Great help in thinking through the problem, Lynne. Misdiagnosing the root causes and responding with NEW taxpayer-funded stranded assets certainly doesn't seem like a rational or helpful public policy response.
Why isn’t wind generation expected to be winterized like natural gas? It is in other geographies. If it is expected to be a growing part of the Texas energy mix, why give it a subsidized free pass? Let's require all wind generation to have de-icing, and retrofit the old. Then we can let the market decide how cost competitive it is. If we want to let the market drive things, let's do it fairly.
This is a lawyer's brief for the pro-forced energy transformation side of the debate.
What Texas went through was a massive failure of the centrally planned, renewables-infested Texas Grid. The debacle (the worst in electricity history) was not a 'market failure' or 'fish-rot-at-the-head' natural gas failure. It was a 'perfect storm' of government intervention that had many mothers and fathers--even grandmothers and grandfathers back to the 1930s.
True free market reforms would include ending wind/solar subsidies immediately to stop the grid takeover by the 'unreliables'. (Retirements needed also.) True reform should include abolishing ERCOT to put the 'obligation to serve' on utilities--and in a free market, legal contracts with customer classes where the Grade A corporate credit is on the line. (Utilities would not be franchised or rate regulated.)
Best practices and weatherization is nothing new, and why did not 'best practices' prevail in Texas, the breadbasket of the national natural gas market? More analysis is required that the official studies did not choose to investigate--'the why behind the why'?
Lynne, even if you disagree with this counter-analysis, you should cover this viewpoint. And you might own up to those who thought an 'energy market only' was the central planning answer to reliability.
Great help in thinking through the problem, Lynne. Misdiagnosing the root causes and responding with NEW taxpayer-funded stranded assets certainly doesn't seem like a rational or helpful public policy response.
Excellent summation Lynne!
Why isn’t wind generation expected to be winterized like natural gas? It is in other geographies. If it is expected to be a growing part of the Texas energy mix, why give it a subsidized free pass? Let's require all wind generation to have de-icing, and retrofit the old. Then we can let the market decide how cost competitive it is. If we want to let the market drive things, let's do it fairly.
Has anyone been talking about having ERCOT interconnect more with MISO and SPP, or is that a relative nonstarter?
This is a lawyer's brief for the pro-forced energy transformation side of the debate.
What Texas went through was a massive failure of the centrally planned, renewables-infested Texas Grid. The debacle (the worst in electricity history) was not a 'market failure' or 'fish-rot-at-the-head' natural gas failure. It was a 'perfect storm' of government intervention that had many mothers and fathers--even grandmothers and grandfathers back to the 1930s.
True free market reforms would include ending wind/solar subsidies immediately to stop the grid takeover by the 'unreliables'. (Retirements needed also.) True reform should include abolishing ERCOT to put the 'obligation to serve' on utilities--and in a free market, legal contracts with customer classes where the Grade A corporate credit is on the line. (Utilities would not be franchised or rate regulated.)
Best practices and weatherization is nothing new, and why did not 'best practices' prevail in Texas, the breadbasket of the national natural gas market? More analysis is required that the official studies did not choose to investigate--'the why behind the why'?
Lynne, even if you disagree with this counter-analysis, you should cover this viewpoint. And you might own up to those who thought an 'energy market only' was the central planning answer to reliability.
https://www.masterresource.org/texas-blackout-2021/puct-ercot-capacity-market-rethink/