Texans, Distributed Solar & Wind Is Your Answer For Autonomy
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Many Texans and people in other parts of the country have been wondering just what happened to the Texas power system to have contributed to such statewide blackouts during a recent winter storm. In the video below, Texas energy expert Allison Silverstein explains 5 main causes of the recent Texas energy crisis: 1. Unprecedented storm in terms of cold, long duration, and high moisture, taking out 40,000 MW of Texas electric generation capacity. 2. It took out over 40% ( in natural gas, goal, and nuclear generation) of the Texas thermal generation fleet alone. Such dramatic loss of power generation required the grid operator to cut load in order to keep the remainder of the grid afloat and avoid a catastrophic situation. 3. The cause of the problem was: insufficient power plant winterization. This was a guideline that was not mandatory. 4. There was a huge portion of the natural gas supply for Texas power plants that was frozen, both at the wellhead level at production and in pipelines so gas plants could not get the fuel that was needed to run ERCOT under forecast customer demand by 20%, meaning they did not have enough generation ready to serve customer demand that continued to rise. 5. ERCOT is a stand alone grid (a great idea to avoid federal regulation but terrible idea for reliability against disasters), so they were not able to alleviate these shortages by importing electricity from outside.
In conclusion, Ms. Silverstein believes a well designed system relying more on renewable system (wind and solar) and winterized nuclear, natural gas, and goal, would be able to better handle the extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change.
Alison Silverstein is an independent energy consultant and former strategic advisor for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also known as FERC. She joined “Squawk Box” on Friday to discuss what went wrong in Texas during the recent grid failure and how the state can go about fixing the Alison Silverstein is an independent energy consultant and former strategic advisor for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also known as FERC. She joined “Squawk Box” on Friday to discuss what went wrong in Texas during the recent grid failure and how the state can go about fixing the system, in the video published on Feb. 19, 2021, “There were five major causes of the Texas energy crisis: Former FERC advisor“, below:
The cringe-worthy missing second half of Joe Kernen’s interview with Alison Silverstein on February 19th, 2021, in the video “CNBC’s Joe Kernen goes full-whacko on Alison Silverstein (Texas energy crisis)“, below:
Henrik Andersen, chief executive officer at Vestas Wind Systems A/S, discusses renewable energy, the aftermath of the power crisis in Texas and his investment in turbines made from composite wood. He speaks on “Henrik Andersen, chief executive officer at Vestas Wind Systems A/S, discusses renewable energy, the aftermath of the power crisis in Texas and his investment in turbines made from composite wood. He speaks on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Europe.”Bloomberg Daybreak: Europe.” in the video published on Feb. 22, 2021, “Lessons Learned From Texas Energy Crisis“, below:
As our post “Texas Needs More Distributed Solar” indicates, Texas has 2 choices: Either: increase the amount of distributed solar and wind and making sure all energy sources are winterized. Or: become part of the national grid and be subjected to federal regulations. Take your pick! Keep in mind that solar performance increases as temperature decreases. If individual homes are equipped with solar panels, individual home owners would be incentivized to clean the snow off of those panels during extremely cold weather conditions. Other countries that have winterized their wind installations did not have the kind of problems that Texas did during the recent Texas energy crisis.
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
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