Comment by esalman
2 years ago
There's a way insufficient thermal generation can be mitigated- operate under one of the Eastern or Western grids instead of maintaining your own.
The motivation behind having a separate Texas grid is political and nothing else. That's why they have ask home consumers to conserve energy.
The 2019 power crisis, when the texas grid kinda almost went dark?
Our shortage was greater than the entire State of California's generation. It was greater than the spare capacity in any of the three neighboring interconnections.
Like I'm not opposed to us joining our neighboring interconnections, but the problem would still exist to some extent because of the ability to move power long distances - and this assumes you build more HVDC and AC interconnections. (There is currently HVDC interconnection).
Also, the problem would still remain, 4-6 hours a day, the cost of spot power at interconnection points would be lower than the marginal cost to operate a thermal plant.