It is also poorly regulated and failed recently and killed several hundreds of people.
Oh, and the energy market that underpins the Texas grid was designed by Enron, literally.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1004840920/the-disconnect-power...
It is also poorly regulated and failed recently and killed several hundreds of people.
Oh, and the energy market that underpins the Texas grid was designed by Enron, literally.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1004840920/the-disconnect-power...
The power has been great since the freeze. Market forces fixed the problems. People were making $9,000/kwh at times. That's never going to happen again.
Do you live there? I do. Do you get the texts from ERCOT saying "if you don't turn off some shit the grid will fail due to the weather" several times a year. I do.
> "Great since the freeze"
I take it you know nothing about the back story and didn't listen to the podcast. Prior to this "great freeze" there was another "great freeze" and thing went well for a long time between them until they didn't. Virtually nothing structural that caused the conditions of the failure have changed.
I lived through it. I've listened to the podcast. 2026 is not 2021 or 2022. Since about 2022 or maybe 2023 I have never received a single ERCOT warning message text. Before then they were pretty common.
I'm saying it was a problem, it's been addressed. We had one of our hottest Augusts on record this year without a single issue.
If you think it's structurally broken there are energies futures markets you could use to make a lot of money on.
I was wrong. The bulk of my notifications are from Austin Energy. But ERCOT does still send them too. This is my last one:
> Austin Energy: ERCOT expects tight grid conditions, requests conservation Tue., Jan. 16, 6-9 am. Similar conditions expected Wed. morning. More info: ercot.com/txans . Conservation tips: austinenergy.com/alerts . > > ERCOT espera condiciones de red ajustadas, solicita conservación Martes, 16 de enero, 6-9 am. Se esperan condiciones similares el miércoles mañana. Más información: ercot.com/txans . Consejos de conservación: austinenergy.com/alerts . Responde STOP para cancelar. Reply STOP to cancel.
> it's been addressed. We had one of our hottest Augusts on record this year without a single issue.
No significant changes to weathercation regulation. No significant changes to the energy market. What exactly, from a systemic perspective, do you feel "has been addressed"? What little I see is too little.
> If you think it's structurally broken there are energies futures markets you could use to make a lot of money on.
What on earth? My problem is that the market is built to incentivize profit over preventing human pain and suffering. That's not a "make money here" opportunity.
Yeah man market forces man, don’t worry about it man the market fixed it, nah man massive federal subsidies didn’t do anything man don’t worry about it. The inflation reduction act? Never heard of it!
I also would not be so confident about it never happening again, handling the summer well does not indicate necessarily that the winter will go smoothly, they’re different loads.
> Market forces fixed the problems
1) That's assuming that they actually did fix the problems
2) The idea is to plan and regulate so you don't have market forces fixing problems when the problems are dozens of people freezing to death, massive structural damage to buildings, fires, and business stoppages.
> Market forces fixed the problems.
With zero threats from government?
From what I can tell a bunch of batteries, solar and wind came online since then not sure if the govt was involved or not.
We had PLENTY of capacity at the time of grid failure. The problem was that natural gas plants didn't pay for cold weather weatherization so the pipes literally froze.
The wind turbines were plentiful but lacked de-icing capabilities (another cost cutting measure).
Batteries are good, but my power was off for 72 hours. Some lost it for double that.
To your point "great since the freeze" why would a corporation take on significant costs for a thing that happens only once every decade or so. Much cheaper to let people freeze to death in their own homes.
Regulations don't take away the cost. But they level the playing field. Without them, the market will punish "excess" aka "redundancy". An operator who does the right thing will find themselves unable to compete. Not just decreased margins but possibly put out of business.
Which is why the real failure is the design of the market. And that fundamentally hasn't changed.
What regulations would you like to see?