Not sure how I missed maybe the dumbest statement I've ever read on Clutchfans. If the "Freedom Grid" is unstable enough to not be able to deal with 89 degree days in Texas, what evidence is there that the Chinese couldn't hack the system? China and Russia want to destabilize by dividing America. No way they would attack us in a way that united us all like 9/11. Attacking Texas alone would be right in line with what they are more likely to do as it would create news for days about how much of a failure Republicans are and create stupid conspiracy theories for days on FoxNews about how it was actually Antifa or BLM. I think Texas is a larger target for a hack then the interstate grids...not less. Not to mention just the shear incompetence shown creates a larger target for hackers seeing how unprepared the system is.
Get off your high horse...both sides need to come together and harden our electrical system for the good of the country. I hope they've included something in regards to that in the upcoming infrastructure bill.
Then in that regard, the most patriotic thing you can do is put solar panels on your roof. I see why you'd say that, but it's actually expensive to have a plant go down in an emergency. Plants generally sell most of their generation in the forward market. If they can't deliver, they to buy from someone else to satisfy the contract -- in the day-ahead or real-time market if you weren't expecting it to be down. So if you let a plant go down, prices go up but you lose twice -- once because you can't sell, and again because you now have to buy.
I was at a 4th of July party last night and was talking to someone who works for a company that does control software for the oil and gas industry. We talked a little about the situation that happened with the Texas this past winter and she noted that it is relatively easy to put in the monitoring software and equipment on gas wells that could've prevented the problems that we saw.
Maybe some good will come of this... sounds like a mix bag to me though. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/bu...-PUCT-ERCOT-to-make-more-changes-16296430.php
https://www.kvue.com/article/money/...torm/287-12bb5ffc-2836-4c5f-ac70-0bfc212b502b More at link. You'd think ERCOT would provide the name of the outside contractor they coordinate with that allocates the money to energy companies that volunteered and profited from shutting down their facilities when Texans needed energy the most.
People who want to centralize power systems are ignoring the fact that we keep getting hacked and that's a key area for people to attack. We must decentralize the grid further. This allows us more safety and freedom.
What an idiot. How about using google to inform yourself before posting Trump-style drivel. Power System don’t work like that.
I guess there's no reason they shouldn't, but I also don't see why the identity of the company would matter either. It'll be a company you haven't heard of, their PR guy would provide no comment to the media, and it'd all be irrelevant to consumers. As for the DR program, the unnamed vendor runs it the way they're instructed by ERCOT and per the rules issued by the PUCT. ERCOT and PUCT never said to identify and exclude critical gas infrastructure from the program. They are the dumbasses here. ERCOT blaming the gas companies for their own coordination failures is galling. You're an engineer right? Maybe you can explain it to the class? Because honestly I don't know whether a small grid or a big grid would be more vulnerable to hacking to take down the frequency control.
No, I'm definitely not a subject matter expert when it comes to the electric grid and I was speaking from my ass there. I just don't like @dachuda86 as a poster In all honesty, I'm in the process of becoming a homeowner soon and I actually plan on trying to be independent from the grid as much as possible with a geothermal heat pump and solar panels. So honestly, I'm fine with a decentralized grid if it means more people utilizing renewables and being less dependent on natural gas and coal fired plants.
That's cool. I think that's the way we'll see energy going eventually -- households and businesses that might be connected to the grid, but not nearly as reliant as they used to be, and can sell as well as buy. They have a lame corporate lingo name -- "prosumers", as in producers and consumers. As for decentralizing the grid, to dachuda's point, another trend is microgrids in which small energy communities live in a sort of walled electricity garden. Right now you'll see a microgrid for a college campus maybe or a hospital campus or something like that. The microgrid will be connected to the grid, but behind the connection they have their own energy management system, renewables, backup gen, etc. That sort of decentralization could harden our electric grid against hacking because more and more entities will be able to just hop off the system when there's trouble and hop back on when the wider grid needs their resources. But that's the future. And right now, we are really heavily reliant on the grid. We need to be very worried about hacking, I just don't know if a bigger grid makes for a bigger vulnerability.
Personally, the reason I'd want to know the names of the companies is to see if there are any personal connections tied to those energy companies and elected officials who control legislation over how how those energy companies can legally operate. Would you be surprised if Abbott, Cruz, Paxton, Patrick, Cornyn or any Texas elected official had personal connections and monetary investment in these energy companies? Wouldn't that lay further credence that these politicians are putting themselves first over the well being of the hundreds of Texans who died as a result and in fact profited from those deaths, upwards of $50,000,000 per company that volunteered for this program? A program that was structured by board members of ERCOT, who Abbott has already shown close ties to? By not disclosing that information and remaining transparent it personally makes me suspicious that there really is a financial and personal connection tied to our elected officials and at least some portion of the energy grid. Disclosing such information like the names of the companies that profited from this program could either confirm my suspicions or put them to bed. Won't know though until and if that information is ever released to the public and reputable investigative journalists get to do their job. As far as hacking goes, the idea with IT at least is having multiple layers of security and potential detections of intrusion in place to mitigate the harm a hacker could do with what limited access they may have gained through nefarious measures. A hacker who has gained access to a basic user account can still do some serious damage but not as mercilessly as an administrative account for instance. Most hackers that are government backed and work as a collective team often times work to gain intrusion of a target and then lurk on their target's network for months if not years after succeeding at intrusion with the goal of remaining undetected. This is to gather further intel about how a company's internal workings operate. When do they perform routine system maintenance? When do they cover remediation of security vulnerabilities? What hours of operation is a targeted company most vulnerable? What counter-security measures can be implemented while remaining undetected to help achieve nefarious goals once they're set in motion? All this done in order to plan a well executed attack in order for hackers to achieve whatever their goals are. So the general idea to counter that is to think like a criminal, stay up to date on the latest methods that could be exploited for intrusion, but to work on the right side of the law and aim to prevent and remediate vulnerabilities before they become widely available to the general public, much less your truly nefarious actors with the knowhow to exploit a vulnerability to it's maximum. How do you prevent the constant barrage of security vulnerabilities that could be used to intrude on a network? I'm going to sound like I'm talking in a circle because I am, but you set up multiple layers of security with multiple methods to potentially detect intrusion and structure your network to mitigate the worst case damage a hacker could do with what limited access they may have obtained on your network, while ultimately aiming to prevent intrusion entirely in its tracks.
Fair enough. I'm guessing it's not so much a secret, but only that the news org thought the company's identity was uninteresting. With some quick internet sleuthing, I think their vendor is Enel X (formerly called EnerNOC), the largest demand response provider in the US. They are now owned by an Italian multinational energy company called Enel Group, which is publicly traded. Texan politicians might hold stock or something, but it seems to me the Texas DR market will be a tiny, tiny fraction of Enel Group's revenue.
I told you folks this was coming, but I thought I'd bump now that it's here. As I'd explained, most Texan residential power customers were protected from price increases in electricity from the storm (by the competitive market), but we were left completely unprotected from price increases in natural gas (because it is regulated). Centerpoint Energy is the gas utility in the Houston area and some other areas around Texas. They just filed with the Railroad Commission for their cost recovery. Because the legislature passed that securitization bill, Texas was guarantee the bonds that will be issued to keep the interest rates low. But the cost has to be paid by ratepayers (us) including all the financing and other costs. It can be no longer than 30 years to pay it off completely. So, in their filing, they want us to pay an extra $1.14 billion for that week of high gas prices. It will almost certainly be granted by the RRC. For residential customers, they want to charge an extra $3.78 per month for up to 30 years. That's something like a 12% price increase to a gas bill for which we get no future benefit (the people who lost power didn't even get a past benefit). Here's the Chron article: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/CenterPoint-customers-will-pay-price-for-natural-16358810.php
