Texas Heatwave Triggers Fossil Fuel Demand Record Fossil Fuel Demand – Rising Because of It?
Essay by Eric Worrall
Echoes of 2021 Texas ice storm shuts down – Texans are once again learning how hard you can’t count on renewable energy during extreme weather events.
Texas Heatwave highlights a big problem with wind energy
Via Irina Slav – July 13, 2022, 5:00 p.m. CDT
A massive heatwave has hit Texas and put the Lone Star State’s energy grid under severe strain.
At the same time, low wind speeds mean wind turbines in Texas operate at only eight percent of their capacity.
Finally, the discontinuity effect is a big problem for wind energy, especially during times of hot weather when demand increases and wind speeds decrease.
Texas is experiencing a major heatwave. Triple-digit temperatures are straining the state’s grid, and earlier this month prompted ERCOT, the grid operator of the Lone Star State, to ask Texans to conserve energy. It also seriously affects wind power production.
Bloomberg report This week, wind turbines in Texas are operating at only 8% capacity because of low wind speeds. This is really unfortunate because the demand for electricity is increasing sharply due to the weather.
It is an irony that the largest wind energy producer in the US cannot use its full capacity to serve the people at a time of peak demand. But it’s certainly not surprising that this is happening. Wind power generation is completely weather dependent; When the weather is adverse, the generation drops.
Europe is remind the importance of wind speed last year when it fell below average, causing lower-than-normal wind power output and contributing in part to the energy crisis in much of the continent in the fall . The wind industry recognizes this fact: the wind industry magazine WindPower Monthly has a article that explains how wind park output depends more on wind speed than turbine performance, regardless of turbine age.
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On Tuesday, ERCOT received permission from environmental regulators for fossil fuel-powered generators to exceed pollution limits, to meet record electricity demand.
Central US states, Texas use power to break more records this week
Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 11:19 pm
July 19 (Reuters) – Electricity use in Texas and other Central American states is likely to break all-time highs in the coming days as households and businesses shut down their air conditioners to try escape a prolonged heatwave, regional grid operators forecast on Tuesday.
Grid operators in the region have begun taking the first steps to ensure they have enough resources to meet the surge in demand.
The Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator for more than 26 million customers representing about 90% of the state’s electrical loads, has been authorized by state environmental regulators to The power plant exceeded the permissible air pollution limit on Monday. .
Last week, ERCOT partially responded to demand by urging customers to conserve energy to avoid taking much larger actions to reduce usage, such as rotating outages.
Southwest Power Pool (SPP), which operates the grid for nearly 18 million people in 17 states from North Dakota to Texas, hasn’t taken as many steps as ERCOT to control usage.
The SPP, like ERCOT, has asked its members to defer maintenance on certain critical equipment such as power lines and power plants, a common step that grid operators take to ensure power. force will be available during times of high demand.
The severe weather is a reminder of the February 2021 freeze that left millions of Texans without electricity, water and heat for days in a deadly storm as ERCOT tries to prevent the following grid failure. when a large number of generators stop working.
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Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-central-states-texas-power-131933439.html
I am speechless. How many more times does this have to happen, how many Texans must die, before Texan politicians admit they rode the wrong horse? If the Texan state government is concerned about air pollution from fossil fuel generators, it should beef up its fleet of reliable zero-carbon nuclear reactors.
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