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OT, somewhat. Who else is currently under rolling blackouts?

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gbent

Diamond
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Location
Kansas
Hard to get much done without store bought power. I hope all the windmill and peaking plant fans have to go without pay today and have the pipes in their house freeze.

Sorry, just a little rant about living with third world services.
 
Hard to get much done without store bought power. I hope all the windmill and peaking plant fans have to go without pay today and have the pipes in their house freeze.

Sorry, just a little rant about living with third world services.

I hear all the windmills are frozen, green energy? Sign me up! We can't even keep the power on, how the hell do we charge all these electric cars?
 
yeah its all the windmills
controlled outages

The extreme, record-breaking cold forced power companies into rolling controlled outages Monday as demand exceeded supply.

MAAC utility assistance.png
By: Sam Hartle , Tod Palmer , Hailey Godburn , Andy AlcockPosted at 12:44 PM, Feb 15, 2021 and last updated 7:38 PM, Feb 15, 2021
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thousands of Kansas City-area homes and businesses were without power for a half-hour or more Monday as the regional energy suppliers were ordered to enact controlled outages across the Midwest with demand outpacing power generation capacity for the Southwest Power Pool amid record-breaking cold temperatures.

For Evergy customers, starting at 12:15 p.m. Monday, the utility company turned off power to approximately 60,000 customers for a half-hour to help conserve power and reduce stress on the regional energy grid.

The extreme cold and rolling outages prompted some area school districts to cancel all classes Tuesday, namely Olathe and Blue Valley schools.

While many "snow days" have been transitioned to virtual learning days in recent months, the districts said they were shutting down to do their part in conserving energy.


Check the latest list of school closings and delays here.

With even colder temperatures forecast overnight and into Tuesday, additional rolling blackouts still may be required during the next 24 to 48 hours.


"All customers should be prepared for the potential for these periodic outages," Evergy said in a statement Monday afternoon..

"We've also seen some reduced capacity at wind farms because of icing conditions. Every form of energy generation has had some challenges because of the cold," Evergy spokesperson Gina Penzig said.

Penzig said Evergy's Wolf Creek nuclear power plant in Kansas has operated smoothly.

She added some coal operated plants had some issues earlier in the week which are now resolved.

Penzig also said natural gas supplies are currently tight and that fuel which can be used to operate power plants is being prioritized for heating homes and businesses.
 
The windmills work fine. Quit being idiots. They don't work when the grid they connect to is down or there isn't enough demand on the grid. See the thing about capitalism is that the capitalists are cheap. They build stuff for average conditions and without a ton of margin. So your proud Texas grid wasn't built to handle cold weather and snow and ice across the entire state. But your super cold weather is just a normal day in Minnesota. And a nice day in the interior of Alaska. And the grid and wind turbines works fine in both of those places day in and day out in the weather you are getting in Texas.

Texas just seems to deny that it gets cold weather. I used to work regularly in Amarillo Texas in the winter. The rental cars would be dirty on the outside for a few months each winter. The rental car counter person explained that it is so cold in the winter that they can't wash the cars. Guess what? In Minnesota we can wash our cars 12 months of the year.

I remember a while ago that Seattle was having blackouts and huge damage from *60 MPH* winds. That's huge for them. But in the plains 60 MPH is just another thunderstorm and our trees and our infrastructure handles it fine.

My shops all have redundant sources of heat. My buildings all have at least one backup power source. I've got diesel generators that can be deployed as needed. Can run the whole building, machines and all. All of our equipment that is kept outdoors and needs to work has block heaters and battery float chargers. At every site I make sure that I have some piece of equipment that will always start in the cold so I can boot strap more equipment online by jump starting and/or using the exhaust from running equipment to warm the non-running. In the fall I start putting diesel treatment in the diesel tanks. And I empty the water separators and install new fuel filters. Just stuff like that that costs some money and takes some time, but makes the inevitable weather event or equipment breakdown less of a major event.

So spend the money and make your infrastructure more resilient to weather. Or quit complaining that you didn't spend the time and money and enjoy a few days off.
 
got 12" of global warming on the ground here

record low temp

surcharge on the electric bill (to pay for the windmills)

on the genset

canceled orders from energy companies

welcome to the great reset
 
East of KCMO here.
Blackouts started yesterday, and continue today.

My wife works for a large retirement village and they're out as we speak.
 
If people weren't so butthurt about the myths of nuclear energy, we'd have the greenest energy without failures right now.

Also, getting snow in winter doesn't somehow negate the reality of an overall warming globe.
 
If people weren't so butthurt about the myths of nuclear energy, we'd have the greenest energy without failures right now.

Also, getting snow in winter doesn't somehow negate the reality of an overall warming globe.

Butthurt about Hydro as well.....

One simple way to increase efficiency is locate the powerplants
in the cities, so the "waste heat" you see being shedded in the giant
evaporators, would be piped to the town for heating & cooling.
 
Think Ski!
I just check which hill's senior discount day applies and head there.
Creative adaptability.

:)

Actually, we have not experienced rolling black-outs, but AFIC there's entirely too many days with above freezing periods in the mix.

Sadly, will probably hit 40 today so i have to try to remember how to work in the shop.
Looking forward to dropping temps & possible snow after that for a week, though!

smt
 
kb0thn, wind turbines DON'T work when they're iced up, and if your infrastructure is so reliable why do you have all that backup power?

Hi Gordon,

<sarcasm>I didn't realize you were in the wind business. Cool! My company manufacturers wind turbines that are used in the arctic and Antarctic. We also provide safety equipment that is used in the construction of pretty much every wind farm in North America. Your news that wind turbines don't work in icing conditions come as a surprise. I'll be sure to let me customers know that they have been doing it wrong.</sarcasm>

Why do I have backup power? Because shit does happen in the world. I spend some tiny fraction of my revenue to make things like cold weather not cause my business to shut down. My customers like it when my product shows up on time and works regardless of the weather. Two years ago I drove a shipment of my product from Minnesota to Quebec in January because the LTL said it was too cold. I solve problems for my customers and I get paid well for it. So I prepare and I make sure that I can handle some less than average conditions to they don't affect my customers.

My point is that if you build only for average conditions and get shit that only works in average conditions. The wind turbines shut down when they don't have places to send power to. In the vast majority of cases it is the utility that is curtailing the wind farm output. Texas has their own grid and if it doesn't have a place put to send the power to in Texas, the wind turbines get turned off.

I have a customer that it the power company in a small town in Southeast Alaska. They had above ground distribution lines and they had some of the least reliable power delivery in the United States. They spent money and moved their distribution entirely underground. Now they have some of the most reliable power in the United States. This is a place where we have measured hours of wind above 115 MPH. Where they get so much snow where there is a wheel loader for every 50 people.
 
. . .Your news that wind turbines don't work in icing conditions come as a surprise. . .

I like to be prepared as well. I get the sarcasm, but if your turbines work well in severe icing conditions its because they are equipped with de-icing/anti-icing technology. While not in the wind turbine business, I have extensive experience with airfoils and icing and a boatload of common sense. In the case mentioned above, there is certainly plenty of demand, the power isn't being produced.
 
Butthurt about Hydro as well.....

One simple way to increase efficiency is locate the powerplants
in the cities, so the "waste heat" you see being shedded in the giant
evaporators, would be piped to the town for heating & cooling.

Cogeneration is still in use in many large Northeast cities. although it is beginning to disappear as power plants are moved out of the cities.
 
Frozen windmills, ice on the blades? Maybe the next generation will have deicing cables built into the leading edges.

Jacob stated that they kept the blades turning to help keep icing down.
Heating cables would require the grid to be up.
 
Butthurt about Hydro as well.....

One simple way to increase efficiency is locate the powerplants
in the cities, so the "waste heat" you see being shedded in the giant
evaporators, would be piped to the town for heating & cooling.

Can't do that, the most logical places also have the best views and highest rent potential. That's why ConEd NYC tore down all their waterside power plants, but they still have a very large steam system providing heating and cooling to many building.
 
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