Texas Power Use To Break Records In Heat Wave, Prices Soar To $2,500 Per Megawatt Hour (reuters.com) 203
The Texas power grid operator, ERCOT, has urged residents and businesses to conserve electricity as the first heat wave of the summer increases air conditioner usage, causing power reserves to potentially fall short. Power prices in the state's day-ahead market reached over $2,500 per MWh, and ERCOT issued a warning about a projected reserve capacity shortage, although controlled outages are not currently necessary. Reuters reports: ERCOT operates the grid for more than 26 million customers representing about 90% of the state's power load. The grid operator issued a "Watch" for what it called a "projected reserve capacity shortage with no market solution available for Tuesday" from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time, which could push ERCOT to take more actions to maintain reliability. Although controlled outages are one of the most extreme actions a grid operator could take to maintain reliability, ERCOT said "controlled outages are not needed at this time."
ERCOT forecast power use would reach 81,348 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday before slipping to 80,991 MW on Wednesday. Tuesday's high, which is a little below a forecast earlier in the day, would still top the grid's current record peak of 80,148 MW on July 20, 2022. Day-ahead power prices for Tuesday settled around $2,500 per MWh at 5 p.m. local time in several zones, including Houston and Dallas, according to the ERCOT website. That compares with next-day prices at the ERCOT North Hub , which includes Dallas, that traded for $37 per MWh for the peak hours during the day on Monday, the U.S. Juneteenth holiday.
ERCOT forecast power use would reach 81,348 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday before slipping to 80,991 MW on Wednesday. Tuesday's high, which is a little below a forecast earlier in the day, would still top the grid's current record peak of 80,148 MW on July 20, 2022. Day-ahead power prices for Tuesday settled around $2,500 per MWh at 5 p.m. local time in several zones, including Houston and Dallas, according to the ERCOT website. That compares with next-day prices at the ERCOT North Hub , which includes Dallas, that traded for $37 per MWh for the peak hours during the day on Monday, the U.S. Juneteenth holiday.
Spin the wheel (Score:5, Funny)
Come on down and the spin the wheel! What will republicans blame this on?
Obama
Something woke
Tony The Tiger
Hillary's emails
Trans people
Bud Light
Target
Hunter's laptop
Antifa
Gay people
Nike
NFL players taking a knee
Cancel Culture
A black mermaid
The wheel has landed on.....
Tony The Tiger!
See the many in funny clothes to collect your prize!
Re: Spin the wheel (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot "but what about California?"
Which seems to be the predominant answer in this discussion.
Written from one of the evidently obscure other 48 states that exist and is glad they don't have Texas nor California power issues.
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You forgot "but what about California?"
I like honestly really enjoy this discussion. It's hilarious watching two utter failures battling for last place arguing about which is slightly less shit. Both states rank miserably in all power system reliability metrics.
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So I understand the policies that lead to headache in Texas, the 'no grid to other states if Texas can't keep up' and 'allow residential customers to get surge pricing that can bankrupt them unexpectedly'. I also see that Texas doesn't even manage to be very cheap, e.g. my state is fully connected and no surge pricing and still my rates are lower than Texas rates.
I don't understand California situation. Their utilities are allowed to charge one of the highest rates in the nation. One would think with one
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Don't they usually blame power problems on solar panels?
Frdom (Score:5, Funny)
That's why I support this badly run government supported monopoly over power distribution in Texas. The freedom to avoid open market competition, reliable power delivery, and having even the possibility of avoiding human civilization destroying climate change is my fascist given right daggumit!
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Ha (Score:5, Funny)
How's that de-regulated market working out for you guys?
Dont knock it (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then again, knowing Texas they'll pass a law that makes people pay utility rates on power they generate themselves or limit the number of panels you can legally use without paying fees. Then they'll limit the number of gallons of rain you can collect, and somehow make it illegal for women to order power service to their house, and find a way to bus people who use more power than they like and have
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We pay under $0.15/KWh in Georgia too, but the price doesn't surge.
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Georgia seems to have a very large amount of renewable energy too. A lot of it is hydro, and some big wind farms.
Hydro doesn't just have to be dams on rivers. Pumped storage can be built in many more places.
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this spike just means that the local power companies have to use their reserve funds.
Oh you almost had me going there for a minute. Expecting utility companies to absorb these extra costs and not pass them along.
Wait, were you serious?
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You do know that the costs and profits of a utility are prescribed by the state government right?
Said California as it enabled Enron...
California is one of, if not the only, State that "fixes" prices.
Re:Ha (Score:5, Informative)
We pay under $0.15 per kWh on average.
According to this map [globalener...titute.org], Texas averages 9.31 cents per kWh. That's below the national average of 11.18 cents. Sounds great, huh?
Except that the following states are cheaper than Texas, and guess what - they're all regulated, with a more reliable infrastructure, no unlimited surge pricing, and the ability to call in electricity from the national grids when needed (like say, when there's uncharacteristically cold weather):
Idaho - 8.17
Wyoming - 8.25
Utah - 8.39
North - Dakota - 8.47
Nevada - 8.64
Washington - 8.78
Louisiana - 8.82
Oklahoma - 8.83
West Virginia - 8.89
Nebraska - 8.93
Arkansas - 9.07
Oregon - 9.10
Kentucky - 9.15
Iowa - 9.17
Virginia - 9.28
And these are in the same 9 - 10 cent bracket:
North Carolina - 9.42
Montana - 9.54
Mississippi - 9.67
Ohio - 9.78
New Mexico - 9.84
Tennessee - 9.86
Missouri - 9.90
Pennsylvania - 10.00
Maybe not so good, after all?
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Made fun of California? (Score:2, Informative)
Texas is worse. Hypocrite conservatives love to claim blue states suck. I mean DeSantis tries to tell us California is dangerous, but Florida has higher murder, drug overdose, and suicide rates than California. Republican run Miami is more deadly than San Francisco. Yet DeSantis loves to claim that California is dangerous. Nobody except me bothered to check the actual facts and murder statistics.
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FWIW, I have ve been around even longer than you and I think it is on topic too. Many of my friends and family in conservative states think that California is some post-apocalyptic third-world hellhole with an unstable power grid.
Yet in large part due to things like the Virtual Power Plant â" paying small-time rooftop solar providers like me $2/kwh, or $2,000 per mwh â" the state largely avoided rolling blackouts last summer. Despite record-breaking demand. The work on reducing the chance of fire
Just like in 2021 (Score:5, Informative)
During the Great Texas Freeze of 2021 where hundreds of people froze to death, governor Greg Abbott ordered Ercot to go with sky high, usurious, price-gouging rates to customers [newsweek.com]. The only slight difference is two years ago rates went as high as $9,000 per megawatt, compared to the paltry $2,500 being shoved down Texans throats this time.
Needless to say, all the bribers, er, contributors to Abbott and other Republicans had really great profits in 2021. Will be interesting to see how big their profits are now with a captive audience.
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When they removed regulations, they should have also repealed liability relief. They should have demanded the utility to carry liability coverage.
Instead they got relief from both regulations and liability. But as long as Texans are voting against their own interests, nothing will work.
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it gets relief from liability
Yes and no. They have some ability to discount their actions as "mandated by regulations" but those regulations also impose severe maintenance, pricing, and SLA requirements that they have to do a lot of work to meet which prevents a lot of the issues Texas is seeing with the deregulated market.
They wouldn't be able to just flip to regulated and leave everything as it is, then say "Oops, not our problem, regulators are supposed to fix it" when their outdated and broken infrastructure results in mass pow
Since no baseline was provided in this article (Score:4, Informative)
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Nor is the baseline important. Doesn't matter if it's normally $0.01/kWh or $1.00/kWh. Price surging due to incompetence on ERCOT's part is the only thing that matters here.
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Nor is the baseline important. Doesn't matter if it's normally $0.01/kWh or $1.00/kWh. Price surging due to incompetence on ERCOT's part is the only thing that matters here.
Incompetence, or deliberate?
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Yikes!
Who would have thought (Score:3)
Isn't Texas the world fifth largest generator of wind power [weforum.org].
Oh; this is because we are talking about capacity, which is ~38000MW. However, at the time of peak demand, it was only providing 4700MW. That's 12% of the installed capacity.
To be fair, solar was a bit better off (luckily because AC was more needed during day time of course), providing 11000ish MW.
That said, solar and wind were basically providing 14% + 6% of the needed power, the rest being from natural gas (~58%, bad) and coal (~7%, worse) and lignite (8%, so worse).
Brace yourself, the oncoming years are going to be fun.
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Brace yourself, the oncoming years are going to be fun.
Texas is always fun. Always wearing a clown nose.
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Texas clearly needs a lot more solar and wind.
You are the definition of *facepalm*.
And stop bringing nuclear in every discussion. We know your main goal is to be anti-nuclear first, and that climate change is a mere after-thought for you. No need to remind us of that.
Or here's a novel idea. Connect to neighbouring grids so that power can be shifted to where it is needed.
Funny you are bringing that up. Texas is actually interconnected with the Mexico grid. And they get low-cost and low-carbon electricity from them. With, guess what? Yes, a nuclear plant. Obviously not enough, seeing how renewables are failing in Texas. But yeah, build more of the failing k
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In what sense are renewables "failing"? You just don't have enough of them in Texas yet.
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In what sense are renewables "failing"? You just don't have enough of them in Texas yet.
There is a comment upthread that claims Texas has 38GW of wind capacity, but during the peak it was only generating 4700MW. I cannot speak to the accuracy of this claim, but if true, your suggestion of "more renewables*" being the solution does not seem especially useful, amounting to "just overbuild everything by an order of magnitude."
* - Yes, I realize "renewables" is more than wind, and the comment also states there was 11GW of solar generation during this period, but "overbuild the fuck out of things"
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Who is overbuilding cheap rewnewables not a useful way to solve this problem?
They have a specific problem due to the use of air conditioning, which implies that building some big solar farms would help solve it.
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Here is the source [forbes.com] for the 38GW capacity for wind, and 11GW electricity generation for solar. Forgot to add the link to it in my initial comment, sorry about that. It is based on ERCOT fuel mix chart at the time Texas power prices soared.
And yes, the solution for Amimojo seems to be to overbuild everything by an order of magnitude. For a state that is already the fifth largest wind energy generator. That is just so out of touch with reality...
Achieving the green dream! (Score:3)
What I love about Texas is that not only is the grid unreliable, but before finally dropping power to your home, you'll get stuck with a bill for an extra grand or two for the power you used before the outage.
I can think of no better argument for reducing your carbon footprint via rooftop solar than Texas. As much as progressives talk about green energy, Texas is actually making it happen. Granted, you may not agree with their methods, but I can think of no better argument for solar power than unreliable, overpriced electricity.
Granted, the sun doesn't shine at night in Texas, but it shines more reliably than the grid... And it's free.
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What Texas doesn't like to talk about, is their power grid has three interconnects with Mexico. https://abc13.com/texas-power-... [abc13.com]
Hypocrites will gladly fly their 'MURICAN flags while buying electricity from Mexico.
Re:Achieving the green dream! (Score:4, Informative)
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I don't understand why, at this point, we don't just default all new buildings to have solar panels. At least in places where there are legitimately more sunny days - Texas, Colorado, Nevada off the top of my head. Solar roofing should be developed and designed to point where it makes more sense to use it even in cloudier markets just for the little extra in can help with.
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I think the improvement in battery storage costs that's coming down the pike will further accelerate that.
Middle of the road projects are estimating costs for grid storage technology to drop by about half in the next ten years, which will do a lot to stabilize Texas's electricity pricing. Many of those technologies are scalable down to large commercial buildings which could allow some of them to operate off-grid most of the time.
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No, I wasn't thinking of sodium ion batteries. I was thinking of molten salt batteries and iron-air batteries. These batteries have projected lifespans measured in decades.
Lead acid is a straw man, nobody is proposing that for grid storage. But we *already* use a lot of those batteries in cars and that's actually a huge (and rare) recycling success. Virtually all (>99%) the lead in old car batteries is captured and turned into new batteries, because of core fees.
Holy crap (Score:2)
"Day-ahead power prices for Tuesday settled around $2,500 per MWh at 5 p.m. local time in several zones, including Houston and Dallas.... That compares with next-day prices at the ERCOT North Hub ... that traded for $37 per MWh for the peak hours during the day on Monday, the U.S. Juneteenth holiday."
From $37 to $2500, god damn. I'm assuming that gets passed on to the customers, right?
So they can either go into debt to turn on the air conditioning, or they can swelter to death and save money.
What a time to
Hey Elon, how is the move working out for ya? (Score:2)
Took Tesla out of the fertile soil it grew and transplanted it in the middle of Texan ignorami. Deserves it
Breaking News (Score:2)
Incompetent organization, ERCOT, is incompetent. Shocking. More at 11.
Free market at work (Score:2)
Texas grid maximizes power generating profits (Score:3)
Texas Fixed Rate Plans (Score:2)
I'm a Canadian, but I real a bit about the Texas power system during the last outage. The system doesn't seem all that in terms of pricing.
I remember something like 90% of all Texans are on a fixed rate plan. Meaning, they're paying the usual 10c/kwh of whatever. Note, I say usual as prices are normally like 8-20c/kwh depending on the state/province.
So most people aren't going to see this crazy bill because they're on a fixed rate plan.
For the people that aren't on a fixed rate, well that can be complicated
Monopolies run amok (Score:2)
Isn't Texas the original home of Enron? Does its influence linger?
Great incentive to install solar panels (Score:3)
Which is the obvious way forward to cope with the demands of air con.
EV's anyone..... (Score:2)
sanctimonious (Score:2)
Before we get all sanctimonious "look how Republicans are stupid hurr durr" * let's remember that California is likewise a basket-case.
One could almost draw the conclusion that EITHER single party running the show for too long invariably ends up delivering exactly the society their (one sided, dogmatically-driven) policies promise and the result is, predictably, a shitshow.
*I've read at +4, too late....
Back to the office (Score:2)
Inducing record temperatures is tough, but it just might work.
Population growth with limited energy growth (Score:2)
Re:Two fitty (Score:5, Informative)
But in Texas, conservatives have avoided regulation by making the power grid within the state only, thus avoiding interstate commerce and federal regulation under the 1935 Federal Power Act. Texas' policies guarantee that utility companies make their money, the governor's friends get richer, and utilities can "surge price" all they want like it's Uber after the Super Bowl.
You can try and deflect to talk about California as much has you want, but the story here has nothing to do with CA. It's Texas -- the "energy capital of the world" that can't keep its lights and A/C on...thanks to failed conservative policies on energy.
Re:Two fitty (Score:5, Insightful)
The stories are written to imply that, but as far as I can tell it's a half-truth at best:
source [energybot.com]
If somebody in Texas doesn't want surge pricing then maybe they shouldn't sign up for surge pricing.
If on the other hand they have the means to reduce consumption if needed, they can sign up for variable pricing which helps everybody, since it conserves during peak usage. Unless they forgot their choice and blithely run up a huge bill and then go on the news to complain about it.
Re:Two fitty (Score:4, Informative)
It also means they don't have to weatherize (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more I see the right wingers on this forum just avoiding threads about Texas's power grid because they don't have any good answers for why they're worldview and belief systems don't work when put into practice. It's trickle down economics all over again, or is they rebranded it to, job creators...
Re:It also means they don't have to weatherize (Score:4, Interesting)
The funny thing is that weatherization is not a punishment,it is a blessing as well. Especially wind tends to travel in fronts, but the cloudiness that comes with it makes the solar energy largely disappear in those fronts as well. Especially a group of countries working together (like the US) can benefit from the transport of energy from surplus to need.
The only thing the US needs to give up is its holy belief in greed and scarcity.
Re: It also means they don't have to weatherize (Score:2)
In order for them to connect to the rest of the national grid they would have to weatherize their grid to protect from storms and sudden weather events. That's because when you connect to the grids of other states you agree that your grid is going to be at a minimum level of reliability in case they need to rely on your grid temporarily and so that you're not just mooching off there much more reliable grid.
So no other grid has blackouts, brownouts, or capacity issues - just Texas?
Fascinating. I wonder why Texas power companies keep sending crews to restore power in other grids? (Yes, I know all electric providers pool resources to handle emergency situations, I was being sarcastic.)
Re: Two fitty (Score:2)
Don't confuse the daily rate paid by most consumers with the commercial 'spot market' price.
The last time people were talking about their 'crazy electric bills' in Texas, they all had one thing in common - they signed up for electric plans that saved them money buy buying electricity on the (normally) cheaper spot market, and being surprised when costs went up when production was down.
Comparing the 'normal' California retail rate for electricity with the commercial 'spot market' rates in Texas on a particul
Re:Better than a blackout (Score:5, Insightful)
Surge pricing beats rolling blackouts [currenthome.com], any day. At least Texans have a choice to lower power use without it being cut off.
What about widespread static blackouts, leading to the deaths of almost 250 people [texastribune.org]? Is that better than rolling blackouts? Or people getting left with $15,000-$20,000 monthly bills?
There's a valid argument about increasing prices during peak demand to encourage reduced consumption (something that plenty of normal, regulated electricity markets do), but uncapped prices and a lack of regulation leading to unsafe conditions and rotting infrastructure are nothing to hold up as ideals. To say it's a decision between that and "rolling blackouts" is a false dichotomy and a sucker's choice.
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Or people getting left with $15,000-$20,000 monthly bills?
Seems like a big incentive for people to have solar panels installed... Then not only could they avoid the bill spike, But they ought to be able to profit by selling to the grid when the value is high.
That said these 15k bills would be Only people who opted to a provider where the deal is the real-time market rate instead of a fixed rate.
The price will normally be much less, but they got to halt their consumption if something extreme happens, or
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You don't sell to the grid at retail. You generally sell to the grid at their cost to produce which is a tiny fraction of retail.
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You generally sell to the grid at their cost to produce
Naw... You arrange to sell at the Market price at the time - the same price they would get to pay any commercial generator for power --- that will be less than the retail price, but more than costs to generate -- at the time while it's so scarce that it is being sold at 2500/kWh, the costs to produce it from solar panels will definitely be less than the market price, So if you have the capability to sell 100% of your solar capacity and stored up pow
Re: Better than a blackout (Score:2)
Re:Better than a blackout (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's 30 cents to 59 cents at absolute peak in California.
Worth noting California is much more expensive than Texas through the year, it's only this surge pricing that is expensive....
Surge pricing beats rolling blackouts [currenthome.com], any day. At least Texans have a choice to lower power use without it being cut off.
The summary link noted that in this case, controlled outages were not needed.
Texas gets power blackouts [utexas.edu] also and far worse than any in California, so it is not like "no blackouts" is an upside of the unregulated wild west market of Texas.
But what the always dishonest SuperKendall does not mention is that the only time California has had any blackouts associated with a heat wave, in 2019, it only occurred on one day and affected about 1% of the state, and the reason was that the private utilities that make up California Independent System Operators (CALISO) failed to contract for enough power from out of state the day before, since their models for predicting usage did not include weather. Fortunately the state tightened up on regulations and during the worst heat wave on record in 2022 there were no blackouts at all.
California fixes its problems, Texas never does.
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the only time California has had any blackouts associated with a heat wave, in 2019, it only occurred on one day
during the worst heat wave on record in 2022 there were no blackouts at all
This is incorrect, or at least glosses over some important details.
I have a close relative who lives in Silicon Valley, which last I checked is in California. During a heat wave in 2020, her home lost power for days. During that heat wave in 2022, her home lost power for days again.
(It's a big deal if her house loses powe
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To be honest, watching people argue which is better, CA, or TX is like seeing a food critic argue which McDonald's cheeseburger tastes the least like shit.
Both CA and TX rank in the top worst states for customer outage duration and total number of interruptions during the year. Both are shining examples of how *NOT* to run an electricity grid.
Texas has the most blackouts of any US state (Score:5, Informative)
That's a nice story but within the last 20 years Texas has had the most weather related blackouts of any US state https://www.climatecentral.org... [climatecentral.org] with the second place runner up being quite a bit lower (and it's not even California!)
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What a weird place.
Remember when the Soviet Union started to fall over and how we all pointed and laughed? I do.
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It's weird watching the Americans argue with each other about whether blackouts or electricity too expensive to buy are better.
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It's almost like watching the bickering between communism and capitalism. Communism is when you have a lot of worthless money because there're nothing to buy with it. Capitalism is when everything is available but you're too broke to buy it.
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It's weird watching the Americans argue with each other about whether blackouts or electricity too expensive to buy are better.
They always seem to be able to find an excuse though, usually the country is too big and spread out to build a good grid, but sometimes it's too dense! Also it's too sunny apparently :(
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I'm watching politicians meddling in electricity up here in Canada ... and pondering when I should order a whole-house generator. I figure it'll take them another couple of years to start causing regular blackouts.
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At least Texans have a choice to lower power use without it being cut off.
Texas and California both top the statistics for SAIDI and other measures of unreliability in the USA. Yeah you can do far better than California when it comes to power reliability, but Texas ain't it.
You can say your turdburger with a touch of salt tastes better than another turdburger, but you're still eating shit.
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Especially when you get enormous surge pricing AND rolling blackouts [wfaa.com].
I'm in Texas. (Score:2, Insightful)
Locked in a 3 year contract at 12 cents kWh. I'm good.
Re:I'm in Texas. (Score:5, Informative)
Not as good as you might think.
We already saw how that turns out in 2021 -- your base bill is indeed 12 cents per kWh, but then you get hit with extra fees, sometimes called PCRF [ketk.com].
Re: Better than a blackout (Score:5, Insightful)
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Evidently you do not understand the concept of a natural monopoly. The staggering cost of replicating common infrastructure is what makes it so. We also don't want two systems of water and sewage pipes to every house.
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Explain to us how power is a natural monopoly. (hint: It's not... It's purely artificial... You just DO NOT WANT to see multiple power lines)..
How many electricity grids and mains line do you want running into your house? Have the workmen come and tear up the old companies wires to install the new companies wires? There's one set of infrastructure, that's the natural monopoly.
Re: Better than a blackout (Score:2)
Re: Better than a blackout (Score:2)
Re:Better than a blackout (Score:4, Interesting)
"ERCOT forecast power use would reach 81,348 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday before slipping to 80,991 MW on Wednesday"
"one thing (Texas power) that is vastly better than an actual problem (California power)."
what makes Texas power so "vastly better"? 81 GW for a population of 30 million & GDP of $1.85 trillion vs 30-35 GW for 40 million people & GDP of $3.7 trillion - what's better about that?
From CAISO
Current and forecasted demand AS OF 01:55
Current capacity*
37,854 MW
Current demand
22,087 MW
Available next 1 – 4 hours
9,902 MW – 15,767 MW
Includes reserves1,994 MW
37,854 MW
Current capacity*
22,087 MW
Current demand
1,994 MW
Current reserves
29,122 MW
Forecasted peak
(20:45)
27,570 MW
Re:Better than a blackout (Score:5, Informative)
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The real situation is a central air unit for a house that, given Texas lax environmental regulation is likely a low SEER unit. In a modern house size of 2000 square feet that can consume 100 KWH a day. Give a four day heat wave, and you are looking at a $1000 power bill.
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that's a pretty bad AC unit if you ask me. also, those houses are not insulated enough.
Re:Options (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this assumes that the end users know how much turning their A/C on will cost them.
Back in the real world, they generally only learn about it when the bill arrives. Sure, the state might have been telling people to save electricity, but that's not the same as telling people "Electricity prices are going up by a factor of 100 today, and so using your A/C will cost you $1000/day instead of $10/day."
and go to a hotel for a day for a lot less.
Of course, all this does is shift the surprise bill to the hotel owner. And if the hotel owner knew about the higher price at the time, the room would cost $325/day rather than $75/day.
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I don't live in Texas and am not super familiar with the market. Most (if not all) other states have a wholesale market and a retail market. Local utilities will purchase on the wholesale market (with wild rate swings) and sell retail at fixed prices. This means that, if the spot market goes crazy, utility companies go bankrupt not individuals.
I do live in Texas, and what you've described absolutely does happen here. Some people do buy electricity through deals where the price fluctuates with market prices, but many -- perhaps most? -- just pay the same rate per kWh no matter what. I know I do.
However, my electric company is the City of Austin. Austin can't go broke. Instead, they just raise their prices in the future to make up for the loss.
And even if the electric company is a private company, they can't really be going bankrupt either, and
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Re:Left or Right it does not matter! So calm down! (Score:5, Insightful)
Government managed anything, Often ends badly.
I suppose this is one of the mantras of the libertarian/conservative ideology. Whether this is true or not depends on a fuzzy, non-standard scale of "badness." However, one could also compare government managed markets/entities to the alternative of private corporations. Whereas government management is sometimes cursed with incompetence and apathy, private corporations are cursed with self-interest. In the cases where self-interest points in a different direction than societal welfare, either the government steps in with regulation or self-interested corporations ravage their customers. Some libertarians/conservatives believe in the benevolent corporation that willingly trades off some profits for societal good, but that mistaken belief also supports the notion of benevolent dictators that history has shown repeatedly is not possible.
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Government managed anything, Often ends badly.
In most of the world government regulates and often even manages utilities. For every state you name where this is going poorly we can name many more where it's going very well.
California is a shitshow. But so is Texas. Most of the states in the USA have government regulated utilities and nearly every state in the USA has better reliability numbers than TX and CA.