Natural Gas, Not Wind Turbines, Main Driver of Texas Power Shortage

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Natural gas, not wind turbines, main driver of Texas power shortage

Of the power shortfall that hit Texas, over 80% was due to problems at coal- and gas-fired plants.

When a rare blast of Arctic air and ice hit Texas and resulted in a massive power outage, the critics of wind power were quick to focus on the wind turbines that came offline. Supporters of wind power argued back that frozen turbines played a minor role in the outage.

Texas does have a bodacious amount of wind power. In winter, it supplies about 25% of the state’s electricity. And nearly half of that capacity shut down when ice coated the turbine blades. As residents tried to heat their homes, demand surged and the agency that manages the state’s power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, imposed rolling blackouts.

The question is, was the state’s reliance on wind power its Achilles’ heel? Did it fail to have enough gas and coal capacity to meet people’s needs during extreme conditions?

The numbers show that natural gas plants were the biggest cause of the power shortfall, not wind.

The state’s grid operator said Feb. 15 that about 34 gigawatts of power were offline. But of that, about 4 gigawatts was due to problems with wind turbines. The rest came mainly from the state’s primary sources, natural gas and coal.

Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, told Bloomberg that frozen gauges and instruments at natural gas, coal and nuclear plants cut into operations. Natural gas-fired plants also had to deal with low gas pressure in their supply lines.

"Those of you who have heard that frozen wind turbines are to blame for this, think again," tweeted Jesse Jenkins, engineering professor at Princeton University. "The extreme demand and thermal power plant outages are the principal cause."

It’s not as though the grid operators didn’t plan for winter troubles. But they hadn’t planned for an event as severe as this.

In their annual forecast, they predicted that demand would peak at about 67.2 gigawatts. On Sunday night, demand hit 69.1 gigawatts. Meanwhile, outages from coal and natural gas plants were at least 10,000 megawatts larger than they expected in their most extreme scenario.

To a certain extent, the wind turbines exceeded expectations.
The grid operators predict a day in advance how much power the turbines will produce. At many hours of the day on Feb. 15 and Feb.16, wind delivered more power than the engineers at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas had expected.

Woodfin told the Austin American-Statesman that for the turbines that remained operational, strong winds were spinning the blades faster than usual.

Cold weather doesn’t have to curtail wind turbines. In northern states and Canada, turbines are more likely to be designed to shrug off cold and ice, because cold weather is a regular occurrence.

"You can use anti-icing methods," said Christopher Niezrecki, engineering professor at UMASS-Lowell. "It can be as simple as heaters built inside the blades."

But Niezrecki said for a rare storm like the one in Texas, that wouldn’t make sense.

"It’s alway about money and the capital expenditure," he said. "You build it for whatever events are likely. Why would you pay
a lot more for a rare storm?"

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Texas county needs refrigerated truck to handle surge of dead bodies from winter storm,

One Texas county is scrambling to deal with an influx of dead bodies due to the winter storm punishing the state.

"Galveston County officials said Tuesday they are requesting a refrigerated truck to deal with a surge in cold weather deaths," KTRK-TV reported Tuesday.

The network interviewed Galveston County Judge Mark Henry.

"We were notified of an emergency request about lunchtime today that the medical examiner needed a capacity of at least 20 and as many as 50, in addition to the normal storage," Henry said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Judge Henry blasted the inability of officials to restore power.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

Texans largely rely on natural gas for power and heat generation, especially during peak usage, experts said.

Officials for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which manages most of Texas' grid, said that the primary cause of the outages on Tuesday appeared to be the state's natural gas providers. Many are not designed to withstand such low temperatures on equipment or during production.

By some estimates, nearly half of the state's natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures, while freezing components at natural gas-fired power plants have forced some operators to shut down.

"Texas is a gas state," said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin. While he said all of Texas' energy sources share blame for the power crisis — at least one nuclear power plant has partially shut down, most notably — the natural gas industry is producing significantly less power than normal.

"Gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now," Webber said.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

A wind turbine company based in Denmark has laid off 450 workers from its manufacturing plants in Colorado.
By: The Associated PressPosted at 9:54 AM, Feb 18, 2021 and last updated 9:54 AM, Feb 18, 2021

PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — A wind turbine company based in Denmark has laid off 450 workers from its manufacturing plants in Colorado.

The Pueblo Chieftain reported Wednesday that Vestas Wind Systems A/S laid off 120 workers at its Pueblo tower-manufacturing plant, where it employed more than 800 workers at its peak.

The company also said it laid off 50 workers at its blade factory in Windsor and closed a separate blade factory in Brighton where 280 people worked.

Vestas Director of Communications Chante Condit-Pottol said the company made the move to consolidate its workforce in Colorado as a result of lower market demand.

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/wind-turbine-company-cuts-450-jobs-in-plants-across-colorado

Homeowners hit with electric bills as high as $17K amid Texas winter storm
By Natalie O'Neill, February 19, 2021 | 5:52pm |

Electric bills in the Lone Star State skyrocketed to as high as $17,000 per month after a historic storm and power outage sparked a high demand for heat, according to reports Friday.

Dallas-area resident Ty Williams was hit with sticker shock when his monthly bill soared from $600 last month to nearly $17,000 so far this month, according to the local station WFAA.

“How in the world can anyone pay that? I mean you go from a couple hundred dollars a month…there’s absolutely no way‚ it makes no sense,” Williams, who said he received the bill from the energy firm Griddy.

The price of power in Texas spiked from $50 to $9,000 per Megawatt in some cases due to the supply and demand disaster, according to the station.

Customers with so-called “variable or indexed” electricity plans in Texas — the only state to run its own unique stand-alone electricity grid — are partially controlled by market demand.

Because of the demand for power in Texas, there were some cases where prices per megawatt jumped to $9000.

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