Electric blackout - Is it all over Texas?

[RiverRat1]

I'd like to know if we get to sue someone. Seriously. I've never sued or asked for money and if this was a storm that destroyed power lines between myself and the provider I'd understand. But they simply chose to turn my power off so others could have more power elsewhere. That's horsecrap.

No my tankless hot water heater is froze also. My dumbarse assumed it was protected since it ran on propane. But of course not. So add that to the long list of how screwed I am.

[flywise]

I hate to jinx myself because i have been at work for 2 days with my wife and kids home alone in the country but as of now the power at home has not gone off in Kempner ( just east of Lampasas).
I'll be able to get home around 7 tonight so i fully expect it do go down

[Rcole1310]

My wife has a friend that bought those Tesla solar panels. I laughed and called them all kinds crazy for buying it. They’ve been running on those batteries, full house, silent, for 36 hrs now. Joke’s on me I guess. I really need to get off my butt and get a standby Generac. My power went off for a few hours Sunday night. All the standbys kicked on in my neighborhood and dang, it sounded like a drill site. Either way, this was the last wake up call needed for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ultrastealth]

We got power for about 3hours yesterday. That’s been it since early Monday morning

[WyoBull]

Talked to a friend of mine this morning who lives in Southlake and he told me his tankless water heater is froze up. First question in my head was why in the heck would they mount it outside? I don't care what kind of warm climate you live in, that should be mounted in your mechanical room.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Mconner]

I’m in tomball and we are going on 36 hours straight no power whatsoever, luckily I have a genny running freezer and small space heater

[captainsling]

35 hours with no power in Katy.

Just got it back and trying to warm up!

[captainsling]

Talked to a friend of mine this morning who lives in Southlake and he told me his tankless water heater is froze up. First question in my head was why in the heck would they mount it outside? I don't care what kind of warm climate you live in, that should be mounted in your mechanical room.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Most houses in Texas have their water heaters in the garage.

[wellingtontx]

The map has less than accurate information.

I know that it is incorrect as obviously some of the power providers are not reporting accurate information.

=====

Yes, WyoBull most of the Rheem tankless hot water heaters are mounted on the exterior walls of your home.

[StrayDog]

I hope everyone stays warm. To add to what’s already been said, our grid has what’s called a base load (basically minimum power needed during low usage - say 12 AM - 6 AM). Then we have peak loading - i.e. 2 pm - 8 pm in the heat of the summer when everyone is cooling off their homes).

The peak load is something like rush hour traffic. The problem we’re having is due, in part, to loosing power generation. Trust me, those power providers want everything running as much as you do because they can sell power right now for a premium. However, when you loose power and try to restore to full-peak load things get squirrelly. There is no power “stored” on the electrical wires and one goal is to maintain the grid at constant voltage. So when they restore power and everyone’s appliances come on it causes a dip in the voltage of the grid. The protective devices sense something is wrong and cause things to trip to protect said grid just as our friendly lineman explained. Then the cycle repeats - it’s why they are trying to slowly bring up areas and allow things to stabilize before turning on additional areas.

Basically the grid is now in a game of constantly changing peak load as areas are restored and/or drop. I know for a fact it’s “all hands on deck” on the generation, transmission, and delivery sides. Another thing to consider is that Texas is a de-regulated grid. Too much to explain here but it, in theory, it’s a cost-savings concept but it complicates the electric producers and transmission folks budgets to keep the grid maintained and reliable.

[BigThicket Luke]

Power has been back on for about an hour in Pearland, but we don't know if it's rolling yet or on for good. All the stores along 518 are still black. About we saved most of our pipes with heat lamps (the well head area) under a plastic rock. Kept the house warm enough with the propane burning stove. Sorry to hear about all the trouble everyone else is having. Good luck out there.

[Box-R]

Reason? More demand on a finite resource.
Have you seen all those out-of-state license plates?
Go ahead and list the last time you saw a new power station being constructed...

[Richard S.]

Our power grid in the whole country is antiquated... Do you remember shortly after the 9/11 attack they were talking the next terroist attack would be on the electrical power grids. Now we can see why this is such a concern....

[Rcole1310]

Question: if we weren’t on a separate grid, could other parts of the country reroute more power here?
Baton Rouge is also without power, why can’t they have power shunted to them? This is all not making much sense to me. I just saw on the local news that we hit peak winter demand on Sunday at 69MWs. We can handle 75MWs during the summer no problem. They’re saying the issue is Texas’ grid is unregulated (whatever that means) and allows too many power plants offline for “maintenance” at once. With no way to quickly spin them back up. Somebodies *rse should definitely be in the sling for this.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BayouCat]

Reason? More demand on a finite resource.
Have you seen all those out-of-state license plates?
Go ahead and list the last time you saw a new power station being constructed...

Yup, Texas population is exploding. Lot more demand and strain on our resources.