Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hn_throwaway_99 1951 days ago
Just about every sentence in your comment is wrong:

> First, Texas has its own independent grid as a matter of physics.

Except that every state directly north of Texas is either on the East or West interconnects. ERCOT having its own grid is solely a matter of political desire.

> One top of that reduced capacity, not all equipment is prepared for ice storms because it doesn't really happen here.

Except a very similar event happened in 2011, and a specific set of recommendations were made by FERC to winterize power producers, and the recommendations were promptly ignored. Better discussion on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/ll2slh/texas_failed...

> And finally, the wind farms are not handling the ice well

Yes, this is true, but this is almost insignificant. The grid is already designed to handle windless days: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/frozen-wi...

1 comments

It hasn't been that many years since Texas was connected to other grids.
Why do you say that? Texas has had its own grid basically forever. There are, and have been, some small connections to the other grids, but nothing that substantial.

https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-...

I was considering 1935 to not be that many years ago, compared to things like the Alamo.

They didn't have to be that isolated until the feds clamped down.

And ERCOT's only been going since 1970.

Could just be a matter of political "leadership" whether the feds are a riskier bureaucracy or the Austin-based boneheads.