ERCOT: Texas Was 4 Minutes and 37 Seconds Away From a Blackout That Could Have Lasted Months

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The board that oversees The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) held an urgent meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the winter storm that crippled most of Texas last week. They offered apologies for the devastation the power outages caused and pledged to gather the facts to help lawmakers determine how to prevent it from ever happening again.

ERCOT’s CEO, Bill Magness faced questions from his own board about why these power outages were so severe and why the agency was not able to predict such a devastating outcome before the storm hit.

“I mean, we saw something here that, you know, outstrips any extreme scenario,” said Magness.

In an online presentation to ERCOT’s board, Magness showed slides revealing an updated analysis showing nearly half of the power generating units, 48.6%, in the state shut down at the height of the outages.

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All of this was caused by a weather system he described as bigger than anything the agency's forecasters ever predicted, throwing into question the forecast models used to predict winter weather and the state’s power needs.

“This is the kind of thing that, you know moves the goalposts, number one, so that we have to know that we could see another February 2021 event when we look at extremes,” said Magness.

ERCOT’s weather data shows the Dallas/Fort Worth area was at or below freezing for more than 140 hours. That’s 40 hours longer than the 2011 winter storm that caused rolling power outages.

This time, demand for power hit an all-time record high while all types of power plants - and even natural gas delivery lines to some plants -- shut down in the cold, forcing ERCOT to order outages to prevent a far worse collapse of the entire power system.

One chart presented at the meeting shows Texas was less than five minutes away from a blackout that might have crippled the power system for weeks or months.

Magness expressed frustration at the meeting about how long it took to bring some power plants back online. The graphs shared Wednesday showed for days many were not able to re-start and that's what turned this into such a devastating crisis with lives lost and homes damaged.

One board member criticized Magness, saying he did not do enough to warn the board of the possibility of a crisis before the storm hit.

“I feel as a board member, very frustrated that that did not occur,” said board member, Jacqueline A. Sargent. “And I just wanted to make that statement.”

As NBC 5 Investigates first reported, ERCOT’s audio recordings show Magness spent less than one minute discussing the impending storm at the last board meeting just five days before the storm arrived

“I certainly could have done a better job emphasizing what was coming and had that communication with the board in more depth as well. So I understand your frustration,” said Magness.

On Thursday he will face more questions from lawmakers in both the state house and senate. The start of what some, including Dallas State Senator Nathan Johnson describe as the start of a fact-finding mission.

"It's certainly possible that ERCOT made decisions or didn't make decisions it should have, and I have some information on that. But until I have complete information, I'm not casting judgment. There's a lot of other players in this process, both private and public,” said Johnson.

A fifth ERCOT board member resigned Wednesday, joining four others who announced their resignations Tuesday saying they wanted to avoid controversy over the fact that they live in other states.

iwatchppldie on February 25th, 2021 at 13:04 UTC »

I’m not sure why they put a time here.

When you lose half of your power generation capacity that can cause the synchronous generators to over run. What happens is a generator for the grid is called a synchronous machine it is both a motor and a generator. This has a nice magical property of being able to be both depending on if your adding power to it or taking away from it. It is stable with the grid frequency meaning it will always run at the same speed. But as you take power out of it it will resist it and try to keep moving at the same speed and same with generation.This causes it to run a few degrees ahead or behind the magnetic field. If it runs past it it will switch polarity and blow the generator to shit taking the grid down for months.

If you want to know more information. https://circuitglobe.com/synchronous-machine.html

Edit: here is another link I hope this helps every one understand how these things work

https://circuitglobe.com/synchronous-motor.html

And a tldr: grid generators have a max capacity and can’t go over that or they can be damaged severely.

Edit2: thanks for the awards. I do want to mention this is an insanely vast over simplification of how all of this works.

Edit3: safety systems are in place for this. The safety systems disconnect the generators from the grid but this is a last resort. When the grid is overloaded parts of it have to be disconnected to prevent this. What I’m saying here is if nothing is done it will just fail with no timer involved.

For those of you who want a much better explanation of this then I can ever give lots of info here: https://www.nationalgrideso.com/black-start

fusionsofwonder on February 25th, 2021 at 12:49 UTC »

A fifth ERCOT board member resigned today joining four others who announced their resignations yesterday saying they wanted to avoid controversy over the fact that they live in other states.

What in the...

dyrtdaub on February 25th, 2021 at 11:47 UTC »

Those folks were attempting to paint themselves as hero’s in their actions to avoid the blackout instead of assholes for not investing in secre systems!!