Comment by Bjartr
2 years ago
AIUI, turning on a dormant power plant is an expensive process, but utilities need to be careful to balance the amount of power they put into the network is close to the amount of power being consumed or "bad things will happen™"
If the power draw is fluctuating around a level where one more power plant needs to be on during the high demand, but is is low enough during low demand for it to be dangerous to keep the plant running, it can be cheaper to just "soak up the extra" than to cycle the whole plant on and off.
> it can be cheaper to just "soak up the extra" than to cycle the whole plant on and off.
hence why nat gas peakers are so valuable.
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Since when do the feds have anything to do with Texas peaker plants? Texas was unable to fire their gas peaker plants because they didn't bother winterizing them and the equipment froze. That's one of the reason Texas maintains a separate grid. They didn't want to follow fed recommendations for winterizing their power production. This is entirely on Texas.
https://acee.princeton.edu/acee-news/andlinger-center-speaks...
> Freeze-offs, or when natural gas wellheads and pipelines freeze, reduced the supply and rate of supply of natural gas and forced large numbers of the gas plants offline due to lack of access to the fuel source. Often times home heating systems, including common natural gas-powered furnaces, require electricity to run, so even residents that may have been lucky enough to have gas supply could not heat their homes. In many cases, residents were unable to stay warm, cook food, or boil water.
> The conditions compromised every power source. Coal plants that shut down likely struggled with frozen coal piles where operators could not feed the coal into the plant or access unfrozen water for cooling. One of the state’s four nuclear reactors went offline for about 36 hours due to a frozen sensor on a water feed line.
The freeze was a crisis entirely of Texa's own making because they're refusing to winterize their plants as freezes become increasingly common and more dangerous. The fact that you want to blame the feds for Texas complete ineptitude is disgusting as someone that had to deal with the freeze in 2021.
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You are laughably misinformed. The fed can't tell Texas to do anything about it's power grid. That's the WHOLE POINT
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