<story><title>What went wrong with the Texas power grid?</title><url>https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wholesale-power-prices-spiking-across-Texas-15951684.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>txlpo78</author><text>You’re missing the point. Even if the ties had more capacity, the supply of power on the other side of the ties is not there. It’s a two-pronged issue, and you won’t  solve the problem by only focusing on one of the prongs.</text></item><item><author>teraflop</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not really a matter of whether the &lt;i&gt;grids&lt;/i&gt; have capacity; the ties themselves can only handle a limited amount of power.&lt;p&gt;As per ERCOT&amp;#x27;s status page, both of the high-voltage DC ties between Texas are currently operating at &amp;gt;99% of their rated capacity, and they have been every time I&amp;#x27;ve checked since yesterday. They&amp;#x27;re not being limited by the availability of power from the other side.</text></item><item><author>txlpo78</author><text>Yes, that’s correct. Texas has 5 ties to the western&amp;#x2F;eastern US interconnections as well as with the Mexico grid. But none of that matters right now because those grids don’t have excess capacity to send to Texas anyway.</text></item><item><author>aardvarkr</author><text>FYI the Texas grid runs on a different frequency than the other two grids and as a result incurs MASSIVE efficiency penalties for that hubris. If I recall correctly it has to be converted from AC to DC then back to Texas’ AC.</text></item><item><author>txlpo78</author><text>This current problems wouldn’t be fixed if Texas wasn’t on its own grid. The Texas grid &lt;i&gt;does&lt;/i&gt; have connections to the other grids, and even right now is importing power from both the East and West interconnections.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that this is a truly &lt;i&gt;regional&lt;/i&gt; event and not just isolated to Texas. The entire central US is struggling right now. The SPP (which manages electricity for Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, and other states) has been struggling with forced blackouts over the last several days as well. They don’t have enough power for their own grid, let alone enough to share with Texas.&lt;p&gt;If Texas was more interconnected with the SPP, the end result wouldn’t be Texans all having their problems solved. Many Texans would still be without power, but so would many more Oklahomans. The fact that the Texas grid is separate is the only thing keeping OK from having even worse blackouts. Which makes sense, because the entire point of grid isolation is to keep issues localized and not cascade over the entire network. And that’s working to Oklahoma’s benefit right now, but Texas is getting the short end of the stick.</text></item><item><author>magnawave</author><text>The result was &amp;quot;an electrical island in the United States,&amp;quot; Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. &amp;quot;That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statesman.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;texas-power-grid-why-state-has-its-own-operated-ercot&amp;#x2F;6765007002&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statesman.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;texas-power-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it’s time to rethink that. 
HaI has an interesting take on something similar:  Japan 
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Running your own grid seems cool Texas style, until you have a regional problem and have no where to turn.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blake1</author><text>This is incorrect. MISO, the system to the north and east of TX, has capacity. The DC ties cannot handle it. You can see this by checking the price signals on their page. Right now, the TX hub is about $1,000 but the MS hub is about $60.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;api.misoenergy.org&amp;#x2F;MISORTWD&amp;#x2F;lmpcontourmap.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;api.misoenergy.org&amp;#x2F;MISORTWD&amp;#x2F;lmpcontourmap.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>What went wrong with the Texas power grid?</title><url>https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Wholesale-power-prices-spiking-across-Texas-15951684.php</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>txlpo78</author><text>You’re missing the point. Even if the ties had more capacity, the supply of power on the other side of the ties is not there. It’s a two-pronged issue, and you won’t  solve the problem by only focusing on one of the prongs.</text></item><item><author>teraflop</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not really a matter of whether the &lt;i&gt;grids&lt;/i&gt; have capacity; the ties themselves can only handle a limited amount of power.&lt;p&gt;As per ERCOT&amp;#x27;s status page, both of the high-voltage DC ties between Texas are currently operating at &amp;gt;99% of their rated capacity, and they have been every time I&amp;#x27;ve checked since yesterday. They&amp;#x27;re not being limited by the availability of power from the other side.</text></item><item><author>txlpo78</author><text>Yes, that’s correct. Texas has 5 ties to the western&amp;#x2F;eastern US interconnections as well as with the Mexico grid. But none of that matters right now because those grids don’t have excess capacity to send to Texas anyway.</text></item><item><author>aardvarkr</author><text>FYI the Texas grid runs on a different frequency than the other two grids and as a result incurs MASSIVE efficiency penalties for that hubris. If I recall correctly it has to be converted from AC to DC then back to Texas’ AC.</text></item><item><author>txlpo78</author><text>This current problems wouldn’t be fixed if Texas wasn’t on its own grid. The Texas grid &lt;i&gt;does&lt;/i&gt; have connections to the other grids, and even right now is importing power from both the East and West interconnections.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that this is a truly &lt;i&gt;regional&lt;/i&gt; event and not just isolated to Texas. The entire central US is struggling right now. The SPP (which manages electricity for Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, and other states) has been struggling with forced blackouts over the last several days as well. They don’t have enough power for their own grid, let alone enough to share with Texas.&lt;p&gt;If Texas was more interconnected with the SPP, the end result wouldn’t be Texans all having their problems solved. Many Texans would still be without power, but so would many more Oklahomans. The fact that the Texas grid is separate is the only thing keeping OK from having even worse blackouts. Which makes sense, because the entire point of grid isolation is to keep issues localized and not cascade over the entire network. And that’s working to Oklahoma’s benefit right now, but Texas is getting the short end of the stick.</text></item><item><author>magnawave</author><text>The result was &amp;quot;an electrical island in the United States,&amp;quot; Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. &amp;quot;That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statesman.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;texas-power-grid-why-state-has-its-own-operated-ercot&amp;#x2F;6765007002&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statesman.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;texas-power-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe it’s time to rethink that. 
HaI has an interesting take on something similar:  Japan 
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Running your own grid seems cool Texas style, until you have a regional problem and have no where to turn.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>margalabargala</author><text>It seems highly unlikely that exactly 100% of the capacity of the interconnects is, coincidentally, precisely equal to the amount of excess power available to be fed into the interconnects at the moment. Do you have anything to back up this extraordinary claim?</text></comment>