So, who decides who gets their power cut? Is it the retail providers or someone in charge of the local grid? I’m confused how it works outside Austin, because here, within a service area, everyone gets electricity from the same provider (City) who also controls the grid, so cutting off areas makes sense. But, in Houston, for example, where one home gets it from Retailer A and the next home from Retailer B, it must be a grid operator cutting off areas, and thereby homes from many retailers.
This is a long winded lead in to ask this question: if the high price approved by ERCOT was designed to dissuade retailers from purchasing more power, and the retailer forgoes additional purchase, what happens to their customers if they theoretically don’t have any power to sell to their customers?
My presumption is that ERCOT doesn’t give a fuck. They just push the decision down to the retail supplier, and let them get the angry calls from customers.
Here in Houston you purchase your power from one of hundreds of retailers, but they all get it from Centerpoint Energy. It’s Centerpoint’s grid. So yes, it’s Centerpoint who institutes the rolling blackouts when their grid cannot keep up with demand.
If the retailer doesn’t purchase the power, Centerpoint cuts off the customer and says “talk to your retailer”.
Thanks, that explains a lot, and also why that’s a stupid framework. I mean, that puts retailers in a real pickle, either abandon your customers in desperate need, pass those costs to your customers at exorbitant rates for those with wholesale contracts, or take a huge loss if your customers are on a fixed rate plan.
The latter carries a significant risk of simply going out of business, as well. My provider is Just Energy, which is a Canadian company. They announced the other day that they are on the verge of collapse as a corporation, unless they get a huge injection of capital. They supply power in Canada and in several states. Customers there will be shit out of luck too. The whole system is so insanely fucked up it’s hard to comprehend.
What a tragedy. There was a similar one on E. 12th in Austin. Three died, and AFD rescued several others. I do not know if there was a fireplace or if residents were trying to create warmth in foolish ways.
I don’t get this one at all, basically, the “stalled cold front” language. Current coolest temps in Texas are high 50s, current highest temps are in the 80s. One could easily expect a day in the 90s this time of year across the state, which would presumably put a far greater demand on the system.
Not a big deal, but ERCOT helped create the false narrative:
In ERCOT’s first preliminary report on the causes of the power crisis, released in early April, the grid operator included a chart that appeared to show power generation losses from wind as just slightly smaller than natural gas generation losses that week. But that analysis used the capacity of the state’s wind turbines to generate electricity, not what wind turbines would have actually generated if not for the outages.
and
In the updated analysis included in a Wednesday ERCOT meeting, the grid operator calculated that for the week of Feb. 14, natural gas power losses were several times that of wind generation.
Even the idiots at DERPCOT seemed to have figured out that the first narrative sticks and no one (except you, it seems) bothers to read the follow up corrections.
