Thread by @douglewinenergy

A few takeaways from an eventful #txenergy/#ERCOT day:
- A major coal plant tripped at 7pm during the conservation call.
- Storage picked up the slack in a major way.
- The new backup reserve ECRS was deployed for 5 hrs.
- Prices were in the $1000's/MWh for ~4 hours.
#txlege 1/

At 7:00, when reserves were very tight and a conservation call was in effect, a coal plant went offline.

This happens *a lot* during extreme temperatures. We'll know if a few days which plant it was. Happily for Texans, battery storage filled in the gap... (cont). #txenergy 2/

Storage replaced 75% of the lost coal in minutes.

Here you can see coal plants producing 11,744MW at 6:54pm; 10 minutes later it's down to 11,176. That's a sudden loss of 568MW.

At 6:54pm, batteries were producing 360MW. By 7:04, storage ramped to 783MW, an increase of 423MW.

This illustrates yet again (we had another example with a nuclear unit going down last week), that flexibility is the key to the grid. You need fast acting, dispatchable resources. Batteries are perfect. So is demand response; we should get more of it. 4/

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1670141883098574848?s=20

Tomorrow's peak is forecast to 81.8GW but ERCOT has been systematically over predicting demand so I expect it a little lower. Next Monday, though, look out. An 84GW projection. This heat wave is brutal. Temps go up, demand goes up and thermal plants break. It's a bad combination.

Last, linemen work in dangerous conditions, including extreme heat. Thinking of this young man who lost his life helping the people of East Texas. Hoping everyone takes extra precautions out there. Heat is a killer. Please be careful. End/🧵
kltv.com/2023/06/20/wes…