(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Solar power is keeping Texas' AC on in the heat [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2022-08-02
This farm is in Nevada, but Texas has similar grids. And they're keeping the AC running in the hottest summer on record.
Breaking news: Texas changes state motto to, “Damm, it’s hot.”
According to the US National Weather Service Austin-San Antonio, Texas:
July 2022 was the warmest and second driest July on record for San Antonio and Austin. This follows the warmest June and May on record this year for both locations. July 2022 was the third warmest and driest July on record for Del Rio. Drought conditions have helped play a role in the continued above normal temperatures.
Now, some of you folks might remember that Texas had a pretty nasty freeze about 18 months ago. Pretty much shut down the whole state for about four days, while the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) backers blustered and our wonderful governor Greg Abbott blamed solar and windmill power for the failures. In truth, it was the failure to winterize the thermal energy sources — gas, coal, and nuclear — that almost caused a catastrophic failure that might have lasted months, not days. Of course, we could have always hooked the grid up to Abbott’s mouth as a heat source, but I digress.
Right now, we’re in the same place as most of the rest of the world; an unnaturally hot summer, even for Texas. On Monday, ERCOT warned of a potential failure in the grid. As Texas Monthly noted today, the potential for rolling blackouts was averted, not by the thermal sources — which underperformed due to the heat — but to Texas’ residents turning their thermostats a little higher and the much maligned (by Texas politicians whose political fortunes are so intertwined with the thermal power industries they might as well be dipped in crude) solar grid, a grid failure was averted.
And significantly, solar power, which has been the star of the Texas grid so far during this interminable summer, continued to set records for energy production. If your air conditioner has been steadily running all summer long, you can thank the mighty power of the sun.
Solar accounts for 25% of the Texas renewables grid; with wind accounting for the other 75%. Wind didn’t do as well on Monday (which ERCOT was quick to point out), but thermals didn’t fare well, either.
While wind produced a low amount of energy relative to its total potential on Monday (and ERCOT put out a release blaming the energy source for the grid’s struggles), both Dessler and Lewin said that was to be expected, and that the amount of electricity being generated by wind was within state projections for a summer day. (Thermal energy sources—gas, coal, and nuclear—also underperformed on Monday.) While the wind farms of West Texas don’t generate as much power as we might like on stultifying summer days, wind farms along the Gulf Coast tend to do well during those hours. “If you’ve been down to the beach in the summertime, there’s usually a pretty good afternoon breeze,” Lewin said.
Right now, the entire desert Southwest is being set up to become an oven. Anyone who’s ever driven the long stretch of I-10 from San Antonio to El Paso (and further on) knows that once you get past the Texas Hill Country, there’s plenty of open space that extreme weather (other than raging heat waves) rarely touches. Let’s put it to good use. At least until we can start building space-based solar grids that can beam the power down to Earth.
Oh, and Beto O’Rourke has promised to connect Texas to the national grid if elected, so that we have a backup for when the next blizzard brings snow to South Texas. He’s also pretty pissed about the enormous profits that ERCOT backers took despite the power being off for four days.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/2/2114145/-Solar-power-is-keeping-Texas-AC-on-in-the-heat
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
