Some Preliminary Thoughts on the Texas Electricity Meltdown

Peter Van DorenAlternating current electricity systems require that demand equals supply in real ‐​time. Any supply‐​demand imbalance must be remedied in minutes to avoid collapse of the system that would take weeks to repair. And the Texas system was very close tocollapse.So what went wrong in Texas? The shortanswer is that demand was about 69,000 megawatts (and estimates of what demand would have been had supply been available were 74,000 MW) while available supply was about 46,000 megawatts. When supply is unexpectedly reduced, the remaining generators must work harder. If demand is not reduced within minutes the remaining generators will fail. The first demand reduction occurs through contract. Large commercial customers pay less in return for giving the system operator (in this case a non ‐​profit corporation called the Energy Reliability Council of Texas) the right to terminate their electricity use. When this reduction proved insufficient, ERCOT instituted rolling blackouts to remaining customers who had contracted for normal service. This last resort was instituted with less t han 5 minutes from the collapse of the Texas electricity system.Why was available supply so short? The Texas system has two unique features that many have argued were responsible. The first is the lack of alternating current transmission connections to other states to avoid federal regulation. The result is that Texas is (almost) totally reliant on electric g...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs