ERCOT tells Texans to conserve electricity through Friday.

[CastletonSnob]

Texans Asked To Conserve Energy As Main Power Grid Struggles To Keep Up | HuffPost

WWW.HUFFPOST.COM

---

Grid operator ERCOT came under fire earlier this year for dangerous power outages that left millions without electricity and hundreds dead.

Quote

Texas’ main power grid struggled to keep up with the demand for electricity Monday, prompting the operator to ask Texans to conserve power until Friday.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said in a statement Monday that a significant number of unexpected power plant outages combined with expected record use of electricity due to hot weather has resulted in tight grid conditions. Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, or enough to power 2.4 million homes on a hot summer day.

ERCOT officials said the power plant outages were unexpected — and could not provide details as to what could be causing them.

Here we go again...

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

wtf

 

[Kal-El814]

Sleep at 88 degrees and wake up shredded

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

I only sleep at 69degF because it's the coolest number

[Kal-El814]

Sleeping sub 70 degrees feels decadent and I only do it at hotels. Is this just because I live in the northeast US? What are people’s electricity bills if they’re cooling homes in places like Texas to < 70 degrees?

[mclumber1]

We keep the house at around 75 during the day, and around 70 while we sleep.  Humidity is crazy low in Vegas, so both of those temps are just fine most of the time.

[CitizenVectron]

So 82F is...28C. What the fuck. We set our thermostat to 20 or 21 at night (68-70F), anything higher and we'd sweat to death. In the winter, we go as low as 15 or 16 (59-61F) since it saves money on heating, and it's easy to keep warm with blankets.

[Guest]

My house is insulated with that sweeeet spray foam, so even with the AC off the house is never warmer than 80. The attic doesn’t get above 82/83.

 

We typically set the thermostat to 78 while we sleep and the humidity sensor to run the AC when it gets up to 58%.

[CastletonSnob]

How likely is it that power goes out?

[Dodger]

It was 117 here yesterday. Even with the AC at 76 during the day I was still hot. I put it down to 68 at night and sleep like a fucking baby. I'll cry when my electric bill is around $400 next month but whatever. I had a few $50 electric bills in the winter to offset it. 

[Keyser_Soze]

At least California has an AC flex of 72 degrees.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

26 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Sleeping sub 70 degrees feels decadent and I only do it at hotels. Is this just because I live in the northeast US? What are people’s electricity bills if they’re cooling homes in places like Texas to < 70 degrees?

Mine is about 150/month during the summer and maybe 250/month in winter.

I've got a lot of mature trees on the south side of the house and a basement that keeps the house cooler in the summer and even colder in the winter

 

It's about the same cost to heat and cool my house than my apartment which had half the square footage

[Littleronin]

In the winter I go from $250 a month for heating (all electric heating, which next year should drop as we just replaced 30 year old heaters in the house). 
Just got the bill for last month which most of the days have been in the high 80s low 90s with the exception of 2 days (snowed in the first week of June and it was in the high 30s for a night last week) and my bill was $110 with the thermostat set to 70. 

My expected bill for next month right now is $118. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, CastletonSnob said:

How likely is it that power goes out?

Rolling blackouts in some parts of the network are certainly a possibility, especially on Thursday which appears to be the day of the expected highest average temps across the grid. Wednesday and Friday are probably unlikely.

[Firewithin]

ive had rolling black out warning almost my whole life in southern California during summers and i cant recall ever actually having one

[Kal-El814]

28 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

My house is insulated with that sweeeet spray foam, so even with the AC off the house is never warmer than 80. The attic doesn’t get above 82/83.

 

We typically set the thermostat to 78 while we sleep and the humidity sensor to run the AC when it gets up to 58%.

 

After a few days in 90 degree heat my cape style house in MA gets to the high / mid 80’s, that’s bananas to me.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Firewithin said:

ive had rolling black out warning almost my whole life in southern California during summers and i cant recall ever actually having one

California actually has a lot of experience with the design of their blackouts to have minimal duration and tend to spare the regions most likely to result in serious injury/death from the outages. Another area ERCOT has very little experience in, which is part of why the failure in the winter storm

was so pronounced. Many people never lost power or were only out briefly, while my house was without power for almost the entire first 48 hours of outages and then sporadically for 5-6 hour blocks the next couple of days.

 

Rolling blackouts are both art and science

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

After a few days in 90 degree heat my cape style house in MA gets to the high / mid 80’s, that’s bananas to me.

Like, I wouldn’t want to hang out up there because it’s still very humid, but it used to be when I would open the attic door in the summer time was just a blast of 95-100 degree air. The roof decking itself would measure north of 120 degrees. Now it’s only 85ish in the worst heat of the summer, so you have safely move around in the attic even midday whereas it was honestly a bit unsafe to do so alone.

[CastletonSnob]

Again, how likely is it that power goes out? I'm pretty worried about this ERCOT thing.

This article says that ERCOT says that it's "unlikely" that they'll need to implement outages, but what ERCOT says, and what happens are two very different things.
 

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/15/texas-power-grid-ercot/#e49a3cd1-1923-4448-8d8a-1129953471a6

 

[Brian]

This is my first summer with central air.  Being in NJ, we don’t need it all the time. Today is a beautiful 75 degree day with a nice breeze. If we do need it, I set it to 75 day and 72 at night. 

[Fizzzzle]

We have an oil furnace that costs a hell of a lot of money to fill up every year, so we try not to use it. I think last year we only spent $1k. Only the third floor has AC

 

Personally, I don't mind when it gets hot as long as I have a fan blowing. I've stayed months in places in southeast asia with no AC and the power going out all the time and shit. As long as there's a fan blowing, I'll be alright.

 

My biggest concerns with heat waves are for the prisons, where they're sitting in a concrete block with no climate controls whatsoever, either cooking or freezing.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, CastletonSnob said:

Again, how likely is it that power goes out? I'm pretty worried about this ERCOT thing.

This article says that ERCOT says that it's "unlikely" that they'll need to implement outages, but what ERCOT says, and what happens are two very different things.
 

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/15/texas-power-grid-ercot/#e49a3cd1-1923-4448-8d8a-1129953471a6

 

From what I’m seeing, I would say under 25% chance of any outages, and if they happen you’re looking at 15-30 minutes rolling outages between 4-7pm on Thursday and most who experience them will only see one. Best thing to do is be a good team player and set the thermostat to 80 tomorrow afternoon and…don’t sweat it 

[CitizenVectron]

Do people in Texas commonly have basements, or is the water table too high? I would say about 95% of homes here have basements (and likely 80% of those are finished and livable), and it really helps in the heat. I'd say the basement in our place is consistently 5C cooler than the main floor.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Do people in Texas commonly have basements, or is the water table too high? I would say about 95% of homes here have basements (and likely 80% of those are finished and livable), and it really helps in the heat. I'd say the basement in our place is consistently 5C cooler than the main floor.

Definitely uncommon. Water table in Houston is so high if you dig a hole about 18-24 inches it will fill with water by the next day.

[ThreePi]

Turn off your AC, but turn on your crypto mining!

 

I live north of Chicago and I probably underused my AC. I try to never go below 75f.

[marioandsonic]

I mainly use my A/C in the evening and night.  I cannot sleep if it is too hot, and even if I somehow do, I reek of sweat when I wake up.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

44 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Definitely uncommon. Water table in Houston is so high if you dig a hole about 18-24 inches it will fill with water by the next day.

 

1 hour ago, CitizenVectron said:

Do people in Texas commonly have basements, or is the water table too high? I would say about 95% of homes here have basements (and likely 80% of those are finished and livable), and it really helps in the heat. I'd say the basement in our place is consistently 5C cooler than the main floor.

Biggest reason we don’t have basements is the clay. It’s too hard/expensive/time consuming to dig deep enough for basements. 

[Guest]

On 6/16/2021 at 1:29 PM, CastletonSnob said:

Again, how likely is it that power goes out? I'm pretty worried about this ERCOT thing.

This article says that ERCOT says that it's "unlikely" that they'll need to implement outages, but what ERCOT says, and what happens are two very different things.
 

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/15/texas-power-grid-ercot/#e49a3cd1-1923-4448-8d8a-1129953471a6

 

Looking like we’ve got solid headroom today, so really no worry the rest of the wave. Honestly, were it not for the catastrophe of February, there would not have been a single news story about this. Tight grid conditions are normal when a heat wave covers an area the size of Texas, so grid operators do things to relieve stress like asking for reductions in use.

[vaxick]

I live in one of the most humid parts of Michigan and it gets pretty hellish here throughout the summer.  I leave the central air on 24/7 in my apartment, but I set it to around 74/75 during the day and around 70 at night.  This building turns into an oven without it on.  I am apart of an energy savings program with my electric company in which up to 14 times per season, they're able to adjust my thermostat between 2pm and 7pm. For being apart of it, I get a $20 gift card per season I participate.  

[Uaarkson]

Michigan humidity is the fucking worst.

[silentbob]

10 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:

Michigan humidity is the fucking worst.

Southern Ontario is pretty much the same, but thank god we aren’t New Orleans. Spent a week there and if you like hot and humid as hell temps. . . .what the fuck is wrong with you! Would wake up at 7am and our weather app was telling us 108F with the humidity outside and by the afternoon we were reading 138-146F with the humidity. Just beads of sweat on my arms and legs that easily return after wiping the sweat off.

[TyphoidHater]

On 6/16/2021 at 3:56 PM, ThreePi said:

Turn off your AC, but turn on your crypto mining!

 

I live north of Chicago and I probably underused my AC. I try to never go below 75f.

 

The belief that banned Chinese crypto farms could easily relocate to Texas was the FIRST thing I thought of after seeing the ERCOT plea.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

17 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Looking like we’ve got solid headroom today, so really no worry the rest of the wave. Honestly, were it not for the catastrophe of February, there would not have been a single news story about this. Tight grid conditions are normal when a heat wave covers an area the size of Texas, so grid operators do things to relieve stress like asking for reductions in use.

…are we in a heat wave? It’s in the 90s, in Texas, in June. This is pretty typical. Maybe we’re a few degrees warmer than usual, but not by so much to cause panic. 
 

ERCOT is starting to sound like the idiots that claim “Christmas just snuck up on me” to excuse not doing any shopping until 12/23. Texas summer happens every year. And by June every year we’re in the 90s, and won’t see highs below 90 regularly until late September. 
 

These companies don’t prepare adequately, because nobody makes them. If they didn’t produce enough energy they make up their losses by jacking rates up. There’s more regulation protecting their profits than there is ensuring people don’t freeze to death or die of heat stroke in their homes because the power went out. 
 

The shit should be in the news. Shine a light on it and make them do something to adequately improve their facilities and preparedness. The best thing to come out of the Feb 2021 debacle is the added scrutiny they face. MS faces a bigger media backlash when on Dec 25/26 they have Xbox Live server issues due to the load of all the Xbox’s than ERCOT and these energy producers have faced until 2021. 

[Guest]

Ummm, yes, we are in the middle of heat wave. 

[Jason]

haha suck it Libcuckfornia

 

California urges power conservation as heat wave bakes state - Santa Monica Daily Press

WWW.SMDP.COM

---

Santa Monica News