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Dec 16 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
"Residential demand is the low hanging fruit in Texas... For every dollar spent, the benefit reaped was roughly $3.80 in 2021...demand-side fixes would take less time & money compared with building new gas fired power plants." #txlege #txenergy 1/4
wsj.com/articles/texas…
"Texas households tend to use electric resistance heating, which involves an electricity-intensive system of warming up coils & then blowing air over them (much like hair dryers). Heat pumps, which use refrigerants, require much less electricity." 2/4
"@ACEEEdc estimates that implementing a set of residential energy efficiency & demand response measures in Texas would offset about 11.4 GW of winter peak load." But we haven't increased #energyefficiency at all since Uri!
#txlege #energytwitter 3/4 Image
Note that just two of the programs in that graphic would yield 8.3GW of reductions (more than two Austins worth of power!) for $700m over 5 yrs.

There is no other way to get 8GW for ~$700m. No other strategy comes close to that.

Great @WSJ article by @JinjLee
#txlege 4/4 Image

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More from @douglewinenergy

Doug Lewin Profile picture
Dec 18
Why I don't think there will be power outages this week, a thread:
1) It'll be ~10° warmer than Uri w/no snow/ice so:
- peak demand will be lower
- shouldn’t be nearly as many issues for gas supply & power plants
2) Peak demand @ 10am instead of overnight
#txlege #txwx 1/ ImageImage
Peak demand forecast is 69.5GW. Peak during Uri was between 76-82GW. However, the power went out in the early morning hours of Feb 15 at ~69.5GW, so that is very high demand. *But* the peak hitting at 10am instead of 1am is a massive difference. #txenergy 2/ Image
There is little to no expected snow or ice so at 10am:
1) we'll have lots of solar production (more on that below) and
2) workers can get to sites where there are freezing issues. In many cases, they couldn't during the Uri #texasblackouts 3/
Read 16 tweets
Doug Lewin Profile picture
Dec 16
The @PUCTX unveiled their draft biennial report to #txlege (previously the "Scope of Competition" report). In the section on retail competition, they fail to note that 2 companies own ~80% of the retail market. Seems like an important omission, no?

Avg rate is 15-17c. #txlege Image
Report is here: interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/5403…
@PUCTX also fails to inform the legislature that 4 companies own 65% of the generating plants in ERCOT.

PUCT notes "robust stakeholder process." Stakeholders/members of ERCOT will lose their voting rights in an ERCOT board vote this coming Tuesday. #txlege #txenergy Image
Read 4 tweets
Doug Lewin Profile picture
Dec 5
The Senate weighed in on the grid & the @PUCTX's proposed market design changes last week. Today, the House State Affairs Cmte meets to ask questions of the PUC, #ERCOT, the Independent Market Monitor & industry. I'll tweet some highlights here. #txlege 1/
dallasnews.com/news/politics/…
@PUCTX Livestream is here and the first panel has just started.
tlchouse.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.ph…

Another good summary of the events of last week from @rtoinsider and @tkleckner1 here
rtoinsider.com/articles/31219…
Chair Lake starts by saying it was "misinformation" that extremes weren't included in the study. They in fact did not include Uri.

Here's the quote from the study: "The 1980-2019 sample does not include the extreme cold weather event caused by Winter Storm Uri in 2021... (cont.)
Read 89 tweets
Doug Lewin Profile picture
Dec 2
The Texas Senate dealt a major setback to the efforts of the PUC Chair & some generators attempting to redesign the #ERCOT market, telling them to hold off. The PUCT's biggest mistake? They never defined the problems they're trying to solve. 1/🧵
#txlege
dallasnews.com/news/politics/…
Unfortunately, it seems that #txlege is repeating that mistake. I think there are three major problems we need to solve: (1) prolonged extreme winter storms (2) hot summer evenings & (3) cost.

*There is no one thing that will solve all of these problems*
utilitydive.com/news/texas-law…
We need to identify & diagnose the problem correctly. Acc'g to @FERC & @NERC_Official, during Uri, Texas had massive demand (spiked by inefficient heat) & frozen gas supply & power plants (made catastrophic by lack of effective regulation). #txenergy 3/
Read 12 tweets
Doug Lewin Profile picture
Nov 29
#ERCOT Winter Seasonal Assessment is out. While ERCOT and @PUCTX disputed @FERC's October assessment that we would have a deficit of 18GW in extreme cold, ERCOT finds in an extreme event, we would be short 9-12GW which would result in lenghty outages. #txlege 1/
The biggest problem with the SARA report is they only account for three major problems:

- high demand
- high thermal outages
- low wind

They still don't account for gas supply disruption, which could make outages >9-12GW in the winter. This is not yet fixed. #txenergy 2/
Good to see ERCOT finally acknolwedge that extreme winter demand could reach 80GW. I still think that undershoots it a bit (@AndrewDessler & team think demand in Feb 2021 was 82GW) but is closer to reality than ERCOT has ever acknowledged before. 3/
ercot.com/files/docs/202…
Read 7 tweets
Doug Lewin Profile picture
Nov 17
Big day at #txlege today. Hearing in Senate B&C focused on fixing the grid, proposed ERCOT market changes and in Sen Natural Resources on economic development programs (incl. for energy) and implementation of a bill that bans state investment in sustainable investors #txlege 1/🧵
Here's the first part of the agenda in Senate B&C. Mostly usual suspects. None of the panels will have represention for residential consumers, community groups, renewable energy, battery storage, academia, etc. #txlege #txenergy
You can see the hearings here:

senate.texas.gov/av-live.php
Read 74 tweets

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