Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Tue Feb 16 23:19:03 UTC 2021

100%.  Our system has been on stage 2 aux heat (electric) ever since we
dropped below 24 or so.  Usually we might see it for a few hours on the
coldest nights.  I'd say most people are probably pulling full summer load
+20%.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 5:10 PM Seth Mattinen <sethm at rollernet.us> wrote:

> 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.
>
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