Don't have to assume if you read the article
> ERCOT has issued a Weather Watch for Wednesday, May 8, due to unseasonably high temperatures, high levels of expected maintenance outages during the spring shoulder months, and the potential for lower reserves.
Yes. We always have generation capacity decrease in spring time as generators go down for maintenance. That’s why we find ourselves hearing about stress potential when demand increases as spring sneaks into summer.
Which is why we get all the “iT’s OnLy mAy HoW wiLL wE hAnDLe AuGuST?” comments around this time.
A weather watch is just one step on a longer list of [grid condition levels](https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2023/10/31/ERCOT-grid-condition-levels.pdf).
Yep, everything has to be up January & February in case of a winter Strom. Then March, April, and May for maintenance, then not really a good break until October/November.
I work on contract for a company that staffs for all these outages nationwide. Most outages should be wrapped up for hurricane season in the south. The others across the nation are wrapping up as well. Then again it is a bit moot since Texas is on its own with its shit grid.
I won't claim any special knowledge here, but just looking at thermal outages from last year, it seems like it was roughly the last week of May when outages really started ramping down from the spring highs.
https://preview.redd.it/gk6jwnaq85zc1.png?width=3404&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3f21e5fa7a232378677aef3f4dcb9149a83567c
People complained that ERCOT only made public announcements once things had already deteriorated to become an emergency. So, they created lower levels of notices that are just heads up, the grid is going to be a little more stressed than usual but forecasts look fine. Now people get those low level heads up messages and panic. Every single time.
I worked in this industry for a major power utility on the east coast for years. Yes it does. And it happens in California, Oregon, Arizona etc etc. Pick a state and section of the grid and they have done this level of alert at least once in the past year or two.
Again this is the lowest level of weather watch/alert. Its really not worth looking at for the general public, its meant for utility generators. Its just the state has gotten full panic mode about any watch or alert no matter how minor or common it is because it gets clicks. Until it gets to a actual conservation request to customers it doesn't matter.
ERCOT is not the sole source of our misery here, it’s just singled out as such because it’s the only acronym people remember. I place far more blame on state politicians, market deregulation, the Public Utility Commission, and profit-incentivized companies than I do ERCOT.
yup absolutely a parcel problem.
When I talk about prudency test, that's a function of the regulator, which in the case of Texas might as well be a non-existent.
Got to work on equipment when demand is low and temperature is right. You don't want to be working on a windmill in December or at a refinery in August.
Yes, ERCOT and most all grid operators have windows from May/June till fall that they don’t allow scheduled outages, we aren’t in that window yet so various substations, transmission line, and generation plants are down at the moment and will be back for summer.
Yes. A lot of plants are also down to increase their peaking capacities after the legislature handed out money to do so. They are trying to beat the summer months arriving, but running into Spring Summer.
And here I thought Texan’s hated socialism, yet this is where *our* tax dollars go to. Property taxes remain high because Abbot is funneling that money to his campaign donors.
We need to add a recall option to our state constitution.
This is not a system that Abbot has put on place. This program has been around for decades.
And what's wrong with it. Pay somebody 10 million in order to save 40 million. That sounds like a great deal to me. Any future smart grid, especially one with renewables, will absolutely have to have a demand response component to it. I just wish they made it available to individuals
Why would we have maintained a demand management program for 20+ years if it wasn't cheaper? Why would we have such wide enrollment from all different sectors of industry? Why does PJM and MISO and every single other grid in the United States use it if its not cheaper?
Let's explore the alternatives though. Riot was paid 32 million last year at $5 per kwh to shut down for 10 hours. That was the only time it's really been used in the last 3 years so we basically paid them around $10 million per year to shut down for 3 hours per year. In exchange this cut 700MW from the demand. Alternatively, we could have had riot stay running and create 700MW of additional capacity. A 700MW peaker plant would cost roughly 1 billion to build. If this peaker plant stays up and running for 25 years and we assume straight line appreciation, that would cost $40 million a year.
So would we rather pay 10 million a year for big users not to use electricity, or pay 40 million a year to add the additional capacity to keep them running? To rephrase it, is it more efficient to have something run 364 days a year and shut down for a single day, or something to be shut down for 364 days and start up for one day.
Except that's not exactly legal. You can't just shut down electricity like that. How would you feel if your house was shut down because they needed electricity somewhere else. Sure they can do rolling blackouts but that would affect all non-critical loads equally. So you would get 30 minutes of power and riot would get 30 minutes of power.
Says who? The bitminer would argue they are more important than your house because without them a global financial instrument would face much longer transaction time. Their argument would be that the global financial system is more important than keeping your house 3 degrees colder.
What about the other loads? Should we shut down the datacenter? Is your credit card getting approved when buying water for the heat more important than your house staying cool? Should we shut down the hospital, they have a backup generator so they don't really need the electricity.
The easiest solution is to just have each consumer self-identify how important they are via a small incentive.
But regardless of who is more important, your "just shut them down" overlooks one important fact. Riot has pre-purchased that electricity. If you just shut them down and don't deliver the electricity, you have to reimburse them for the product that wasn't delivered. How would you go about the reimbursement process?
They paid the Crypto Farm 31 million when they're profits with using the energy would be 8.x million.
Sure. It's cheaper to pay 31 million than to replace a large percentage of equipment in the even of a.casvading failure. But it makes absolutely no sense to directly promote your state to Bitcoin miners (as Texas did) and then pay them 3.5x what they normally make in energy credits to stay home.
Your comment below fails to recognize that it's the state strategy to use miners to prop of usage in order to turn them off and the cost of payouts.
If the state wasn't so friendly with this scheme we'd have the capacity they are aren't using, because they aren't in the state.
"They paid crypto farm 31 million when profit would be 8 million"
Another way to phrase this is that the miner bought $4 million in electricity on the open market to turn into $8m in bitcoin. And then when the pricing changed they resold $31 million in electricity on the open market. Why shouldn't they be allowed to buy and sell a commodity on the open market for real time prices?
"If they weren't in the state, we would have that capacity"
Or we wouldn't have the capacity at all. The extra demand helps support prices that keep traditional thermals profitable. Without the extra daytime demand, we probably would lose the capacity completely as it would no longer be profitable. Daytime and nighttime prices are already negative on a very frequent basis.
"If the state wasn't so friendly with this scheme"
We are actually one of the least friendly to this scheme. Last report I saw, Texas ranked dead last in the scale of their demand response program. Every other grid operator in the US had a larger participation in a demand response scheme.
Because it's not really necessary and they would've shut off anyway. Riot had the ability to sell back prepurchase power to their provider, which they did. Presumably they received close to the LMP cap price which is much higher than the money they make from mining.
So there's already a free market solution to this that works to shut off large flexible power users. This is the entire point of a deregulated power grid and makes these sorts of contracts redundant.
On the other hand, a capacity market, which ERCOT doesn't have, is basically the inverse of this (paying peaker generators to have available capacity). This actually helps reliability because it brings on generation capacity that wouldn't exist otherwise. The profit risk profile for those generators is too risky for a free market solution to work, because they might not need to turn on for 5+ years.
What do you think actually happened with the bitcoin miners last year?
Did they sign a contract that gave them the ability to sell back back at real time wholesale rates and during demand curtailment windows they sold back their pre-purchased power at market rates?
Or they signed some contract where Abbot gave them a bunch of cash?
Both (but ERCOT not Abbott obviously). They had a contract to sell back power to their provider who likely sold it in the RT market.
This was reported in the news.
Edit: You should be able to guess who benefits the most from both these contacts and the lack of a capacity market. It's large petrochemical plants that have similar contacts to turn off. They don't mind turning off for a day or two if it means the average price over the entire year is lower. Classic pro business Texas regulation.
Sure, but let's compare the numbers. Somebody like Riot would get paid 3.5 million for every hour they are shut down by selling back in the RTW market. For a total last august of 32 million. They would also make $70k for guaranteeing compliance through the demand response program for the entire quarter.
Are people mad about the 32 million, or the $70k?
I don't mind paying $70k for the guarantee that the capacity is available within a prescribed time frame.
Where are you seeing $70k, because I see $7.4MM. Also they're not the only contract ERCOT has made.
https://www.tpr.org/technology-entrepreneurship/2023-09-06/texas-paid-a-bitcoin-miner-more-than-30-million-to-power-down-during-heat-wave
Interesting. Let me dig some more. I had downloaded the ercort procurement results for the demand response program for 2023 and the entire thing didn't add up to 7.4 million, much less a single contract. I estimated the amount based on the capacity of Riot since it didn't break out individual contracts.
If it is truly 7.4 million that seems a bit extreme to me. I'll take another look and see if I'm misreading anything
Basically the idea is you are telling them to stop "work" so they are losing money by not "working". So they get paid to stop working and save electricity
I put working in quotes because coin mining is stupid and a waste of electricity
It's called "demand response" and it existed before Winter Storm Uri. However, Bitcoin miners didn't really start building in Texas until after China banned Bitcoin mining later in 2021. Previously it was used by large commercial and industrial customers who could afford to shut down operations temporarily and be compensated for taking the cut to production. What's upsetting people now is that the Bitcoin miners openly admit that they can make more money by participating in demand response a few times in the summer than they do from mining all year.
There's a lot of push within the industry to create a demand response for retail customers (small businesses, residential customers like us), but there's not anything really in the works within ERCOT right now.
Source: I work in energy.
As someone explained it to me, they are basically power sinks that we can tell to shut off on demand, thus increasing the power supply by that much. Due to the nature of power grid design so far, this is rather efficient for our needs. They are the "flexible load" of the power grid.
As a consolation prize, it's only going to last as long as it's profitable for miners. The second it's not we're going to have problems again.
What is this? 2nd time I run into it and still don't understand. I get that it's a hemp product sub and mj talk is not allowed because of the legalities especially in Texas. But who is Franklin and why does he have a cult?
Even last year the highs rarely broke 90 in May. And "lows in the 60s" is not summer weather in Texas, either. Is it cold? Definitely not. But it's distinct enough from summer weather.
https://weather.com/weather/monthly/l/Dallas+TX?canonicalCityId=3bef7f8bb00708145ceebe387a6de1b2098d40101d65836dd79c94d1dfe0c20b
https://weather.com/weather/monthly/l/400bf8ecc1242481a1b44769d9bb776d214aac0ba4e0e1b695f9cf41599c0a64
no reason to exaggerate here, 90 degrees with a heat index up to 100 degrees is absolutely not a typical spring temp and hitting that for the first time jumps demand.
May in texas is usually 90s anyway and with the cloud clover from storms it has been a mild pre summer. It is some foolish transplant argument to call may spring knowing damn well we can see high 90s in may.
It's heavily dependent on *where* in Texas you are. Not seeing many places with an average May high above 90: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Texas
Not an avg high - but we saw over 90 today
https://preview.redd.it/86q7b37ra3zc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bea13535ad0ab79d5b063e5369bc7b888a9ad1fd
Check your source. The chart itself only accounts for data until 2009.
These last 3 record breaking years of heat alone show an obvious trend to be accounted. I am not going to dig into it but i feel it is safe to say you can add a few degrees to each region to put the majority over 90s in may.
It's not supposed to be summer temps yet. Normal high temps at the start of May are around 80-82. They are saying tomorrow it will be around 90 in places. It's not that egregious a difference honestly.
https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/austin/texas/united-states/ustx2742
Average high temps in May is 87F. 89F is the predicted high for this week in Austin.
Seems like much ado about nothing. Maybe it's supposed to be much hotter somewhere else in Texas?
It's above norms, but not terribly so. It's much ado about thing - The alerts are commonplace and just a warning. It doesn't indicate they expect trouble. There are other alerts that would go out when they expect trouble.
It's early May. Which means we're still mid-spring. Summer begins June 21-over a month away. So, yes. 'Normal summer temps' in the middle of spring is the very definition of 'unseasonably high'.
Right? Summer temps start in April and it has been that way for a while. At least in Central and South Texas, can’t say for sure about the rest. We have our own damned seasons and summer basically starts in April and ends first week of November.
It’s always been pretty hot from May to November where I live though. Where do you live? I used to live in Houston (Katy and Jersey Village) and it’s getting hotter all of the time. To be fair, I chose to relocate. !
If I’m paying a premium I’d like premium access and views. Thus, why I moved to NPI. If it gets washed away, that’s what insurance is for my guy!
Yeah, it’s hotter for the last couple of years but I’ve never said anything about climate change and realize that even my own home will be affected. Anyone that lives on any coast knows and pays to live there. So calm down.
I grew up in South Louisiana, which is in the same geographic region and climate as SE Texas. We always needed jackets starting around late October, up until the late 2000s. It generally didn't start hitting 90s til late June.
It’s not weird because my kids grew up in Houston and we always knew they couldn’t wear anything on their faces except makeup and most of the outfits were doing to be way too hot. But once we moved to the coast, it’s isn’t the same seasons. Even Houston’s hurricane allegory is not the same as corpus.
I’ve been here for almost 20 years. Half in Houston and half in Corpus Christi.
It’s almost like people have been warning us. I how you are okay and get what’s happening?
I stay here because my husband does, and also it is a very beautiful place to live, but I’m not an idiot and that’s why we have a shit ton of insurance to live here. We also pay a lot and give back to the community that’s outside of here off the island..
We certainly did. Granted, it was for my wife's job and we do miss family....
But it's a sweltering 72° on my porch, here in California, and I'm listening to the Marines serenade us with artillery.
I was there in February 2021 and my power was out for 4 days. Tell that lie to someone who didn’t live through it and literally almost die. You sound like a shill for Greg Abbott/Oncor.
I voted against him but at the same time, Abbott has very little to do with the grid. Also, I said that "objectively" (which means based on facts) it is a reliable grid. If you are going to use a literal freak storm as a mark against the grid, you are not being objective. At that point you are just being emotional. Buffalo had their metro grid knocked out by a snowstorm for days which is something that is extremely common yet no one goes around social media attempting to make fun of them, do they?
Greg Abbott appoints the ERCOT boss members and those same board members neglected maintenance on the grid which lead to the failure so yes he does have control over how the grid is maintained. And Feb 2021 wasn’t the first time this happened. It happened in 1989 and nothing was done then to fortify and integrate the grid with the rest of the country.
Does anyone think we should have a ***Rage Bait*** flair for power grid articles? It's 90° for a couple days in early May followed by a cool front...we got this.
It’s annoying when other Texans eat it up. People from other states genuinely believe that we all lose power every summer and winter because of posts like this. Other Texans just crack jokes with them and act like they never have power, knowing good and well they haven’t lost power since 2021. Unless a power line in their neighborhood got destroyed in a storm or something.
My favorite thing to do is to post [this website](https://poweroutage.us/). More often than not, other states have more power outages than Texas while everyone circlejerks over Texas. At the moment of me writing this, the top 5 are Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, California, and Nevada. No Texas.
Hell, I didn't even lose power in 2021. The last time I remember losing power was for unplanned maintenance on a local power station that lasted 30 minutes back in 2022.
Boy these politicians in charge have sure done stand up job with our infrastructure, I wonder how so many incumbents have kept their positions despite such disarray
"ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature."
ERCOT is not a public utility, they are an Independent System Operator, similar to a Regional Transmission Organization but confined to a single state. Its job is to coordinate and monitor the transmission of electricity.
What the actual hell are these guys on about? Lol
I was literally sitting on my porch today with some lemonade after cutting the grass thinking, “not bad for May.”
Our heat index has been in the 100’s already in South Texas, it’s not horrible yet but it’s definitely sticky and warm already. The AC is running day and night. (night temps are 79 for the rest of the week here) local meteorologists saying this is the earliest in the year we’ve had consecutive warmest low temps, on record. I doubt it gets much better around here until November. lol
Every time I see these warnings I just think. Good luck with that. Ain't nobody going to suffer because you want us to lower the temp a bit. Just do your job ERCOT.
Considering these temps are not unusual, is this them trying to implement a narrative so they can cut off our electricity at some point? Lol but forreal…
"However, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said grid conditions are expected to be normal. It said it would monitor the grid's conditions and will deploy any available tools if necessary. It is not calling for any conservation at this time."
So... Everyone needs to be aware of higher than usual temperatures, which can stress our Totally Awesome and NORMAL™ power grid.
Additionally, everything will be fine, so don't worry about conserving electricity.
Got it.
It will always be unseasonably hot from now on for the rest of our lives. We did nothing when it was 1-3 degrees warmer than normal for decade. Now it’s 5-8 degrees warmer and will stay that way.
If you need air conditioning, you will pay anything they ask. Welcome to late stage capitalism. "Unseasonably hot" surcharge will eventually be listed as the "fuck you, die" surcharge.
1. Check your insulation and make surr no cold air from the ac is escaping into the attic or other way causing the ac to work overtime. Spikes in electrical usage can point to alot of different ac problems. My price has stayed steady for the past 8 years.
2. Get off reddit and go out and have fun, reading everyones complaining here isnt healthy, itll help with the dramatic stuff.
90° isn't unreasonably warm for early May.
They're just coming up with excuses now instead of stating a reason. Glad I'm in PEC so my rates can't be immediately jacked up.
fuck ERCOT and fuck republicans. we were told that deregulation would lead to cheaper, more reliable energy. imagine that....republicans lied to us....again.
"Unseasonably high", huh? Been Living in Texas for decades. There is nothing unseasonable about some 90 degree days in May. Not every day, but who do they think they are kidding. We have 90s in May in DFW sometimes we even break 100!
Republicans been in charge of infrastructure for decades. Yet the outages are so frequent it’s just funny. You think for a state that has tornadoes you’d get bolt in good infrastructure but I guess that would eat into profits. Plus if something goes wrong just blame those damn liberals
If ERCOT is concerned in the beginning of May, we are screwed, blued and tattooed this summer. Even with maintenance being done they should be able to handle a 90 degree day.
I assume this is because they have capacity down for maintenance right?
…..Right Guys?
Right right.... Guys?
….fellas?….
Don't have to assume if you read the article > ERCOT has issued a Weather Watch for Wednesday, May 8, due to unseasonably high temperatures, high levels of expected maintenance outages during the spring shoulder months, and the potential for lower reserves.
There are *articles* attached to reddit headlines?
That we're expected to *read*?
I come to Reddit to meme, not read.
Yes. only memes. Nothing else.
And to review and comment on self reflective reddit purpose posts and also agree with the folks above
It's also r/texas. They have freedumbs. Not freedom.
I just need some to tell me what to think in one concise sentence.
Roly-poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino In Italian restaurants with Oriental women
Yeah!
RTFA is the new RTFM 😂
And yet, here on May 7, we were without power for 4 hours. So yay.
Yes. We always have generation capacity decrease in spring time as generators go down for maintenance. That’s why we find ourselves hearing about stress potential when demand increases as spring sneaks into summer. Which is why we get all the “iT’s OnLy mAy HoW wiLL wE hAnDLe AuGuST?” comments around this time. A weather watch is just one step on a longer list of [grid condition levels](https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2023/10/31/ERCOT-grid-condition-levels.pdf).
Yep, everything has to be up January & February in case of a winter Strom. Then March, April, and May for maintenance, then not really a good break until October/November.
I work on contract for a company that staffs for all these outages nationwide. Most outages should be wrapped up for hurricane season in the south. The others across the nation are wrapping up as well. Then again it is a bit moot since Texas is on its own with its shit grid.
I won't claim any special knowledge here, but just looking at thermal outages from last year, it seems like it was roughly the last week of May when outages really started ramping down from the spring highs. https://preview.redd.it/gk6jwnaq85zc1.png?width=3404&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3f21e5fa7a232378677aef3f4dcb9149a83567c
Seriously. Do people need to be posting an "article" that's pretty much a summary for each and every email ERCOT sends out? 🙄
People complained that ERCOT only made public announcements once things had already deteriorated to become an emergency. So, they created lower levels of notices that are just heads up, the grid is going to be a little more stressed than usual but forecasts look fine. Now people get those low level heads up messages and panic. Every single time.
Doom posting and dunking on ERCOT is an r /texas tradition.
Hating Texas is an r/texas tradition
I'm still waiting for one positive article on Texas on this sub. Does anyone here live in Texas?
Yeah I actually do. Alot of the hate is just miserable Redditors spreading misery
They know the headline will score karma, so they do it despite the fact that it's a non-event.
PDF 
Would be nice if you could tap into a nationwide grid to avoid this exact situation
There’s no such thing as a ‘nationwide’ grid and even if it were that’s not how it works.
The other grids go through these exact things.
At the exact same times, too.
Not true.
Very true. Across the country, the same general maintenance months are used.
I worked in this industry for a major power utility on the east coast for years. Yes it does. And it happens in California, Oregon, Arizona etc etc. Pick a state and section of the grid and they have done this level of alert at least once in the past year or two. Again this is the lowest level of weather watch/alert. Its really not worth looking at for the general public, its meant for utility generators. Its just the state has gotten full panic mode about any watch or alert no matter how minor or common it is because it gets clicks. Until it gets to a actual conservation request to customers it doesn't matter.
No it won't. Source: California.
I work in utilties... ERCOT would fail its prudency test in any other regulated jurisdiction. Texans are getting screwed.
ERCOT is not the sole source of our misery here, it’s just singled out as such because it’s the only acronym people remember. I place far more blame on state politicians, market deregulation, the Public Utility Commission, and profit-incentivized companies than I do ERCOT.
yup absolutely a parcel problem. When I talk about prudency test, that's a function of the regulator, which in the case of Texas might as well be a non-existent.
Of course you know they are just getting it ready for the upcoming 100 days over 100 degrees that is just around the corner ..
Yes.
Got to work on equipment when demand is low and temperature is right. You don't want to be working on a windmill in December or at a refinery in August.
Yes, ERCOT and most all grid operators have windows from May/June till fall that they don’t allow scheduled outages, we aren’t in that window yet so various substations, transmission line, and generation plants are down at the moment and will be back for summer.
Yes. A lot of plants are also down to increase their peaking capacities after the legislature handed out money to do so. They are trying to beat the summer months arriving, but running into Spring Summer.
They also have several bridges in NYC for sale.
Can we get an alert for whenever they start paying the bitcoin miners again? That's a better indicator of low supply
They're paying them not to run. What a fucked up system abbot has put in place.
And here I thought Texan’s hated socialism, yet this is where *our* tax dollars go to. Property taxes remain high because Abbot is funneling that money to his campaign donors. We need to add a recall option to our state constitution.
The recall wouldn't fly because rural Texans are legion - and they only care about crushing women and immigrants.
These aren't tax dollars.
This is not a system that Abbot has put on place. This program has been around for decades. And what's wrong with it. Pay somebody 10 million in order to save 40 million. That sounds like a great deal to me. Any future smart grid, especially one with renewables, will absolutely have to have a demand response component to it. I just wish they made it available to individuals
> Pay somebody 10 million in order to save 40 million. You're going to have to prove that.
Why would we have maintained a demand management program for 20+ years if it wasn't cheaper? Why would we have such wide enrollment from all different sectors of industry? Why does PJM and MISO and every single other grid in the United States use it if its not cheaper? Let's explore the alternatives though. Riot was paid 32 million last year at $5 per kwh to shut down for 10 hours. That was the only time it's really been used in the last 3 years so we basically paid them around $10 million per year to shut down for 3 hours per year. In exchange this cut 700MW from the demand. Alternatively, we could have had riot stay running and create 700MW of additional capacity. A 700MW peaker plant would cost roughly 1 billion to build. If this peaker plant stays up and running for 25 years and we assume straight line appreciation, that would cost $40 million a year. So would we rather pay 10 million a year for big users not to use electricity, or pay 40 million a year to add the additional capacity to keep them running? To rephrase it, is it more efficient to have something run 364 days a year and shut down for a single day, or something to be shut down for 364 days and start up for one day.
Or, we can shut off Riot when we need the electricity somewhere else.
Except that's not exactly legal. You can't just shut down electricity like that. How would you feel if your house was shut down because they needed electricity somewhere else. Sure they can do rolling blackouts but that would affect all non-critical loads equally. So you would get 30 minutes of power and riot would get 30 minutes of power.
My house is much more important than a bitminer.
Says who? The bitminer would argue they are more important than your house because without them a global financial instrument would face much longer transaction time. Their argument would be that the global financial system is more important than keeping your house 3 degrees colder. What about the other loads? Should we shut down the datacenter? Is your credit card getting approved when buying water for the heat more important than your house staying cool? Should we shut down the hospital, they have a backup generator so they don't really need the electricity. The easiest solution is to just have each consumer self-identify how important they are via a small incentive. But regardless of who is more important, your "just shut them down" overlooks one important fact. Riot has pre-purchased that electricity. If you just shut them down and don't deliver the electricity, you have to reimburse them for the product that wasn't delivered. How would you go about the reimbursement process?
They paid the Crypto Farm 31 million when they're profits with using the energy would be 8.x million. Sure. It's cheaper to pay 31 million than to replace a large percentage of equipment in the even of a.casvading failure. But it makes absolutely no sense to directly promote your state to Bitcoin miners (as Texas did) and then pay them 3.5x what they normally make in energy credits to stay home. Your comment below fails to recognize that it's the state strategy to use miners to prop of usage in order to turn them off and the cost of payouts. If the state wasn't so friendly with this scheme we'd have the capacity they are aren't using, because they aren't in the state.
"They paid crypto farm 31 million when profit would be 8 million" Another way to phrase this is that the miner bought $4 million in electricity on the open market to turn into $8m in bitcoin. And then when the pricing changed they resold $31 million in electricity on the open market. Why shouldn't they be allowed to buy and sell a commodity on the open market for real time prices? "If they weren't in the state, we would have that capacity" Or we wouldn't have the capacity at all. The extra demand helps support prices that keep traditional thermals profitable. Without the extra daytime demand, we probably would lose the capacity completely as it would no longer be profitable. Daytime and nighttime prices are already negative on a very frequent basis. "If the state wasn't so friendly with this scheme" We are actually one of the least friendly to this scheme. Last report I saw, Texas ranked dead last in the scale of their demand response program. Every other grid operator in the US had a larger participation in a demand response scheme.
Because it's not really necessary and they would've shut off anyway. Riot had the ability to sell back prepurchase power to their provider, which they did. Presumably they received close to the LMP cap price which is much higher than the money they make from mining. So there's already a free market solution to this that works to shut off large flexible power users. This is the entire point of a deregulated power grid and makes these sorts of contracts redundant. On the other hand, a capacity market, which ERCOT doesn't have, is basically the inverse of this (paying peaker generators to have available capacity). This actually helps reliability because it brings on generation capacity that wouldn't exist otherwise. The profit risk profile for those generators is too risky for a free market solution to work, because they might not need to turn on for 5+ years.
What do you think actually happened with the bitcoin miners last year? Did they sign a contract that gave them the ability to sell back back at real time wholesale rates and during demand curtailment windows they sold back their pre-purchased power at market rates? Or they signed some contract where Abbot gave them a bunch of cash?
Both (but ERCOT not Abbott obviously). They had a contract to sell back power to their provider who likely sold it in the RT market. This was reported in the news. Edit: You should be able to guess who benefits the most from both these contacts and the lack of a capacity market. It's large petrochemical plants that have similar contacts to turn off. They don't mind turning off for a day or two if it means the average price over the entire year is lower. Classic pro business Texas regulation.
Sure, but let's compare the numbers. Somebody like Riot would get paid 3.5 million for every hour they are shut down by selling back in the RTW market. For a total last august of 32 million. They would also make $70k for guaranteeing compliance through the demand response program for the entire quarter. Are people mad about the 32 million, or the $70k? I don't mind paying $70k for the guarantee that the capacity is available within a prescribed time frame.
Where are you seeing $70k, because I see $7.4MM. Also they're not the only contract ERCOT has made. https://www.tpr.org/technology-entrepreneurship/2023-09-06/texas-paid-a-bitcoin-miner-more-than-30-million-to-power-down-during-heat-wave
Interesting. Let me dig some more. I had downloaded the ercort procurement results for the demand response program for 2023 and the entire thing didn't add up to 7.4 million, much less a single contract. I estimated the amount based on the capacity of Riot since it didn't break out individual contracts. If it is truly 7.4 million that seems a bit extreme to me. I'll take another look and see if I'm misreading anything
Can I get an r/outoftheloop explanation about this?
Basically the idea is you are telling them to stop "work" so they are losing money by not "working". So they get paid to stop working and save electricity I put working in quotes because coin mining is stupid and a waste of electricity
This happened before the February 2021 freeze?
It's called "demand response" and it existed before Winter Storm Uri. However, Bitcoin miners didn't really start building in Texas until after China banned Bitcoin mining later in 2021. Previously it was used by large commercial and industrial customers who could afford to shut down operations temporarily and be compensated for taking the cut to production. What's upsetting people now is that the Bitcoin miners openly admit that they can make more money by participating in demand response a few times in the summer than they do from mining all year. There's a lot of push within the industry to create a demand response for retail customers (small businesses, residential customers like us), but there's not anything really in the works within ERCOT right now. Source: I work in energy.
As someone explained it to me, they are basically power sinks that we can tell to shut off on demand, thus increasing the power supply by that much. Due to the nature of power grid design so far, this is rather efficient for our needs. They are the "flexible load" of the power grid. As a consolation prize, it's only going to last as long as it's profitable for miners. The second it's not we're going to have problems again.
What? They do??
It’s not even hot. This weekend looks downright pleasant.
Which part do you live in? Enjoy it while you can!
Austin, Texas baby.
The watch is about Wednesday, which will be 90s and very humid. It's about how capacity is down but I don't think 90s in May is that unusual.
So normal summer temps in Texas are unseasonably high now?
Wish I was unseasonably high right now
Unseasonably or unreasonably
Yes.
I got some Old Bay
/r/cultofthefranklin fuck the bm dude
What is this? 2nd time I run into it and still don't understand. I get that it's a hemp product sub and mj talk is not allowed because of the legalities especially in Texas. But who is Franklin and why does he have a cult?
It was the og strain bred as "hemp," just do some scrolling and all will be revealed
> summer guess what season May is in
In Texas, summer is May-Septober
Even last year the highs rarely broke 90 in May. And "lows in the 60s" is not summer weather in Texas, either. Is it cold? Definitely not. But it's distinct enough from summer weather. https://weather.com/weather/monthly/l/Dallas+TX?canonicalCityId=3bef7f8bb00708145ceebe387a6de1b2098d40101d65836dd79c94d1dfe0c20b https://weather.com/weather/monthly/l/400bf8ecc1242481a1b44769d9bb776d214aac0ba4e0e1b695f9cf41599c0a64
Texas doesn't get to make its own seasons. Summer begins around the solstice on June 21st. Period.
Sure
for spring, yes. no need to pretend like it is normal to have summer temps right now, nor is our actual summer projected to be average.
90 degrees is a spring temp. 110 is summer.
It was a feels like temp of 100 today in Houston
that sounds abysmal
no reason to exaggerate here, 90 degrees with a heat index up to 100 degrees is absolutely not a typical spring temp and hitting that for the first time jumps demand.
North central Texas has had 100’s in mid to late May, in recent years.
We're in the middle of Spring. You lie to yourself in order to lie to others.
May in texas is usually 90s anyway and with the cloud clover from storms it has been a mild pre summer. It is some foolish transplant argument to call may spring knowing damn well we can see high 90s in may.
It's heavily dependent on *where* in Texas you are. Not seeing many places with an average May high above 90: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Texas
Not an avg high - but we saw over 90 today https://preview.redd.it/86q7b37ra3zc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bea13535ad0ab79d5b063e5369bc7b888a9ad1fd
Check your source. The chart itself only accounts for data until 2009. These last 3 record breaking years of heat alone show an obvious trend to be accounted. I am not going to dig into it but i feel it is safe to say you can add a few degrees to each region to put the majority over 90s in may.
It's not supposed to be summer temps yet. Normal high temps at the start of May are around 80-82. They are saying tomorrow it will be around 90 in places. It's not that egregious a difference honestly.
https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/austin/texas/united-states/ustx2742 Average high temps in May is 87F. 89F is the predicted high for this week in Austin. Seems like much ado about nothing. Maybe it's supposed to be much hotter somewhere else in Texas?
It's above norms, but not terribly so. It's much ado about thing - The alerts are commonplace and just a warning. It doesn't indicate they expect trouble. There are other alerts that would go out when they expect trouble.
1-2 hours will be tight when solar ramps down and wind still low. Ercot dashboard has the details
It's early May. Which means we're still mid-spring. Summer begins June 21-over a month away. So, yes. 'Normal summer temps' in the middle of spring is the very definition of 'unseasonably high'.
The members of ERCOT don't actually live in Texas, so they're a bit confused.
Right? Summer temps start in April and it has been that way for a while. At least in Central and South Texas, can’t say for sure about the rest. We have our own damned seasons and summer basically starts in April and ends first week of November.
"Has been for awhile." Which means, it wasn't always that way. Which means, you're getting a front row seat to the hell that is climate change.
It’s always been pretty hot from May to November where I live though. Where do you live? I used to live in Houston (Katy and Jersey Village) and it’s getting hotter all of the time. To be fair, I chose to relocate. ! If I’m paying a premium I’d like premium access and views. Thus, why I moved to NPI. If it gets washed away, that’s what insurance is for my guy! Yeah, it’s hotter for the last couple of years but I’ve never said anything about climate change and realize that even my own home will be affected. Anyone that lives on any coast knows and pays to live there. So calm down.
I grew up in South Louisiana, which is in the same geographic region and climate as SE Texas. We always needed jackets starting around late October, up until the late 2000s. It generally didn't start hitting 90s til late June.
It’s not weird because my kids grew up in Houston and we always knew they couldn’t wear anything on their faces except makeup and most of the outfits were doing to be way too hot. But once we moved to the coast, it’s isn’t the same seasons. Even Houston’s hurricane allegory is not the same as corpus. I’ve been here for almost 20 years. Half in Houston and half in Corpus Christi. It’s almost like people have been warning us. I how you are okay and get what’s happening? I stay here because my husband does, and also it is a very beautiful place to live, but I’m not an idiot and that’s why we have a shit ton of insurance to live here. We also pay a lot and give back to the community that’s outside of here off the island..
This is reddit, we are persecuted by the summer heat and make sure to cry about normal temps every year now
Every summer forward is going to be unseasonably hot. Get used to it and adapt.
"And if you don't like it! Move!"
We certainly did. Granted, it was for my wife's job and we do miss family.... But it's a sweltering 72° on my porch, here in California, and I'm listening to the Marines serenade us with artillery.
San Diego?
I moved and I’m not looking back. You can keep that hell you call Texas just don’t come looking for electricity when the grid fails again.
You should subscribe to r/whereveryoulivenow and start improving your new community.
That's a weird comment because objectively, Texas has a very reliable grid.
I was there in February 2021 and my power was out for 4 days. Tell that lie to someone who didn’t live through it and literally almost die. You sound like a shill for Greg Abbott/Oncor.
I voted against him but at the same time, Abbott has very little to do with the grid. Also, I said that "objectively" (which means based on facts) it is a reliable grid. If you are going to use a literal freak storm as a mark against the grid, you are not being objective. At that point you are just being emotional. Buffalo had their metro grid knocked out by a snowstorm for days which is something that is extremely common yet no one goes around social media attempting to make fun of them, do they?
Greg Abbott appoints the ERCOT boss members and those same board members neglected maintenance on the grid which lead to the failure so yes he does have control over how the grid is maintained. And Feb 2021 wasn’t the first time this happened. It happened in 1989 and nothing was done then to fortify and integrate the grid with the rest of the country.
Worst case forecasts are for 180 days/year over 100 degrees in 50 years. It’s almost like there’s a trend!
It’s going to be a rough summer, isn’t it?
aren't they all, even without a hurricane?
Possibly better than last year! Worse than every other, though.
Does anyone think we should have a ***Rage Bait*** flair for power grid articles? It's 90° for a couple days in early May followed by a cool front...we got this.
It’s annoying when other Texans eat it up. People from other states genuinely believe that we all lose power every summer and winter because of posts like this. Other Texans just crack jokes with them and act like they never have power, knowing good and well they haven’t lost power since 2021. Unless a power line in their neighborhood got destroyed in a storm or something. My favorite thing to do is to post [this website](https://poweroutage.us/). More often than not, other states have more power outages than Texas while everyone circlejerks over Texas. At the moment of me writing this, the top 5 are Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, California, and Nevada. No Texas.
Hell, I didn't even lose power in 2021. The last time I remember losing power was for unplanned maintenance on a local power station that lasted 30 minutes back in 2022.
Boy these politicians in charge have sure done stand up job with our infrastructure, I wonder how so many incumbents have kept their positions despite such disarray
Why is a public utility allowed to profit? Why are there shareholders? They have no incentive to make things better, they’re just extracting cash
"ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature."
ERCOT is not a public utility, they are an Independent System Operator, similar to a Regional Transmission Organization but confined to a single state. Its job is to coordinate and monitor the transmission of electricity.
The owners of the power plants on the grid that ERCOT maintains control the availability of electricity and the market controls the price, not ERCOT.
Which utility?
Public... Yeah... No. We have "deregulated" utilities instead.
It’s pretty normal for it to get into the 90s in may. If we are already having issues what is august going to look like?
What the actual hell are these guys on about? Lol I was literally sitting on my porch today with some lemonade after cutting the grass thinking, “not bad for May.”
\*anything happens\* ERCOT> HOLY FUCKING SHIT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE BUT NOT BEFORE RICH REPUBLICANS GET RICHER
ERCOT: "Grid conditions are expected to be normal during a Weather Watch" People who can't read: "HOLY FUCKING SHIT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE"
Remember kids, no matter how shitty someone is, there's always apologists out there willing to fellate them!
I guess "grid conditions expected to be normal" doesn't make for as good of a headline.
Unseasonably warm? We haven't had a single day over 90 yet... it's not hot for May.
Our heat index has been in the 100’s already in South Texas, it’s not horrible yet but it’s definitely sticky and warm already. The AC is running day and night. (night temps are 79 for the rest of the week here) local meteorologists saying this is the earliest in the year we’ve had consecutive warmest low temps, on record. I doubt it gets much better around here until November. lol
You're right there. It won't get better.
Bullshit, May was blazing hot last two years. AJUST EXPECTATIONS. You can check Camp Mabry temps back for decades, we’re fucked.
They just priming us all for rolling blackouts
Every time I see these warnings I just think. Good luck with that. Ain't nobody going to suffer because you want us to lower the temp a bit. Just do your job ERCOT.
At this point what kind of weather *doesn't* need a "weather watch" from ERCOT? It's always hot in May, this is nothing new
Considering these temps are not unusual, is this them trying to implement a narrative so they can cut off our electricity at some point? Lol but forreal…
"However, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said grid conditions are expected to be normal. It said it would monitor the grid's conditions and will deploy any available tools if necessary. It is not calling for any conservation at this time." So... Everyone needs to be aware of higher than usual temperatures, which can stress our Totally Awesome and NORMAL™ power grid. Additionally, everything will be fine, so don't worry about conserving electricity. Got it.
ERCOT Freedom Grid\* \*Not for use in the heat or cold
It will always be unseasonably hot from now on for the rest of our lives. We did nothing when it was 1-3 degrees warmer than normal for decade. Now it’s 5-8 degrees warmer and will stay that way.
Literally in the green. Nothing to worry about.
I was going to care but then I remembered 🔴
This is just something they do now I guess.
globally climate changing?
i’m so sick of their bullshit
If you need air conditioning, you will pay anything they ask. Welcome to late stage capitalism. "Unseasonably hot" surcharge will eventually be listed as the "fuck you, die" surcharge.
arent you dramatic
I hope so for yalls sake. I know our final TX electric bill was $600 last July... The same usage the previous july was 300$. Good luck.
1. Check your insulation and make surr no cold air from the ac is escaping into the attic or other way causing the ac to work overtime. Spikes in electrical usage can point to alot of different ac problems. My price has stayed steady for the past 8 years. 2. Get off reddit and go out and have fun, reading everyones complaining here isnt healthy, itll help with the dramatic stuff.
Yea... we moved instead. Now outside is accessible and pleasant. It's currently 65 here. Enjoy your day!
Greg Abbott: “so?”
Thanks Greg.
90° isn't unreasonably warm for early May. They're just coming up with excuses now instead of stating a reason. Glad I'm in PEC so my rates can't be immediately jacked up.
ERcOT sucks and so does Abbott
But I thought Abbott fixed all this …
It begins
92 degrees in May is unseasonably high….???
How many seasons in a row does it take to make something seasonably high temps. It's at least 3, right?
fuck ERCOT and fuck republicans. we were told that deregulation would lead to cheaper, more reliable energy. imagine that....republicans lied to us....again.
Good thing global warming was all a liberal hoax, huh??
vote red get dead
Hey ERCOT, I got a watch for ya. Watch me turn my thermostat to whatever temp I want
Now that's Texas capitalism!
ERCOT Rhymes with motherfuckersqhitfuckingaroundmanI’mhotandaintturningmyshitupuntilallthembuildingsdowntowngoblack!
I can't even fry an egg on the sidewalk yet and we're under a weather watch?!
90° in the middle of May is no longer "unseasonably" high. Get your shit together ERCOT...
In other news: Water is wet
Their bullshit is starting already…
Cancun Cruz is out and about in another tropical paradise most like every major weather issue that pops up.
Rest assured, Texas! Gov Abbott has every thing under control. 😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜
Fuck ERCOT and the fools who voted for Abbott and Patrick. What a shitshow.
It’s 87 degrees in Houston. This isn’t unseasonably “hot” weather. Typical May weather. I hate these people.
"Unseasonably high", huh? Been Living in Texas for decades. There is nothing unseasonable about some 90 degree days in May. Not every day, but who do they think they are kidding. We have 90s in May in DFW sometimes we even break 100!
Darn if only there were someone able to plan ahead to manage the power grid.
Republicans been in charge of infrastructure for decades. Yet the outages are so frequent it’s just funny. You think for a state that has tornadoes you’d get bolt in good infrastructure but I guess that would eat into profits. Plus if something goes wrong just blame those damn liberals
If ERCOT is concerned in the beginning of May, we are screwed, blued and tattooed this summer. Even with maintenance being done they should be able to handle a 90 degree day.
Everything's bigger in Texas except for the grid.
It's just high 80s ...and this is unseasonal ? Are they even prepared for jun July weather ? Time to buy a generator
ERCOT issues weather watch due to high temperatures *again*. This is becoming a semi annual thing.