# ERCOT tells Texans to conserve electricity through Friday **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 14, 2021, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281 "2021-06-14T22:42:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/41 "2021-07-22T23:51:39Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Nobody could possibly predict that Texas would have hot weather in July and August. ERCOT is baffled by this. - It was freezing just a few months ago. Who knew weather could change so quickly? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/42 "2021-07-23T00:05:29Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > It was freezing just a few months ago. Who knew weather could change so quickly? It’s just so confusing. Probably Biden’s fault. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/43 "2021-07-23T00:44:13Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > But I also expect Texans to be less forgiving than usual this year. I suspect so, considering that we’re about 3-4 days from temperatures near 100, and Ercot has already issued a press release saying that they’re prepared and ready for the hot weather. I can’t recall that ever being the case in the past. I kind of suspect we won’t see rolling blackouts next week. It’s not going to be unusually hot- just around 100, which isn’t generally rolling blackout territory. North of 103 is where that’s located in my recollection. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/44 "2021-07-23T03:29:40Z")
Remember back in 1973 when some Texans said that Yankees should freeze in the dark? [https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new\_york\_city/entry/let\_the\_bastards\_freeze\_in\_the\_dark\_drive\_80\_mph\_and\_freeze\_a\_yankee](https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/let_the_bastards_freeze_in_the_dark_drive_80_mph_and_freeze_a_yankee) ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/45 "2021-07-23T11:46:32Z")
> **[Officials planning overhaul to stabilize Texas grid - San Antonio Express,...](https://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/SanAntonioExpressNews/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=SAEN%2F2021%2F07%2F23&entity=Ar01705&sk=02897F3A&mode=text)** > > San Antonio Express - 7/23/2021 > … > Texas’s current energy market model was created in the 1990s and **uses prices alone to encourage power generation** , said Oliver Kerr, USA lead for Aurora Energy Research. It built scarcity into the system by design, he said. > > “In this market, you need those times when the lights almost go out to incentivize new generation or old generation to stick around,” Kerr said. “Right now, the market is functioning exactly as designed.” > > To bolster reliability, ER-COT adds a “bonus” to power prices when the capacity margin — the amount of generation in excess of demand — is getting low. This so-called scarcity pricing means prices for power can soar to as much as $9,000 a megawatt hour in Texas when grid conditions are tight or that they can tumble into negative territory when there’s too much power. > > Kerr said the PUC or ER-COT could use the scarcity pricing mechanism to raise power prices before grid conditions get as tight as they were during the February freeze and in June, when about15 percent of the grid’s capacity went offline unexpectedly during heat wave. The agencies could also pay generators for their existing capacity to entice them to stay online and to do more maintenance. > … My bold. That bolded statement doesn’t seem like the proper way for a public utility to do business. Explain to me like I’m five years old. Or three. So public utilities aren’t _public utilities_ in Texas? I know that when I lived in the country, I could choose which electric company I wanted to deal with. Is this similar to what happened when the phone company was broken up into the Baby Bells? Is this the “free market” Republicans are so fond of, as opposed to the Socialist way of making sure public works actually **work** because they’re run on tax revenue not the whims of the marketplace? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/46 "2021-07-23T12:52:36Z")
Yes. Also the Green New Deal. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Probably Ilhan Omar, too. And all those library drag queens. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/47 "2021-07-23T21:20:54Z")
Meanwhile, I feel sorry for the customer service reps and the line crews. They have no control over the corporate idiocy that creates the disastrously crappy service, but as the public face of the company they’ll catch the flak. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/48 "2021-07-23T22:28:52Z")
I think something like 2/3 of the country may be under a ‘hot dome’. If you thought the desert was hot a few weeks ago, get the popcorn. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/49 "2021-07-23T23:42:25Z")
I am skeptical how well a request for conservation will go over in a state for which much of the population lives by the motto of “I got mine, fuck y’all” ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/50 "2021-07-24T00:07:33Z")
In this case, it’s really more “you left me to sit in a dark cold house for a week, and now you want me to do you a favor? Fuck you. Fix this.” ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/51 "2021-07-24T01:49:14Z")
Yet, come November, they will still vote for the same idiots who created this mess in the first place. While I don’t want anyone to suffer in the coming heat (or next winter’s cold), I am hoping that this finally gets the Republicans out of Austin. Of course, we Texas Democrats are quite skilled at shooting ourselves in the boot. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/52 "2021-07-24T02:01:10Z")
Texas is so thoroughly gerrymandered and skewed towards Republicans that it’ll be difficult getting a Democratic majority in their legislature, or getting them to swing blue in a presidential election. In 2020, the governor ordered that only one drop box would be allowed per county-- be it for a tiny Republican county, or the massive Democratic county that houses (I wanna say) Houston. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/53 "2021-07-24T02:07:53Z")
Yep, that county would be Harris County. Remember, tiny is a relative term around here. We have counties that are geographically larger than some states yet have populations smaller than a single apartment building in those states. Then there is Harris County, which has a population larger than most states. The Republican state leaders aren’t even shy about it. The Attorney General bragged that Trump may have lost Texas if it weren’t for the drop box nonsense. Some regulations have been proposed that would only apply to counties with populations larger than 500,000. Why would anyone want to do that??? Hmmm. Just a look at the list of acceptable photo IDs reveals the actual agenda at play here. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/54 "2021-07-24T02:08:13Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > In 2020, the governor ordered that only one drop box would be allowed per county-- be it for a tiny Republican county, or the massive Democratic county that houses (I wanna say) Houston. Also… The biggest county in Texas: Brewster: 6192 Square Miles Rhode Island: 1214 Square miles Delaware and Connecticut are also smaller than Brewster County. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2021, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281/55 "2021-07-24T02:24:44Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > Brewster: 6192 Square Miles > Rhode Island: 1214 Square miles. Population of Brewster County is 9,231 (in 2019) Population of Rhode Island is 1.059 million (in 2019) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ercot-tells-texans-to-conserve-electricity-through-friday/944281.md?page=2)