That 60% thing was ERCOT telling the Feds that without those additional (non-compliant) generators they literally didn’t have enough power to go around, and were facing a massive shortfall of generation capacity. They weren’t capped by the Feds, they were capped by the disaster disabling their wind farms.
I guess I made the mistake of actually reading the document instead of just reading what people are saying, now I’m cursed to know the truth instead of the whatever narrative our side is creating here.
It was almost certainly not just the wind mills, but also the natural gas supply problem.
Everyone was running their gas furnaces and electrical powered heat pumps and resistance heating, the same time that the natural gas fired electric turbines were being relied upon to deliver added peak power, but the pipelines somehow didn't deliver.
Because they changed the NG pipelines, instead of relying on NG to keep the flow going, they changed to electric. So when the electricity died, so did the NG pipelines.
Also, there is an order of importance. Residential and commercial supply has priority. So if they are sucking up the NG the plant can't use it for power generation. However, this is not an unusual occurrence, to combat this exact situation NG power plants would have oil storage to make up the difference. They had to ability to use NG or oil. This safety measure was removed to support green energy initiatives.
The waiver wasn’t denied, sheesh.
That 60% thing was ERCOT telling the Feds that without those additional (non-compliant) generators they literally didn’t have enough power to go around, and were facing a massive shortfall of generation capacity. They weren’t capped by the Feds, they were capped by the disaster disabling their wind farms.
I guess I made the mistake of actually reading the document instead of just reading what people are saying, now I’m cursed to know the truth instead of the whatever narrative our side is creating here.
It was almost certainly not just the wind mills, but also the natural gas supply problem. Everyone was running their gas furnaces and electrical powered heat pumps and resistance heating, the same time that the natural gas fired electric turbines were being relied upon to deliver added peak power, but the pipelines somehow didn't deliver.
Because they changed the NG pipelines, instead of relying on NG to keep the flow going, they changed to electric. So when the electricity died, so did the NG pipelines.
There is a LOT of stupidity to go around.
Texas has more natural gas then Saudi. It’s not a supply problem.
Also, there is an order of importance. Residential and commercial supply has priority. So if they are sucking up the NG the plant can't use it for power generation. However, this is not an unusual occurrence, to combat this exact situation NG power plants would have oil storage to make up the difference. They had to ability to use NG or oil. This safety measure was removed to support green energy initiatives.