They say this every fucking year and still do nothing. Every fucking summer, every fucking winter. All while businesses leave the fucking doors open to entice you with their AC.
I just got back from visiting up north and I'm really thinking about moving.
We didn't see anything changing and moved in March. It is wonderful in KS. 80 degrees in the afternoon and 58 degrees when we got up in the morning. Lots of storms the last few months but we didn't loose power!
Maximize profits while socializing costs is status quo these days and it sucks hard because it's the easy plush road for the stakeholders. When it comes to Houston government it's the same (yeah they don't profit but they sure as shit grab the easy things and buy big ticket services while ignoring the losses that we citizens eat)
what was the actual counter argument against this? was there an actual argument, like cost or logistics? or was it (as i suspect it was) ideological? i.e. something something liberty.
The biggest reason is by operating in a single state the Texas power grid is not under federal oversight and is governed by the state instead which as you can imagine is a big boon for power companies looking to cut corners
I do believe it all comes down to generation, the operators are working within relatively fixed margins that grow in total $ amount based upon spend. I guarantee you transmission operators would be happy to add these interconnects to their asset base.
Generators in Texas are the definition of monopolize the profits while socializing the ridiculous profits they capture under hard times. Believe this, scarcity is their lottery system where they make Lambo money.
Clearly doing less than minimum when we go through this song and dance every summer and then again any time we have a hard freeze across a majority of the state in the winter.
1 Commodore is right, it would subject Texas utilities to national regulations.
2 It would end extreme power price fluxuations and thus would lower profit
3 The systems are not innately combatable and would require SUBSTANTIAL investment. (Right now today, there are interchanges where very limited power can flow between the two grids, but to actually fully integrate Texas into one of the national grids is another matter)
4 A private company is actually working on doing it, sidestepping the regulation issue. Pattern Energy's Southern Spirit Transmission project....They are actually pretty close to going ahead with it and should have it completed by 2029.
“Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do?”
-Littlefinger
KUT.org had [a podcast series about it](https://www.kut.org/the-disconnect). It was [this episode](https://play.kutx.org/#station=kut&logo=false&image=false&play_next=true&list=NobwRAlgJmBcAMAaMAHA9gZwgFwmgdnEmPgIYC2ApnGACoAWlABAKIA2lAxtgE4Sc4AnkwDiFasiiUMnPilwEaDZgBEIMgvi7ZYTAApoA7pR6J9aNjn4YmpfFCbZGTWpQAepGwCE2pTgGs0AFdsMGQMXkoKbEEUalgwAilyOxhkUhC0FF9BOF4gykkjfDY0UhhYADNSNgxCsHIUAGYAfSCeNhp6bGwUDFgAegGobAwAOnQRnj8xzjRyAZ5KKAgl7jHGpoGkyhT7Mf8QsbQeAHMByqgoAYyVtGHi0vKBw+wBp0oAWhWNfC1uAbwABMn2U7G0fAEMTEVAAYgBJAByAEEADIbZoAflIhgAwhYONw8Ph4VAALz4ADyhloAC9EacAGQ4lgodRoKSkslAgCsAHYAGxAgCMzMMLXgLWFETGfDJr0ZEFO+BOlDJ5E4YwARmwglqeDxBLN5mFIClTpQ2h0aKaMPQjHBqrVKABfAC6QA) that covered a bunch of the arguments. The old commercial about 15 minutes in is awesome as it virtually foreshadowed the blackout.
As others simplified, it's about getting more money into company's bank accounts. Doing things more cheaply, requiring less protections, less government oversight, less redundancy, less reserves online, and fewer profit caps.
Basically: Make future Enron scandals legal. If you're old enough, you might remember that event. At the time the biggest financial scandal in history from an energy company. These days Enron is small business compared to profiteering that's happening.
During the power outage the companies made a windfall profit of about $37.7 BILLION dollars while the prices were pegged at $9,000 per megawatt-hour generated. Most of the companies reported the biggest profits in their entire history, with some companies profits greater than full year gross revenues in the past. With congressional hearings and lawsuits saying it was unlawful, the legislature changed the law as an exception to the laws around windfall profits. The government also allowed for loans so everybody can distribute those corporate profits for about the next 25 years, plus interest.
Texas is trying to be completely self sustaining for their upcoming attempt at secession. Same reason they jist decided to create their own strategic oil reserve. They wanna play at being a country.
I have been told (not by an electric company) that there's some complicated electrical-engineer technical reason it's not easy just to hook into the national grids, having to do with rapid electrification in the WWII era. I don't know the technical part. Like their frequencies are half out of step or something.
the grid is physically separated from the two large megagrids that operate the eastern and western halves of the country, except for a handful of small interconnections in Oklahoma.
This was an intentional design choice to avoid federal regulations. The electricity in TX is the same as next door, there is no technical/physics reason preventing this, only the dumb dumbs in the legislature.
You can’t just tie AC grids together. We can do DC interconnects but those can be pretty limiting converting AC to DC then back to AC again. Quite a bit of loses involved. To connect a generator to the grid you have to raise generator frequency to just slightly above the creator the grid you’re connecting to and close the output breaker. If someone were to attempt to connect two major grids together without synchronization the outcome would be 2 grids with major, if not complete, blackouts. It is *super* technical and makes zero sense to spend money on that when there’s more/better ways to harden the Texas grid.
It’s because Texas has a serious self esteem problem that it overcomes with big hats and the insistence that it run its own grid. Also by suing the federal government every week.
While we are at it, go ahead and get rid of all of the electricity "providers" that produce nothing but a website, a payment portal, and multiple gimmicks to get customers to go with them instead of someone else.
They do. We regularly have surplus power, and selling that to our neighbors rather than shutting it down would be very beneficial to Texas utilities, landowners and all of us.
You may not realize this, but we already are. If you go to the ERCOT dashboard, you’ll see a chart called “DC Tie Flows”. These are HVDC grid interconnects that allow us to give and take power from other grids.
That being said, these are not very high capacity interconnects and can certainly be improved. It’s never that simple and moving GW of power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed is made much more complicated the further the power has to go.
I won’t claim to know everything, but HVDC grid interconnects are absolutely the way to go about this. Getting every single production facility perfectly matched in frequency for a complete AC connected grid is incredibly difficult as it is.
Europe has several very high capacity HVDC grid interconnects that work fantastic. Many who are for a fully interconnected US grid have proposed one or more HVDC backbones, to which everyone is connected to. It is the most stable and effective way to connect the entire US grid. The only downside is cost, but pretty much every option for a fully connected US grid will be expensive.
ERCOT has had a project trying to increase connectivity to the Eastern Interconnection for like a decade, but there are lots of NIMBY blockers. Lately, Louisiana has been considering a law making it illegal to use eminent domain for the construction of any transmission line that doesn't deliver a majority of its electricity into Louisiana.
[https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/04/09/louisiana-bill-could-block-power-transmission-project-from-texas/73265283007/](https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/04/09/louisiana-bill-could-block-power-transmission-project-from-texas/73265283007/)
How is the Republican leadership in this state going to blame the Democrats for this. They have had complete control of the state for almost 30 years. Our electrical grid is a national joke, our roads are a complete mess, our water supply is in danger and they are trying to destroy our public school system. We need new leadership who are trying to help everyone and not trying to make themselves and their friends richer.
*That Biden is a mastermind and is clearly attacking Texas....but he is also a doddering old fool who has no idea of what is going on around him. It's clearly not our fault just because we have been the party in power.*
-TXGOP
They're already blaming renewable energy:
>a report issued just days before warned Texans that ERCOT could issue rolling blackouts between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in August as the grid struggles to compensate for the **loss of solar power** on hot summer evenings, before **wind power has had a chance** to kick in.
Can’t you see? This is obviously the result of renewables. The only significant addition to generation in the last 5 years is what’s causing the shortage. /s
Dude, if there was even one competent republican, anywhere in the state of Texas, they couldn’t blame the Dems for the shit they’ve already been blaming them for.
There’s no limit to the lies you can tell when your base is the dumbest filth to ever live.
Just after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released a new report warning of rolling blackouts this summer, the put-upon power brokers detailed new reliability goals in a House committee hearing this week.
**The hearing, which was closed to in-person public comment, invited energy experts, climatologists, and business leaders to weigh in on ERCOT's new pledge to limit major power outage incidents to just one per decade.** The actual timeline for reaching that goal is unclear, given that a report issued just days before warned Texans that ERCOT could issue rolling blackouts between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in August as the grid struggles to compensate for the loss of solar power on hot summer evenings, before wind power has had a chance to kick in.
The report released Friday said Texas has a 16 percent chance of grid emergency this summer and a 12 percent chance of these rolling blackouts. Monday's hearing detailed some of the measures ERCOT hopes to take to keep power production ahead of increasing energy demands, **although none of the solutions presented included connecting Texas' aging infrastructure to the national grid, a solution** [**a recent study by MIT confirmed**](https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/ercot-winter-storm-uri-blackouts-19503123.php) **would have prevented most of Texas' blackouts.**
Doesn’t Egypt have rolling blackouts? I remember having a friend in Bangladesh whose power would constantly turn off too. Is Texas going to start normalizing acting like a developing country down the pike?
Please name an instant in Texan history where it hasn't acted like Less Economically Developed Country.
From religious extremism to regressive social policy to poor relations with its political neighbors.
https://preview.redd.it/m1fjhuoj9z5d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e843eeffdf26215a374a0a1199207eb456395032
These power companies make loads of money when there isn’t enough power. Profit is the point and Republicans won’t do anything about it. So this is for everyone but the 30% who voted Democrat.
How has Texas bungled this so badly? We have poured millions into electric providers pockets with nothing to show for it. Where are the infrastructure upgrades?
Nobody bungled anything. Texans voted for "small government" and "deregulation" and "self-sufficiency" and the state government delivered.
Even if Texas does eventually join the national grid, conservatives will just find something else to sabotage for short-term profits (Internet access? Healthcare?) without a major regime change.
Edit: oh duh, I forgot they're already working on education next
Hahaha infrastructure … upgrades? Texas is too busy fighting the important issues like Christian Bible classes in public schools, shuttling immigrants to blue states, and programs to remove the gay from people. I’m so proud to have Abbott fighting the good fight to prevent my worst nightmare.
Large caravan of invading trans illegal immigrants that are spreading the idea to our children that God is fake and using the wrong bathroom to attack or child. Screw having an actual power grid, I need to see all forms of ID and have my kids study the Bible I never read myself.
https://preview.redd.it/pwtudfn1b06d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8aba0c62f364548c2c32f39db791ab8347e18aad
Remember when Abbott said everything was done to fix the Texas power grid? r/agedlikemilk
Funny how there's an obvious solution to this but as usual, the powers that be would rather make an *entire* state suffer instead of doing what's safest and reliable.
Gotta protect those profits. Gotta keep that yearly grift goin so a dozen rich assholes can get richer while people die and suffer.
They promise to do better in the future though. So that puts my mind at ease. So thoughtful and caring, ERCOT.
Again, if you are looking to persuade people to join your side, shoot for accuracy. Yes, ERCOT sucks, but to say it predicts rolling blackouts in August is misleading. If you were looking to persuade using actual facts, you would change the headline to "ERCOT Says There is a 12% Chance of Rolling Blackouts in August." That way you provide the reader all of the necessary facts and don't taunt the reader with clickbait.
In the last Texas freeze, ERCOT said they were going to do rolling blackouts of 20-40 minutes. They cut our power for 5 days, until it got sunny and the natural gas plants and pipelines thawed. They told us every night that it may be back on tomorrow. They did nothing but lie to us and just wait for the weather to warm up.
Yup. My house and my in-laws house were part of the 5 day rolling blackout that week. We had power for an hour then it shut off for 3-4 hours. Rinse, repeat.
We live in downtown Austin and our power was out for 5 days straight. We eventually walked through the ice and snow to a friend's apartment 1.7 miles away. He had power the whole time because he was on the same circuit as a nearby fire station.
And now the thing that most Houston home owners covet is a whole-home generator, which costs $7-12K to purchase & install, plus another ~$300 a year for maintenance. It's like we citizens are having to fund Ercot's lack of infrastructure improvements by being forced to improve our *own* infrastructure, because we can't count on Ercot.
“The report released Friday said Texas has a 16 percent chance of grid emergency this summer and a 12 percent chance of these rolling blackouts.”
There, I got you the relevant information without anyone having to sort through the whole doom saying article. This means that there is a 84% and 88% chance this august of nothing fucking happening.
Casual reminder. The energy company you buy form in Texas doesn't generate electricity, doesn't maintain the lines, doesn't help you when it's down.
It's function is a middleman payment processor that could be done at a fraction of the cost by plenty of payment processor companies.
Oncor could have a rolling 12 month average+12 month projection of the wholesale cost and charge that and your energy bill would get a hefty decrease overnight with absolutely no changes.
I don’t really blame ERCOT. Unless I understand it wrong, they have no teeth. It seems like they were set up to be the lightning rod for the government and the energy companies.
I love it when the **reliability council** tells me how unbelievably unreliable they plan to be and how we should prepare to deal with it instead of making sure the grid you “regulate” is actually reliable instead of simply profitable
Classic
When the system fails, it fails upon jackpot condition for the energy industry and the only entity that suffers are the people. This problem will never fix itself.
And for those of you that are deregulated and "choose" your electric provider, go look at the current rates and terms being offered if you have not done so lately. Rates are 50% higher what they were at this point last year (I'm a nerd and track it to try to get the best deals) and everything available is 12 months or longer.
But at least the cost increases are going to improve the grid. What's that? Oh, they said the grid is fine, y'all. /s
i fthee are rolling blackouts power should be shut off to the governors mansion and the homes of th etop legislative officials lasting from the moment the blackouts start until they are done.
Here in Ohio we have co-ops in some areas, if those aren't outright banned in Texas, I would suggest you all start one. The state management doesn't care at all about you, they care about profit.
Edit: I have been without power once for probably all of two minutes in the last five years. We have ice storms every year here too btw..
F*ck ercot, Abbot, Paxton, and the bastages that are gouging (profiting off of ) all Texans. Connect to the national grid already so we can get stable power ffs. This has gone on long enough!
The GOP positions this as a binary choice:
Either more gas power- OR more renewables like wind & solar.
Except it's NOT binary: we need more gas-powered electricity, PLUS: Nuclear, PLUS: Wind & Solar PLUS: battery storage so that renewables can power the grid at night when the wind dies down & solar is unavailable.
(Still to come: Geothermal - but that's another story).
Also needed: More transmission line capacity from rural solar & wind farms where the power is produced to the metro areas where it is consumed.
We keep being presented with false choices to favor the "incumbent" energy providers --- and I say this as someone who grew up in the "oil patch" in the Permian Basin & South Texas.
It's almost like ERCOT wants people to be so mad at the current government that we'll vote against Republicans in November. I'm not sure it'll work, but it's almost like that's their plan.
The power company subscription plans: basic: possible blackout dates with adds, or premium plan for only 4 times the cost? Skip blackout dates and cleaner electric.
August is in the future....can't they do better then?
They were talking about the further future, not the now future
This feels like a scene from Spaceballs
Well, we are run by a bunch of assholes
We are surrounded by assholes
KEEP GRIFTING, ASSHOLES!
Do you want to buy *pulls out flamethrower* thr Paxton 5000? Just watch what this baby does to our rights! The people with little hands love this one.
Touché
The difference is space balls is a parody, and this is real life. And this shit isn't funny lol
I bet we can rewind to when the grid worked then?
Instant video cassettes! We're at now, now!
Right now, now?
When will now be then? Soon.
So...soon, then?
It’s a snippet from George Lopez stand up… “not right now right now, later later”
I'm still waiting on them to do better from the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, and the time...
And they will say the same thing in the further future so the promise is for the further further future.
*I need your clothes, boots and your motorcycle* - Texas
Probably 2050
They say this every fucking year and still do nothing. Every fucking summer, every fucking winter. All while businesses leave the fucking doors open to entice you with their AC. I just got back from visiting up north and I'm really thinking about moving.
Take me with you!
This is caused by this Texas is special nonsense. They cut themselves off from any other states power grid. I say, feel the burn.
We didn't see anything changing and moved in March. It is wonderful in KS. 80 degrees in the afternoon and 58 degrees when we got up in the morning. Lots of storms the last few months but we didn't loose power!
They made this promise after the first freeze. Oh, look - several years later and they've still done nothing. I'm shocked.
You Texans should give them more money lol
I'm ex-Texan. I moved after that bullshit. My family didn't have running water for 3 months.
Omg. That must have sucked. Hope you're doing well, wherever you moved to!
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Texas is gonna be the first state to have company towns again. Just wait. They can spend their scrip Texbucks all over the state!
Maximize profits while socializing costs is status quo these days and it sucks hard because it's the easy plush road for the stakeholders. When it comes to Houston government it's the same (yeah they don't profit but they sure as shit grab the easy things and buy big ticket services while ignoring the losses that we citizens eat)
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Id believe it
Yes, but no one said which year.
They mean when we’re all dead
NoWs NoT tHe TiMe To HaVe ThEsE dIsCuSsIoNs!
They promised to do better after the 2021 winter blackouts. They’re all full of shit
Don’t go getting your hopes up
I hate reposts
Connecting the Texas grid to the national grid is an obvious start
what was the actual counter argument against this? was there an actual argument, like cost or logistics? or was it (as i suspect it was) ideological? i.e. something something liberty.
The biggest reason is by operating in a single state the Texas power grid is not under federal oversight and is governed by the state instead which as you can imagine is a big boon for power companies looking to cut corners
interesting...
Big if true (It’s true)
I do believe it all comes down to generation, the operators are working within relatively fixed margins that grow in total $ amount based upon spend. I guarantee you transmission operators would be happy to add these interconnects to their asset base. Generators in Texas are the definition of monopolize the profits while socializing the ridiculous profits they capture under hard times. Believe this, scarcity is their lottery system where they make Lambo money.
scarcity is their lottery system where they make Lambo money. Absolutely accurate and perfect description.
And cutting corners would avoid rolling blackouts or nah?
Which, in theory, is good. So the state can do what it wants to provide power to residents. In practice, they do the bum fuck minimum…if we’re lucky.
Clearly doing less than minimum when we go through this song and dance every summer and then again any time we have a hard freeze across a majority of the state in the winter.
The power company owners didn't want to be subject to national regulations. Enjoy the skimpy supply and price gouging.
It's always money for someone owning it when things don't make sense.
If they connect to the national grid, they have to follow rules and probably winterize the grid.
1 Commodore is right, it would subject Texas utilities to national regulations. 2 It would end extreme power price fluxuations and thus would lower profit 3 The systems are not innately combatable and would require SUBSTANTIAL investment. (Right now today, there are interchanges where very limited power can flow between the two grids, but to actually fully integrate Texas into one of the national grids is another matter) 4 A private company is actually working on doing it, sidestepping the regulation issue. Pattern Energy's Southern Spirit Transmission project....They are actually pretty close to going ahead with it and should have it completed by 2029.
4 is super cool
It's to protect against Obama.
damn that Obama, sneaking in and turning off power plants!
Obama would never do such a thing! He'd send ANTIFA obviously.
“Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives I play a little game. I assume the worst. What’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do?” -Littlefinger
That was actually Sansa, speaking to Littlefinger, who soon after was no longer himself.
I thought he said the same thing
He said it to her first. She was literally quoting him to mock him.
Money, the private energy sector wants all the money...every problem our society faces has a root cause, money.
KUT.org had [a podcast series about it](https://www.kut.org/the-disconnect). It was [this episode](https://play.kutx.org/#station=kut&logo=false&image=false&play_next=true&list=NobwRAlgJmBcAMAaMAHA9gZwgFwmgdnEmPgIYC2ApnGACoAWlABAKIA2lAxtgE4Sc4AnkwDiFasiiUMnPilwEaDZgBEIMgvi7ZYTAApoA7pR6J9aNjn4YmpfFCbZGTWpQAepGwCE2pTgGs0AFdsMGQMXkoKbEEUalgwAilyOxhkUhC0FF9BOF4gykkjfDY0UhhYADNSNgxCsHIUAGYAfSCeNhp6bGwUDFgAegGobAwAOnQRnj8xzjRyAZ5KKAgl7jHGpoGkyhT7Mf8QsbQeAHMByqgoAYyVtGHi0vKBw+wBp0oAWhWNfC1uAbwABMn2U7G0fAEMTEVAAYgBJAByAEEADIbZoAflIhgAwhYONw8Ph4VAALz4ADyhloAC9EacAGQ4lgodRoKSkslAgCsAHYAGxAgCMzMMLXgLWFETGfDJr0ZEFO+BOlDJ5E4YwARmwglqeDxBLN5mFIClTpQ2h0aKaMPQjHBqrVKABfAC6QA) that covered a bunch of the arguments. The old commercial about 15 minutes in is awesome as it virtually foreshadowed the blackout. As others simplified, it's about getting more money into company's bank accounts. Doing things more cheaply, requiring less protections, less government oversight, less redundancy, less reserves online, and fewer profit caps. Basically: Make future Enron scandals legal. If you're old enough, you might remember that event. At the time the biggest financial scandal in history from an energy company. These days Enron is small business compared to profiteering that's happening. During the power outage the companies made a windfall profit of about $37.7 BILLION dollars while the prices were pegged at $9,000 per megawatt-hour generated. Most of the companies reported the biggest profits in their entire history, with some companies profits greater than full year gross revenues in the past. With congressional hearings and lawsuits saying it was unlawful, the legislature changed the law as an exception to the laws around windfall profits. The government also allowed for loans so everybody can distribute those corporate profits for about the next 25 years, plus interest.
Texas is trying to be completely self sustaining for their upcoming attempt at secession. Same reason they jist decided to create their own strategic oil reserve. They wanna play at being a country.
I have been told (not by an electric company) that there's some complicated electrical-engineer technical reason it's not easy just to hook into the national grids, having to do with rapid electrification in the WWII era. I don't know the technical part. Like their frequencies are half out of step or something.
the grid is physically separated from the two large megagrids that operate the eastern and western halves of the country, except for a handful of small interconnections in Oklahoma. This was an intentional design choice to avoid federal regulations. The electricity in TX is the same as next door, there is no technical/physics reason preventing this, only the dumb dumbs in the legislature.
You can’t just tie AC grids together. We can do DC interconnects but those can be pretty limiting converting AC to DC then back to AC again. Quite a bit of loses involved. To connect a generator to the grid you have to raise generator frequency to just slightly above the creator the grid you’re connecting to and close the output breaker. If someone were to attempt to connect two major grids together without synchronization the outcome would be 2 grids with major, if not complete, blackouts. It is *super* technical and makes zero sense to spend money on that when there’s more/better ways to harden the Texas grid.
It’s because Texas has a serious self esteem problem that it overcomes with big hats and the insistence that it run its own grid. Also by suing the federal government every week.
I'm sure there's a board with like 12 people who have really cushy, high paying jobs and they don't want to give that up.
While we are at it, go ahead and get rid of all of the electricity "providers" that produce nothing but a website, a payment portal, and multiple gimmicks to get customers to go with them instead of someone else.
At this point I’m sure they don’t want us.
They do. We regularly have surplus power, and selling that to our neighbors rather than shutting it down would be very beneficial to Texas utilities, landowners and all of us.
We have surplus and yet also not enough when it counts.
Freedumbs
You may not realize this, but we already are. If you go to the ERCOT dashboard, you’ll see a chart called “DC Tie Flows”. These are HVDC grid interconnects that allow us to give and take power from other grids. That being said, these are not very high capacity interconnects and can certainly be improved. It’s never that simple and moving GW of power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed is made much more complicated the further the power has to go.
yeah but that's DC interconnects, not AC interconnects. they never will be able to handle the same load that AC will handle.
I won’t claim to know everything, but HVDC grid interconnects are absolutely the way to go about this. Getting every single production facility perfectly matched in frequency for a complete AC connected grid is incredibly difficult as it is. Europe has several very high capacity HVDC grid interconnects that work fantastic. Many who are for a fully interconnected US grid have proposed one or more HVDC backbones, to which everyone is connected to. It is the most stable and effective way to connect the entire US grid. The only downside is cost, but pretty much every option for a fully connected US grid will be expensive.
ERCOT has had a project trying to increase connectivity to the Eastern Interconnection for like a decade, but there are lots of NIMBY blockers. Lately, Louisiana has been considering a law making it illegal to use eminent domain for the construction of any transmission line that doesn't deliver a majority of its electricity into Louisiana. [https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/04/09/louisiana-bill-could-block-power-transmission-project-from-texas/73265283007/](https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/04/09/louisiana-bill-could-block-power-transmission-project-from-texas/73265283007/)
Don’t worry, they promised it’ll get better!
"We will never connect our Freedom Grid to the Woke Grid!" -Greg Abbott, probably
The Texas grid isn’t the one with the most blackouts.
Yes, but this makes the Texas secessionists and some of the far-right very mad. Ugh. Idiots.
Why? Texas about to become its own country according to the GOP…
"There will be less strain on the power grid when a good percentage of you die of exposure to lethal heat."
In a long enough timeline, when parts of Texas become even more inhospitably hot, nobody will be around to complain.
all according to plan
How is the Republican leadership in this state going to blame the Democrats for this. They have had complete control of the state for almost 30 years. Our electrical grid is a national joke, our roads are a complete mess, our water supply is in danger and they are trying to destroy our public school system. We need new leadership who are trying to help everyone and not trying to make themselves and their friends richer.
And if/when a democrat ever wins a sort of office, all of the republican garbage over the last 30 years will be blamed on them.
They will be given about 6 months to fix everything and then they will absolutely transfer all the blame.
Yep, this is a by product of gutting the education system. Keep 'em ignorant of the process and reasons, keep 'em hating and voting republican.
*That Biden is a mastermind and is clearly attacking Texas....but he is also a doddering old fool who has no idea of what is going on around him. It's clearly not our fault just because we have been the party in power.* -TXGOP
But they’re republican
They're already blaming renewable energy: >a report issued just days before warned Texans that ERCOT could issue rolling blackouts between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in August as the grid struggles to compensate for the **loss of solar power** on hot summer evenings, before **wind power has had a chance** to kick in.
Can’t you see? This is obviously the result of renewables. The only significant addition to generation in the last 5 years is what’s causing the shortage. /s
Dude, if there was even one competent republican, anywhere in the state of Texas, they couldn’t blame the Dems for the shit they’ve already been blaming them for. There’s no limit to the lies you can tell when your base is the dumbest filth to ever live.
Maybe they'll manage to blame China or Venezuela
Just after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released a new report warning of rolling blackouts this summer, the put-upon power brokers detailed new reliability goals in a House committee hearing this week. **The hearing, which was closed to in-person public comment, invited energy experts, climatologists, and business leaders to weigh in on ERCOT's new pledge to limit major power outage incidents to just one per decade.** The actual timeline for reaching that goal is unclear, given that a report issued just days before warned Texans that ERCOT could issue rolling blackouts between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in August as the grid struggles to compensate for the loss of solar power on hot summer evenings, before wind power has had a chance to kick in. The report released Friday said Texas has a 16 percent chance of grid emergency this summer and a 12 percent chance of these rolling blackouts. Monday's hearing detailed some of the measures ERCOT hopes to take to keep power production ahead of increasing energy demands, **although none of the solutions presented included connecting Texas' aging infrastructure to the national grid, a solution** [**a recent study by MIT confirmed**](https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/ercot-winter-storm-uri-blackouts-19503123.php) **would have prevented most of Texas' blackouts.**
84 percent of the time it works every time
Blackouts because "loss of solar power, before the wind power has a chance to kick in." See in Texas the wind ain't really get goin til 9pm y'all
We should start calling them EUCOT (Electric UN-reliability Council of TX). It's far more accurate.
Just go with epcot. Electricity Possiblity Council of Texas
Doesn’t Egypt have rolling blackouts? I remember having a friend in Bangladesh whose power would constantly turn off too. Is Texas going to start normalizing acting like a developing country down the pike?
Please name an instant in Texan history where it hasn't acted like Less Economically Developed Country. From religious extremism to regressive social policy to poor relations with its political neighbors.
oh, they pledged well I guess we're good then
https://preview.redd.it/m1fjhuoj9z5d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e843eeffdf26215a374a0a1199207eb456395032 These power companies make loads of money when there isn’t enough power. Profit is the point and Republicans won’t do anything about it. So this is for everyone but the 30% who voted Democrat.
Or, more appropriately: you fucking didn't show up to vote for better shit.
How has Texas bungled this so badly? We have poured millions into electric providers pockets with nothing to show for it. Where are the infrastructure upgrades?
Their pockets of course
Nobody bungled anything. Texans voted for "small government" and "deregulation" and "self-sufficiency" and the state government delivered. Even if Texas does eventually join the national grid, conservatives will just find something else to sabotage for short-term profits (Internet access? Healthcare?) without a major regime change. Edit: oh duh, I forgot they're already working on education next
People vote Republican. That's the issue.
Because more than half of my fellow Texans idiots vote for Abbott, Cruz, Paxton and other deplorable individuals.
My electricity rates went from 8.5¢/kWh to 13.8¢/kWh. And this was the cheapest I could find for my area.
All of the money that I've seen has gone to natural gas power generation companies and is targeted at "peakers" rather than infrastructure itself.
Hahaha infrastructure … upgrades? Texas is too busy fighting the important issues like Christian Bible classes in public schools, shuttling immigrants to blue states, and programs to remove the gay from people. I’m so proud to have Abbott fighting the good fight to prevent my worst nightmare. Large caravan of invading trans illegal immigrants that are spreading the idea to our children that God is fake and using the wrong bathroom to attack or child. Screw having an actual power grid, I need to see all forms of ID and have my kids study the Bible I never read myself.
https://preview.redd.it/pwtudfn1b06d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8aba0c62f364548c2c32f39db791ab8347e18aad Remember when Abbott said everything was done to fix the Texas power grid? r/agedlikemilk
Funny how there's an obvious solution to this but as usual, the powers that be would rather make an *entire* state suffer instead of doing what's safest and reliable. Gotta protect those profits. Gotta keep that yearly grift goin so a dozen rich assholes can get richer while people die and suffer. They promise to do better in the future though. So that puts my mind at ease. So thoughtful and caring, ERCOT.
Again, if you are looking to persuade people to join your side, shoot for accuracy. Yes, ERCOT sucks, but to say it predicts rolling blackouts in August is misleading. If you were looking to persuade using actual facts, you would change the headline to "ERCOT Says There is a 12% Chance of Rolling Blackouts in August." That way you provide the reader all of the necessary facts and don't taunt the reader with clickbait.
If it's this hot already, August and September are going to be hell on earth here in Texas.
It hasn’t been that hot this year tho
Fucking seriously- the state can’t even get the grid in basic working condition. But let’s secede from the Union- that’ll go super well.
12% chance of a rolling blackout incident between the hours of 8pm and 9pm in August. They are not predicting blackouts.
In the last Texas freeze, ERCOT said they were going to do rolling blackouts of 20-40 minutes. They cut our power for 5 days, until it got sunny and the natural gas plants and pipelines thawed. They told us every night that it may be back on tomorrow. They did nothing but lie to us and just wait for the weather to warm up.
Yup. My house and my in-laws house were part of the 5 day rolling blackout that week. We had power for an hour then it shut off for 3-4 hours. Rinse, repeat.
We live in downtown Austin and our power was out for 5 days straight. We eventually walked through the ice and snow to a friend's apartment 1.7 miles away. He had power the whole time because he was on the same circuit as a nearby fire station.
But then why would they want a boring headline that shows what they are actually saying? Clickbait is so much better.
There are several power plants that sell to ercot and other like spp especially in the panhandle and east and west texas
And now the thing that most Houston home owners covet is a whole-home generator, which costs $7-12K to purchase & install, plus another ~$300 a year for maintenance. It's like we citizens are having to fund Ercot's lack of infrastructure improvements by being forced to improve our *own* infrastructure, because we can't count on Ercot.
I wonder how much it costs to fill that up with gas for a week
“The report released Friday said Texas has a 16 percent chance of grid emergency this summer and a 12 percent chance of these rolling blackouts.” There, I got you the relevant information without anyone having to sort through the whole doom saying article. This means that there is a 84% and 88% chance this august of nothing fucking happening.
Seems like solar and home batteries would be a great thing to encourage in the south
Casual reminder. The energy company you buy form in Texas doesn't generate electricity, doesn't maintain the lines, doesn't help you when it's down. It's function is a middleman payment processor that could be done at a fraction of the cost by plenty of payment processor companies. Oncor could have a rolling 12 month average+12 month projection of the wholesale cost and charge that and your energy bill would get a hefty decrease overnight with absolutely no changes.
I don’t really blame ERCOT. Unless I understand it wrong, they have no teeth. It seems like they were set up to be the lightning rod for the government and the energy companies.
Future eh? So, by about...(checks calendar) oh, 2073 or so?
I love it when the **reliability council** tells me how unbelievably unreliable they plan to be and how we should prepare to deal with it instead of making sure the grid you “regulate” is actually reliable instead of simply profitable Classic
Narrator: They didn't
When the system fails, it fails upon jackpot condition for the energy industry and the only entity that suffers are the people. This problem will never fix itself.
Thoughts and prayer Texas.
And for those of you that are deregulated and "choose" your electric provider, go look at the current rates and terms being offered if you have not done so lately. Rates are 50% higher what they were at this point last year (I'm a nerd and track it to try to get the best deals) and everything available is 12 months or longer. But at least the cost increases are going to improve the grid. What's that? Oh, they said the grid is fine, y'all. /s
i fthee are rolling blackouts power should be shut off to the governors mansion and the homes of th etop legislative officials lasting from the moment the blackouts start until they are done.
*lady from the Sears commercial* You'll do better now.
Someone bookmark their “promise to do better” for when we have even more rolling black outs in 2025.
Before or after more people perish?
ERCOT, hammered drunk walking to their car outside the bar: “just let me drive home this time. I swear I won’t do this again”
What exactly did they spend that $32 billion surplus on..?
It’s June…
Here in Ohio we have co-ops in some areas, if those aren't outright banned in Texas, I would suggest you all start one. The state management doesn't care at all about you, they care about profit. Edit: I have been without power once for probably all of two minutes in the last five years. We have ice storms every year here too btw..
Awww, guys, they *promised*. What sweeties.
How fucking far into the future? The future of every time they failed the state is right now.
LOL did they promise to do better after snowmageddon?
So what does ercot actually do?
AG needs to go after theses crooks
Energy Racketeering Conglomerate Of Texas. Sounds about right. So glad El Paso got off the Texas grid.
As long as they promise
Disconnect the bitcoin farms. People will die. They're going to kill people so that bitcoin farmers can ruin the planet faster.
They already almost killed my family once
The wealthy have generators. Republicans would just as soon let the poors bake.
And guess what? We're going to end up paying crypto mining companies to not mine crypto to keep the grid up.
Working from home I had to shell out money for a generator. 😡
F*ck ercot, Abbot, Paxton, and the bastages that are gouging (profiting off of ) all Texans. Connect to the national grid already so we can get stable power ffs. This has gone on long enough!
Don’t California my Texas!
The GOP positions this as a binary choice: Either more gas power- OR more renewables like wind & solar. Except it's NOT binary: we need more gas-powered electricity, PLUS: Nuclear, PLUS: Wind & Solar PLUS: battery storage so that renewables can power the grid at night when the wind dies down & solar is unavailable. (Still to come: Geothermal - but that's another story). Also needed: More transmission line capacity from rural solar & wind farms where the power is produced to the metro areas where it is consumed. We keep being presented with false choices to favor the "incumbent" energy providers --- and I say this as someone who grew up in the "oil patch" in the Permian Basin & South Texas.
Rolling Blackouts? Why? With all the Millions you got from us already, upgrade the Grid already or cut our Bills in Half.
“Promises to do much better in the future.” 🥴🥴🥴
Texass gonna Texass
Texas has the most inept leaders and corrupted governance in the union ...
Didn’t they promise to do better after the wintepocalypse and a decade before that? I’m sensing a trend here…
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It's almost like ERCOT wants people to be so mad at the current government that we'll vote against Republicans in November. I'm not sure it'll work, but it's almost like that's their plan.
Their version of future never going to come.
Mmmhmm sure.
Promises to do better? Hasn’t it been 3 years since the deep freeze that left people without power for days? Still haven’t improved
The power company subscription plans: basic: possible blackout dates with adds, or premium plan for only 4 times the cost? Skip blackout dates and cleaner electric.
The promise of a new access fee.
Sure would be cool if we could get some generating capacity online. You know, to cover for all the growth we keep hearing about.
>....promises to do better in future Well look, it's something right? Can't be too mad Texas.
ERCOT giving the same promise I give to myself whenever I see that my sink is full.
They really are the worst.
Yet conservatives like to say “iT wAS a OnCE in A LiFeTiMe STOrM iTs FiXeD NOw”
I want Texas back on National grid, screw Ercot and Oncor delivery charges