Has Texas ever had rolling blackouts before?

[ClaraC]

I've lived in Austin since 1986, and no for Austin. We've never had rolling blackouts before, even in the summer.

We've had extremely strict water use rules at times, but nothing ever like the disaster we've had this week.

[temptation001]

In the summer the power has gone out in the middle of the worst heats because everyone is running the air conditioning full blast. It has lasted up to 6 hours. But it doesn't happen often, thankfully. In the winter, the power has also gone out now and then, but only for short times, say about an hour or two. What we are experiencing here in Texas right now is just unprecedented. The stores had to throw out all the food because they lost power. People were outside the stores in long lines trying to get their hands on anything they could buy. The shelves were quickly emptied. The problem started when the temperatures dropped really low so people turned up their heating to the max all at once. Then the pipes froze, so no water. Then everyone ran to the store. Took everything they could and then the stores couldn't put out any more food in some places, cuz what they received spoiled, due to the lack of power. So for many it became no water, followed by no heat, followed by no food, although the food situation is not so bad, what's difficult for some is that they told us to stay home because of the ice on the road and therefore had to cook. But if a person has a house that only has electric, they can't cook. So then they said, boil the water, to anyone who does have water. But again, no electric stove can boil water right now. Everyone's situation is different, some have water, I still don't. But the gas stove is good for cooking. Some don't have a gas stove or anything other than electric..

[KathrynAragon]

As of today, fewer than 350,000 Texans don't have power. (.002 percent of the population.) Big improvement over about 4 million who were without power for part of this past week.

However, 13 million or so have been affected by water issues - from boil notices to burst pipes and everything in between. Honestly, I think that's a big, expensive problem.

[OutdoorLover]

El Paso and the Texas Panhandle aren't on the Texas grid, they're on normal, regional grids subject to federal regulations. El Paso is part of the Western Interconnection, and most of the panhandle is part of the Southwest Power Pool. The power plants in those areas have been hardened against winter weather as required by the regulators, unlike most of the plants on the Texas grid, which has been kept free from meaningful regulation (one Texas energy analyst described the state's system as more of an old boy network than a regulatory system). El Paso and the panhandle have had few problems in this storm, like powerplants anywhere else. And if they did have problems, those areas could accept power from other plants in neighboring states, unlike the Texas grid, which is deliberately kept isolated from other power grids, and cannot receive any assistance. I certainly don't blame it on the people, it's the politicians who drive all this. but they got what they designed for.

[jackalope48]

Originally Posted by astrohip

Actually, there is a difference.

First, I assume you're poking fun at the fact it doesn't seem to be "rolling away", just "rolling in and staying". And you are correct, it's not really rolling away much.

But the reason they roll power, or in our case, cut it and don't bring it back quickly, is because demand is much higher than capacity/supply.

Quick electricity supply lesson: If you have too many meters asking for too much juice, there are two options...

1) You can cut the supply to some meters, or entire groups of meters (AKA rolling blackouts), until such time as you have more juice to send. To be fair, you should move those cut-off meters around, cutting off some of them for an hour, then restoring and cutting a different group for a while. This is the true definition of a "rolling blackout".

2) If you choose NOT to cut some meters, if the demand just overwhelms the supply, the system will trip, and everywhere loses power. Think of it like a circuit breaker. It literally can't send that much power down the lines, so it either fails totally, or starts sending lower voltage power. The first is a total blackout, the second is what they call a brownout.

A blackout is what hit the East Coast a few years back. Just. Went. Dark. All at once, millions of people without juice, no warning, no options. You do NOT want that.

A brownout is just as bad in its own way. Lower voltage can cause irreversible damage to much of our electrical infrastructure. That's why they cut power to sections at a time, rather than sending lower power to all.

None of this excuses the situation we're in. But hopefully it helps you understand why the rolling blackouts. Even if they didn't really "roll".

I know there is a difference which is why I was saying this is blackouts and not rolling blackouts.

Rolling blackouts you shed load by rotating through different grid sections and turning them back on. This wasn't that because they turned sections off and didn't turn them back on. Rolling blackouts would have been say everyone having 6 or 12 hours of 18 hours of black out but at different times. Essentially taking turns at having power.

I even understand why they couldn't do them after figuring out that they didn't have the generation capacity to support cold starts. But people shouldn't call them rolling blackouts since they were just blackouts.