Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Tue Feb 16 23:06:36 UTC 2021

On 2/16/21 09:49, Michael Thomas wrote:
> 
> On 2/16/21 8:50 AM, John Von Essen wrote:
>> I just assumed most people in Texas have heat pumps- AC in the summer 
>> and minimal heating in the winter when needed. When the entire state 
>> gets a deep freeze, everybody is running those heat pumps non-stop, 
>> and the generation capacity simply wasn’t there. i.e. coal or natural 
>> gas plants have some turbines offline, etc.,. in the winter because 
>> historically power use is much much less. The odd thing is its been 
>> days now, those plants should be able to ramp back up to capacity - 
>> but clearly they haven’t. Blaming this on wind turbines is BS. In 
>> fact, if it weren’t for so many people in Texas with grid-tie solar 
>> systems, the situation would be even worse.
> 
> You'd think that mid-summer Texas chews a lot more peak capacity than 
> the middle of winter. Plus I would think a lot of Texas uses natural gas 
> for heat rather than electricity further mitigating its effect on the grid.
> 

The difference is that in extreme cold heat pump systems are likely 
switching on emergency heat (i.e. plain old resistance heaters) when the 
compressor alone can no longer keep up with call for heat demand, which 
requires significantly more power. That's never happening in the summer, 
which is only ever running the compressor.