DOE controls power generation in TX and canceled TX during the crisis

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Important updated information at the end

ORIGINAL STORY

The DOE limits the amount of fossil fuels Texas is allowed to use. In emergencies, they can go to full capacity, but then the power companies can raise rates. The rates went up 10,000 times.

The federal government controls how Texas generates electricity if they exceed pollution limits. It wasn’t just about windmills. The DOE would not allow the power facilities to operate at full capacity until the emergency passed or the rates went up to pay for the pollution.

Texas isn’t part of the National Power Grid but they are not independent as one might have thought.

UPDATED INFORMATION

ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, did not weatherize the plants as they were supposed to and that was a big part of the problem. If they had the three coal plants recently closed down online, they would have had enough power.

Some Texans are getting $7,000 power bills. The Federal guidelines don’t allow for subsidies. That has to be addressed immediately.

We are waiting for a call back from ERCOT, but the latest information indicates that ERCOT first asked for the $1500 Mwh. The power companies were allowed to up the charges as demand increased. It doesn’t change the fact that these Green laws don’t have an escape clause when emergencies occur.

Business Insider reported:

Spiking bills won’t hit state residents who had fixed-rate electric plans. The problem for many comes from index or variable-rate plans, in which rates to power their home or business change with the price of the wholesale market. In good times, a customer’s bill can be lower than it might be otherwise — but if the cost to produce electricity skyrockets, so too do bills.

Last Monday, as freezing weather rolled through Texas and much of the US, the wholesale price of electricity shot up 10,000%. It went from about $50 per megawatt hour to $9,000 — a system cap, according to data provided by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the operator of Texas’ electric grid.

Some critics say ERCOT was asleep at the wheel. Watch the video below.

Watch for more information:

CORRECTION: UPDATED INFORMATION WAS ADDED AFTER PUBLICATION. THE PROBLEM IS COMPLICATED.


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GuvGeek
GuvGeek
4 years ago

The biggest problem in America today is a lack of State’s Rights. The Federal Government controls far too much through Departments like the EPA and DOE. Gov. Abbot should have told the Federal Government to pack sand, but Republicans tend to be Law & Order people; unlike Democrats! The Power Grid in Texas is not part of the National Power… Read more »

John Vieira
4 years ago

The Main sewer Stream fake Media will utter nary a word and the Stasi/Kgb/Gestapo censors and factless checkers will be scoring facebook et al to silence references…

Huapakechi
Huapakechi
4 years ago

Why does this sound entirely plausible?

jpacord
jpacord
4 years ago

I doubt if this account of the Texas weather catastrophe is correct. Abbott could simply have ordered the plants to operate at full capacity regardless of the EPA’s BS regulations. The correct answer is that once the wind mill generators failed the idiots running EPCET, a state chartered group ordered power diverted to the major cities and cut off power… Read more »

Big Tex
Big Tex
4 years ago
Reply to  jpacord

Unfortunately, Republicans are all gutless cowards too. Nobody will do a thing about this. They will all just whine and complain until its out of the headlines. Texas will NEVER secede, never be free, and never again be a Republican stronghold. Republicans are mostly gutless wimps. Texans are mostly gutless wimps with big mouths who talk tough but fold under… Read more »

Sicilian Pastorale
Sicilian Pastorale
4 years ago

No electric for you deplorable kulak untermenschen! What a nice state you have there and it would be a shame if anything happened to it before we can fundamentally transform it with future lifetime democrat voters waiting at the border. No more talk of secession now, capiche. What, you got a $17,000 electric bill, well pay up or we take… Read more »