Comment by energy123

> I have not disagreement the 2021 storm should never have happened.

But they still haven’t fixed any of the issues. The exact same thing is going to happen again when (not if) it freezes.

> I would prefer a more Texas like approach but with some thoughtfulness around capacity instead of just generation.

Capacity isn’t the issue. Lack of winterization of pumps is the issue. Because that costs money and private companies have zero incentive to make the investment if government doesn’t force them to.

> I don’t believe other energy markets work very well either.

but is isn't even about that storm, big "oh no" situations happen sooner or later (e.g. see energy outage in Spain) what is important is that you learn from it.

but more important in this argument is the general design, how can it handle flexible loads, how can it share loads between areas, how many ways to handle partial failure does it has etc.

and Texas is kinda not that good in all of that AFIK

the problem is that there are markets where politics fully getting "out of the way", doesn't work as the market dynamics favor things which might be better for the people running the gird, but are bad on a state economical level anyway (but getting in the way here is using tax money to make sure the net is stable, not getting int the way of that to protect personal investments)

it's a bit like freighttrains in many parts of the EU, there operating does in most situation make no profit. But having them is helping the economy as a whole and can (implicitly) safe the state/region etc. money. So it makes sense to place some tax money into making them still viable to operate as that investment in a roundabout way saves more money then spend.

I guess you’re saying that the current status is mandated by the design of the grid. Which is true, but that status would be best described as “deregulated” rather than “purposeful regulation.”

Lack of regulation and oversite around weatherization and redundancy is the main source of our problems. The Texas’ grid is market based and so unregulated that it’s not connected to the national grid so it can avoid federal regulation.

I recommend this podcast to anyone interested https://kutkutx.studio/category/the-disconnect-power-politic.... I learned that our current Texas grid was designed by Enron.

So you're saying when the Texas grid fails, it's because of over overegulation. But the solution to those failures is to tap into the national grid, a grid that follows stricter FERC regulations.

This argument doesn't make any sense.

> The power outages are not due to lack of central planning

It is 100% due to lack of central planning. The outages were caused by a lack of winterizarion of natural gas pumps which was a known issue in Texas but the lack of regulation meant companies could just ignore the problem. Why invest in winterizing when you can just jack up prices and make even more money when they freeze and there’s not enough power to meet demand?

There’s a reason the power doesn’t go out in the winter anywhere else in the country when it gets below freezing and it’s not “a lack of regulation”.