More ERCOT fun

[Playa]

Discuss amongst yourselves.... it’s only April, and it’s neither hot nor cold

[4wheels]

yea - I just got a thank you from them for conserving. I did not do a darn thing. What in the world are we doing running out of electricity? We should not have to conserve!!! How much of this is "you really need to install solar so you don't have to depend on us to give you what you pay for?"

[PondPopper]

They are just priming us for the "New Norm"... Get ready.

[sqiggy]

Both of our units are down for maintenance. A sister unit at Martin Lake will be coming down in the next few days for their outage.
If we have a very hot summer, I look for some to have rolling blackouts. To many units that I know of that have been taken completely off line. Haven’t heard of any new ones being built to replace them, but again, I’m not on the construction side. Just talking to these road hands out here, not much in new construction going on in Texas.

[merlin]

But it's cleaner energy

[skipetex]

Both our units are down also till end of the month for maintenance. Then already calling for reduced service hours from now on. I hate this dam wind and solar crap. Anyone that thinks this is the way of the future and reliable is a dam fool.

[4wheels]

Why do these units have to be taken offline? I am not in that world and I am clueless as to why you have to turn off a generator. What kinds of things are you doing that requires the generator to be down?

[GreenZ]

Why do these units have to be taken offline? I am not in that world and I am clueless as to why you have to turn off a generator. What kinds of things are you doing that requires the generator to be down?

The generator is connected to a turbine and there are many systems that require maintenance used to spin the turbine. Also, the generator is connected to transformers that also require maintenance. This work has to be done at certain times of the year, which is now.

[BowhunterB]

Why do these units have to be taken offline? I am not in that world and I am clueless as to why you have to turn off a generator. What kinds of things are you doing that requires the generator to be down?

Not trying to be a smart you know what, just making an analogy. You don't leave a car engine running while you perform a tune up, pretty similar to that. GreenZ is correct, you perform the maintenance when demand is lusually owest. Fall or Spring around here

[Cberry]

My stepdad and brother are both Turbine mechanics and have been traveling the country since February doing maintenance on quite a few turbines. It seems to be a little busier this year than usual but its pretty normal for the spring time to be the busiest time of the year to bring them down. I just think since the freeze this year its a little more noticed now that more people pay attention to these things.

[sqiggy]

And it’s more than just the turbine. Just about all these plants are steam generated. Which means you have a boiler. On a coal fire plant, you get a lot erosion on the boiler tubes. These have to be repaired or replaced. That way you hope they can run thru the summer without having to bring the unit down with a tube leak. Then you have the Mills that pulverize the coal. That’s like sandblasting 24-7. Then you have miles of conveyors to tend with. Lots of work to keep these things running thru the highest demand times.