154 blackstart units — generators that are used to restart the grid after a widespread collapse — totaling 19 GW faced outages during Winter Storm Elliott, according to Lyons. Gas-fired generators accounted for 119 of those units, he said.
FERC and NERC staff found that 55% of the outages, “derates,” and failures to start were caused by freezing and fuel issues, and 41% were caused by mechanical and electrical issues, correlated to below-freezing temperatures.
“In a lot of our [regional transmission organizations], independent power producers, if the market design doesn’t support the expenditures for winterization, they’re not going to do it and they’re going to either retire or just get out of the market,” he said.
Why wasn’t the market already designed to encourage winterization? Why is so much of the electrical grid vulnerable to severe weather on both ends of the thermometer?
I can’t believe I’m gonna go with the government as an appeal to authority. Naming of winter storms is some Weather Channel made up nonsense not recognized by the NOAA, unless something has changed under the Bidet administration.
This icy wasteland is paying the way for my 50ft blue water sail boat (full keel with bow thrusters), and then it’s tropical weather for the rest of my life.
If you own an EV, you keep track of your charge level and know to precondition it to temperature before going out. Which you can do on your phone while it’s sitting in your closed garage.
We got a nice little blizzard right after we got done clearing the debris (and pressure washing some moss ). Still have a deck to rebuild. Hope there’s a lot of global warming where you’re vacationing!
