Record 13% of Eastern Interconnect capacity failed in Winter Storm Elliott

Politics
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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?

19GW of blackstart outages is unacceptable.

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Because private companies prioritize profits over all else.

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Maybe they were preparing for that damn global warming that’s been screamed about?

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I’m hoping the fines are still really big in this settlement. Dent those profits a little bit.

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Why not both? Grid should work when it’s hot or cold. There’s gonna be a hot summer that tests the same grid, for sure.

It will be sad if operators and generators are still pretending to be surprised by severe weather when that happens.

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Isn’t it cute how some are naming winter storms for those extra clicks? :rofl:

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