We have the capacity to generate our own clean electric energy from solar technology and break off from this ancient grid but the republican laws won't allow it. I really hope Musk does get into the HVAC business
These are examples of why we need a consumer watchdog, advocacy group in federal and state gov. They work for us and they should not allow this type of bs. If you want to control people's home devices remotely, that should be clearly stated upfront, not in some fine prints. We all know why they do it this way - about no one in their right mind would allow it, especially for Texans who value independence and self-control.
I was scrolling through some old pics today and thought I'd share a couple. Our power grid is a serious problem, but I've never seen anything like this in my life. No wonder the electric goes out so easy in Costa Rica. I took these pics while walking down a trail leading to a beach on the Caribbean side one day. I'm gonna need two posts for this one.
Yall will be happy to be off the east and west grid if China hacks our damn grids to dust and we still have lights. Decentralization should be furthered to as many regions as possible for national security.
It's unfortunate Gov. Abbott won't fix the grid. At least there are (foreign) companies willing to build something reliable and renewable. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/bu...y-starts-work-on-Fort-Bend-solar-16272785.php https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...defy-gop-backlash-with-20-billion-in-projects
I hope he's saying that for political effect. I hope OK doesn't have a chairman of the House utilities committee not understand basic stuff about commodity markets. But, in general, we're seeing that regulated utilities - because they pass the risk on to their customers - were under-engaged in hedging. I saw testimony from a few Texas utilities that said they bought a month ahead and then trued-up in real time. No company who carried that risk themselves would do something so negligent. And it seems to be built on the willful disregard of the volatility of commodity markets. While I'm here, a quick vocab lesson. Circa 2000, Texas (and other states) "restructured" the utility industry to break up utilities that owned the whole value chain (generation, transmission and distribution, and retail) so that we had different companies serving each of those functions and only the transmission and distribution being "regulated" (that is, had their prices set by a government body). So we colloquially call that "deregulation." However, people outside the industry tend to understand 'deregulation' to mean other things like removing rules around pollution or how you can bill or treat customers, etc. There are still plenty of rules for those things (business-friendly because this is Texas, but there are still rules). Because of this confusion, we say 'restructuring' instead of 'deregulation' in the industry. You can still blame restructuring if you want for the thin reserve margins we have. But understand half the country is restructured. Most of the northeast, mid-Atlantic, and midwest as well as california in addition to Texas. The unique thing about Texas' market is that it is "energy only", meaning generators only get paid if they dispatch and provide electricity to the grid. We use a mechanism called the ORDC (operating reserve demand curve) which makes wholesale prices rise dramatically when supply is tight, which incentivizes generators to invest. Other markets have some form of a "capacity market" where they have auctions for generators to get paid just to be available and then paid again when they produce. That way, the business case to invest can be made without worrying about whether the plant will be dispatched at all. This is the big debate of the Texas market: does energy-only work, or should we build a capacity market? Anyway, I bring it up because I see the lay comments and criticisms of "deregulation" and see that folks are totally missing the point. We could go back to an archaic vertically-integrated model like they have at Florida Power & Light or Southern, but we would lose billions in economic efficiency to do it. Not even the libtards in New York would do that. But the real debate in the industry and in government is energy-only market vs capacity market. I expect energy-only to win out, but there is a good case to be made for building a capacity market.
From an outsider looking in it feels like the carrot that they use to encourage the generators to produce at high demand times (allowing much higher prices) is also an incentive to not be proactive in making sure high demand events are mitigated.
