By Mike Smith, Meteorological Musings
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity tripped [“tripped” means failed]Tuesday night, leaving the state without enough juice. That’s enough capacity to power about 1.4 million homes. By rotating outages, ERCOT said it prevented total blackouts.
“We have the double whammy of extremely high demand, given the lowest temperatures in 15 years, combined with generation that’s been compromised and is producing less than expected or needed,” said Oncor spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar. Oncor operates power lines in North Texas and facilitated the blackouts for ERCOT.
— above from the “Dallas Morning News”
The article didn’t give a clue as to what generating capability failed, but I can make a pretty good guess: Wind energy.
When the wind is light, the turbine blades do not turn. And, the coldest nights usually occur with snow cover and light winds. The 9pm weather map for the region is below. The red number at upper right is the current temperature and they are well below zero deep into New Mexico and parts of Kansas and Colorado, so regional power use is high. Springfield, CO was already -15°F. Temperatures are in the single digits and teens over most Texas with very light winds in the areas where the turbines are located.
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| Map courtesy National Center for Atmospheric Research |
For a time, Texas was bragging about being the #1 state for “wind power” (it still is) and we were bombarded with TV commercials and newspaper editorial touting the “Pickens Plan” for massive spending on wind energy. Pickens himself was building a huge wind farm in northwest Texas. He has now ceased construction.
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| Wind power capacity in 2008. Texas has more than twice as
much as any other state. |
Now, because of relying so much on wind power, the state is suffering blackouts. My book’s publisher, Greenleaf Book Group in Austin, was without power all day and Austin wasn’t even affected by the recent winter storm. Mexico is trying to help by shipping power to Texas, but it is not enough.
Of course, Great Britain has experienced wind power failures (and rolling blackouts) during cold weather due to light winds. So has Minnesota, just last winter. I think we should learn from them.
If Texas had made the same dollar investment in new coal and/or nuclear power plants they would probably be snug and warm tonight. Do we we really want to sacrifice our families’ safety and security along with business productivity during extreme cold for the sake of political correctness?
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Also FYI – Texas wind power induced blackouts happened in 2008, see this story.
See Mike Smith’s book on “how science tamed the weather”.
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UPDATE: 2/3
THE PLOT THICKENS. Please read the addition to this story (at the bottom): http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/equal-time-american-wind-energy.html
Quick update: Texas has over 10,000 MW of wind capacity — not the 7113 reported in the article which was a 2008 figure. So if we accept the wind lobby’s numbers, wind was operating at 35% of rated capacity. In other words, over 6500 MW of rated wind capacity was not available during the crisis.
Regardless of what all of you posters have said and regardless of how light or hard the wind was blowing in West Texas, the fact remains that we have far less generation capacity than we should, for some of the same reasons Britain has the generation capacity problems it is beginning to experience: a lack of new power plants of all types (coal, gas, and nuclear), an irrational fear of nuclear energy, ridiculous government environmental regulations that make it harder to build new plants, and a Federal government with an irrational policy regarding air quality and “renewable” energy that makes it nearly impossible to maintain viable economic activity, in the name of some ideology of “pristine” nature.
The fact also is that when the winds blow very hard, the turbines can malfunction and don’t work properly, affecting their capacity (remember all the posts by Anthony that have illustrated that?). I haven’t seen wind speeds in West Texas in those areas where the turbines are, but I think the point Mike Smith makes is a valid one.
Great job as always, Anthony.
Graphical plot of power consumption under ERCOT’s supervision for the last five days here in Texas:
http://oi51.tinypic.com/mkhd93.jpg
Data series begins 1-29-2011 and extends through 2-03-2011 1300 CST (Thursday)
Notes:
1) The cold front made it’s way through the northern part of the state 2-01-2011 in the AM accompanied by multiple forms of precip
2) The rolling blackouts started somewhere around 2 or 3 AM on 2-02-2011 the next day when overnight temperatures in North Central Texas reached 12 deg F.
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Kum Dollison says:
February 2, 2011 at 11:48 pm
“China was the No 1 installer of Wind last year.”
People love to gush about ‘green’ China. This puts that into slightly outdated perspective (they have recently announced plans for an even more rapid ramp up in nuclear power by 2020):
“Mainland China has 13 nuclear power reactors in operation, 25 under construction, and more about to start construction soon.
Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world’s most advanced, to give more than a tenfold increase in nuclear capacity to 80 GWe by 2020, 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050…
Most of mainland China’s electricity is produced from fossil fuels (80% from coal, 2% from oil, 1% from gas in 2006) and hydropower (15%). Two large hydro projects are recent additions: Three Gorges of 18.2 GWe and Yellow River of 15.8 GWe. Rapid growth in demand has given rise to power shortages, and the reliance on fossil fuels has led to much air pollution. The economic loss due to pollution is put by the World Bank at almost 6% of GDP.1 In 2009 power shortages were most acute in central provinces, particularly Hubei, and in December the Central China Grid Co. posted a peak load of 94.6 GW.
Domestic electricity production in 2009 was 3643 billion kWh, 6.0% higher than the 3,450 billion kWh in 2008, which was 5.8% more than in 2007 (3,260 billion kWh) and it is expected to rise to 3,810 billion kWh in 2010. Installed capacity had grown by the end of 2009 to 874 GWe, up 10.2% on the previous year’s 793 GWe, which was 11% above the previous year’s 713 GWe.2 Capacity growth is expected to slow, reaching about 1600 GWe in 2020. At the end of 2007, there was reported to be 145 GWe of hydro capacity, 554 GWe fossil fuel, 9 GWe nuclear and 4 GWe wind, total 713 GWe. In 2008, the country added 20.1 GWe of hydro capacity, 65.8 GWe coal-fired capacity, and 4.7 GWe wind.”
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
Here is what China actually ‘promised’ at Cancun:
“The Chinese government last year announced its mitigation actions, aiming at reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
“Achieving these targets will require tremendous long-term efforts,” Xie said. “China will adopt comprehensive policies to slow down the speed of emission growth, and strive to reach emission peak as soon as possible.”
http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-12/10/content_11834746.htm
So, they will reduce emissions by almost half per unit of GDP…. BUT they hope to increase GDP by about 10% annually.
Thus they will “slow down the speed of emission growth, and strive to reach emission peak as soon as possible.”
As soon as possible. Now that’s a ‘promise’ with plenty of wiggle room, to put it mildly.
But China is doing the smart thing overall. That is, developing all sources of energy. And hopefully all the new coal-fired plants they are building will be as clean “as possible” with the best current technology.
To John,
Please see: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/source-of-some-of-texas-wind-energy.html
It will answer your question. My facts were and are correct.
Mike
racookpe1978 —
The press release you cite, that was quoted in NUMEROUS media articles today, was written YESTERDAY and referred to yesterday morning. My original post referred to last night and the stated threat, by Texas authorities, of more blackouts last night and today.
Please see: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/source-of-some-of-texas-wind-energy.html
Mike
Apparently although Texas’s football superdome wasn’t effected by the blackouts, Critical Infrastructure to deliver propane to Northern New Mexico was shut down.
In Taos NM, half the grocery stores are closed, many homes have no heat (last night’s low was -20f !), and the nearby town of Questa has declared a state of emergency and set up a shelter.
Is this a discussion on the pro’s and con’s of wind energy or a discussion on the “rolling blackouts” that occurred and the role ERCOT played? Those are two completely different topics. Stop making your politically motivated “guesses” about issues you are not informed on. You really look dumb when the truth comes out. Wind played absolutely NO ROLE in the blackouts!
ERCOT, the Texas grid operator calculated a capacity value of 8% for Texas wind power generation. This is because much of the time when the wind is blowing the power can not be taken due to low demand. And of course too often when it is needed the wind is not blowing. Therefore 10,000 MW is the equivalent of 800 MW of comparable fossil fuel generation.
To Mike Smith (12:35):
My point is that it was conventional generation that went down. How does wind become the problem? I assume you are criticizing wind because it is intermittent and didn’t provide the full capacity backup that conventional generation would do under normal circumstances. But circumstances weren’t normal, and we had, apparently, 50 conventional plants inoperable. Bottom line: THIS time, wind wasn’t the cause of the blackouts.
I’m not a fan of wind. I just don’t want this blog to get a reputation for placing the blame where it isn’t. It makes the blog lose credibility to disinterested observers. There are enough problems with wind — high costs, greater chance of bringing the grid down the more wind capacity we get, environmental and visual blight issues — that we don’t have to blame wind the one time that the coal and natural gas plants aren’t available.
Also, it seems that there are two people named John on this blog today. I am not the John at 12:59. But I am the John at 9:09 and at 6:40.
I live near some of the newest and largest windfarms built in south Texas near Sinton. The farmers and ranchers are tickled pink to have the revenue from the leases! What they don’t understand is why they let less than 35% of the energy generated by the turbines enter the grid on any given day. There is no shortage of wind energy production. It is the lack of energy production between the ears of the average person walking this planet that is at critical mass and creating rolling mental blackouts.
I was born and lived in the Panhandle of Texas for 45 years. In Alaska when someone says, “It’s 20 degrees outside!” The response is, “Yeah, but did you see Amarillo’s temperature today?” The Teaxs Panhandle has been colder than a witch’s chi-chi since before there were witches and none of this shit happened. Remember when they would make us climb under our desks for “nuklar” bombs and tornadoes? Same shit, different boogey man; old man winter and global warming. Doesn’t that just sound fucking dumb to you?
Lots of confusion. The rolling blackouts some of us experienced in the ERCOT grid have not been fully explained by officials. We have heard that a BRAND NEW coal fired plant owned by Luminant, froze up. Who knows? Plausible?
Then our all-knowing crew said that the Luminant plant failure triggered an unbelievable sequence of 49 additional plant failures. That would mean 50 of the 550 plants in the ERCOT grid failed! Again, who knows? We simultaneously experienced low nat gas pressures from ATMOS in North Texas and some of those 49 were nat gas plants.
And get this, the geniuses at ERCOT instructed ONCOR (the distributor, we are deregulated) to cut off feeders on a random basis, but excepted certain areas like the hotels where the Superbowl teams and fans were staying. They cut off a HOSPITAL and electric rail service but the beer guzzlers were left with uninterrupted power!
I seriously doubt that windmills west of Abilene had ANYTHING to do with this fiasco.
Anthony and Mike,
I feel obliged to ask for a full correction or retraction to this article for the following reasons:
1. Wind energy output was extremely high throughout the period when ERCOT implemented rolling blackouts and leading up to that period, making your claims that wind was in any way a cause of this event entirely false. ERCOT data shows wind output blasting along at over 4,000 MW Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. During the 5-7 AM window Wednesday morning, when ERCOT was forced to implement rolling blackouts, wind output was cruising along at between 3,600 MW and 3,900 MW. Throughout that time period, wind speeds on the ground were also very high across the parts of the state with the bulk of the installed wind capacity, with many areas under high wind warnings. A major problem with your article is that you are confusingly talking about the wind speeds and other conditions on Wednesday night, which has nothing to do with what was happening 12+ hours earlier when the blackouts actually happened.
2. As of mid-day yesterday, 8 hours before your post, it had already been widely reported that the blackouts were caused by roughly 50 fossil-fueled power plants totaling 7,000 MW of capacity tripping offline due to mechanical failures caused by the cold, including two coal power plants with 2,700 MW of capacity that were specifically identified in midday public statements by the Lt. Gov. Dewhurst. Why you proceeded to blame wind for the event many hours after directly contradictory evidence was broadly reported is an open question.
3. Great Britain and Minnesota have never experienced blackouts due to wind energy, contrary to your statement in the second to the last paragraph. I urge you to read the articles that you linked to, as they do not say anything remotely close to what you claim they do.
4. At the beginning of your article, you at least make clear that your attacks on wind energy are entirely based on conjecture: “The article didn’t give a clue as to what generating capability failed, but I can make a pretty good guess: Wind energy.” However, by the end, you somehow felt comfortable making sweeping statements like “Now, because of relying so much on wind power, the state is suffering blackouts.” Now that your conjectures have proven entirely false, you owe it your readers, and your credibility, to do the honorable thing and retract the article.
I hope you understand the need to issue a full retraction to stop the confusion this post has generated before it spreads further.
Thanks,
Michael Goggin
American Wind Energy Association
WUWT Readers:
I have posted Mr. Goggin’s comments and posted some questions that I hope he will answer here: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/equal-time-american-wind-energy.html
Mike
The OP was spot on. Wind farms are a boondoggle waste of Federal monies. Who cares if TX paid for them. It’s 19th century feel-good gaia-love-fest crap. Five Nuke plants would give us steady and cheap, say 5cent/kw power. Oh… but that’s not politically correct!!! So we pay more.
Only the stadium in Arlington was exempt from the rolling blackouts, not the hotels and crap the other poster from TX mentioned. Obviously, if they’d blacked out the stadium during MEDIA-DAY at the staduim, it would have had profound implications in the sports media. I can accept they were exempted but so should the hospital districts. This whole thing should be looked into and we Texans deserve a better response next time… and more nuke plants. I hope that comes from this.
Also, the Federal Government needs to allow for reprocessing of nuke fuel like the rest of the world does… that would buy us many years of power without a waste disposal issue. Thank you Jimmy Carter.
Wind generation irks a lot of people because the entire premise is built on AGW and we need to reduce CO2 and the fact that giant corps., like GE, are rent-seekers and practicing “crony capitalism. The need for wind was approached entirely on a political and ideological viewpoint, not on one of reliability, cost, and other sane market factors. Kinda the same as electric cars.
When subsidies are cut and warranties expire, then there will be 1000’s of eyesores all over the country in less than 20 years. There is a history of moth-balled windfarms. Just like the latest fad, people eventually wake-up and go on to bigger and better things. Whose going to pay to dismantle these monstrosities?
A few questions for Michael Goggin,
1) What is the capacity of Texas Wind?
2) How much was actually produced during the time in question?
3) How much did those turbines cost?
4) How many coal plants and what MW could have been available if the answer to #3 was spent on coal power plants?
I live in Texas and survived “The Great Rolling Blackout of 2011.”
Actually, I got off work for the day and got to take it easy for a change.
It’s become quite clear to us Texans that the wind farms had nothing to do with the power outages. It was none other than, OMG, fossil fuel powered plants! They failed. Plain and simple.
Mike Smith took a chance, blaming our wind turbines, and he missed the mark in epic fashion. Mike, dude, that was stupid. I’m sure you thought it was an educated guess and that the tea baggers would rally around you and cheer, but instead the AWEA called you the f*ck out on your misinformation.
Cross your fingers, tonight may be our only chance of snow this winter.
Have a great day!
Michael Goggin: ” Great Britain and Minnesota have never experienced blackouts due to wind energy, contrary to your statement in the second to the last paragraph.”
But that won’t be true for long.
“Figures released in early January showed that as temperatures plunged to well below freezing and electric power demand soared, electricity production at Britain’s 3,100+ wind turbines fell from an average of 8.6 percent of Britain’s electricity mix to just 1.8 percent. Instead of serving up to 3 million homes, wind farms were serving just 30,000 homes, a mere one-hundredth of normal capacity. On the evening of December 20 Britain’s average temperature fell to minus 5.6 celsius. At 6.30 that evening, the nation’s wind farms, which claim a generating capacity of 5.2 GW of electricity, were actually generating a piffling 40 MW, the equivalent of 20 turbines working at full capacity.
When British wind farms were reportedly producing “practically no electricity” over a similar period in 2010 the British Government was forced to ask 95 major industrial consumers to turn off their gas pipelines.”
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/6310/Britains-Wind-Farms-are-No-Spin-Zones-When-Cold-Hits
That’s the problem with wind power. You need two power plants: the wind facility primary and nearly a 100% backup fossil/nuclear secondary. Germany’s grid operator E. ON Netz has stated that by 2020 they will need 96% of their wind turbines backed-up by reliable coal fired power plants.
Several morons have gotten on here and tried to portray this as being anything but caused by wind. It is entirely caused by wind. Windspeeds were low and baseload power plant construction has been lagging because morons in government have been pushing wind forgetting that for every new megawatt of wind, there has to also be a new megawatt of coal, gas, or nuclear built.
Here in Tucson, we have ran out of natural gas. People are being moved into shelters and told that gas will not resume untill next Tuesday. We expect another deep freeze to possibly 15 degrees tonight.
@Kristoffer Haldrup
The US most certainly does have an interconnected modern electricity distribution system, just not in TX, which insists on being on its own with minimal interconnection. I would say there are no countries in Europe, zero, with a more modern or more interconnected system than the US.
@Michael Goggin
As a taxpayer and a ratepayer, I’m offended that I’m having to pay the subsidies that pay your salary.
How would you like to be a conventional power plant that has to ramp up and down to tolerate the lack of production by wind energy. Think it might cause that plant problems? When will people get sick of windgate and the huge taxscam that it is? Wind power has 0 capacity value. It is worthless junk. Can we move on to REAL power that is American made? WAKE UP PEOPLE!