What Happens When the Next Dunkelflaute Dunks on Texas?

I’m far from being an expert on electrical grids but I know what’s happening in Texas is not good. A visit to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) dashboards page is enough to show me that.

Texas, as many readers know, has gone whole hog with both solar and wind as electricity generators. Solar is a sometime daytime resource and wind is a famously fickle resource, leaving the stability of the Texas grid to the whims of Mother Nature, who is old and not necessarily sweet.

That means Texans have to depend on dispatchable coal, natural gas or nuclear energy to fill the gaps.

But, as Randy Travis wrote, 18-wheelers can’t turn on a dime. It can take hours to get up to speed. And, operating those plants on an as-needed basis is incredibly inefficient, somewhat like putting tractor tires on a VW bug.

That’s the Texas mess and it's reflected in this ERCOT chart showing the situation a few minutes ago:

Notice what sustains the system. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear account for a combined 56.4% of generation at the moment and are absolutely necessary as dispatch resources when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

But, coal and natural gas are both operating at far less than normal capacity, meaning they have been made deliberately less efficient and more costly than they need to be. These are the costs of extremely inefficient solar and wind that no one wants to discuss. They are costs shifted from solar and wind to coal and natural gas, thereby making the entire system, other than nuclear, less efficient and ultimately raising electric rates well above what they should be.

Now, look at these two charts:

The one on the left compares supply and demand and the one on the right shows the operating reserves. Putting things in context, 8,379 MW of reserve is the equivalent of 8-10 natural gas fueled power plants. Now take a look at this one:

Yes, there are current outages of 19,534 MW, all but 176 MW of which were unplanned, forced outages. That's more than twice the operating reserves. Let me repeat that I am no expert, but these numbers don’t add up in any practical sense. I've no doubt ERCOT has an explanation and some readers will surely be able to help elucidate. What I know is that forced outages are what created the December, 2022 crisis for Texas.

So, looking at the situation as a simple layman, what I still see is a system with twice the forced outages it has in operating reserves. That relationship cannot be healthy.

I am assuming the inability of solar to deliver in darkness could be the bulk of the forced outages but, even so, we know wind can die, too. A very smart reader with a background in energy informed me the Germans call a windless night, when neither solar nor wind energy can be generated, a ‘dunkelflaute.’ That means Texas will be in an even bigger mess when the next dunkelflaute descends upon the Lone Star State and dunks it.

#Grid #Texas #ERCOT #OperatingReserves #ForcedOutages #Dunkelflaute