on climate, energy, and related matters.
Predictions for 2020 on climate, energy & related matters.
1. A moderate Democrat is elected President, Ds hold House, but Rs keep Senate
2. Climate gets unprecedented attention in debates & as rallying cry for Dems. Growing number of Republicans, especially swing-state senators & challengers to freshman Dems, run as pro-climate with market-based or tech/innovation focused approaches.
Read 11 tweets

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