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Texas is the second-biggest state. Where are they going to make major connections to -- the Great Prairie? There's a whole New Mexico-worth of sparse population
by coryrc 2mo ago
Texas is the second-biggest state. Where are they going to make major connections to -- the Great Prairie? There's a whole New Mexico-worth of sparse population between Dallas/Austin/San Antonio before you get to New Mexico itself, which you would then need to cross halfway before you hit a major population center.
Enron fiasco put a local power company here in WA in insurmountable debt because they couldn't ship power to California because the lines were already overloaded. If you build a major new power-consuming plant in Washington, you'll need to get power from someplace closer than half the width of Texas (and only even that far because historically we had coal power plants in Montana, so there's existing long-distance transmission).
I'm not saying they haven't made mistakes, but saying a place had "no major connections" is both wrong and ignores why. El Paso has "major" connections to New Mexico. It shouldn't be surprising Dallas doesn't have "major" connections to New Mexico, just like Denver CO doesn't to Portland OR.
- enraged_camel 2mo ago>> El Paso has "major" connections to New Mexico. El Paso is not part of the Texas grid (ERCOT): https://www.epa.gov/green-power-markets/us-grid-regions https://www.epa.gov/green-power-markets/us-grid-regions Neither are the panhandle nor the northeastern portion.
- coryrc 2mo agoGGP didn't say ERCOT, they said "Texas". Which further demonstrates how ignorant it is to say there are "no major connections".
- unethical_ban 2mo agoHere's some reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection Most of Texas is on this grid, not connected to any other states. The total amount of power that can flow between the Texas Interconnect and the rest of the US grid is a small fraction of the Texas grid's demand. That was the point being made by the original commenter.
- coryrc 2mo agoThat's a stupid point to be trying to make and irrelevant.
- overfeed 2mo ago> Texas is the second-biggest state. Where are they going to make major connections to ... Anywhere else in the transmission network that has excess generation capacity. If the biggest state benefits from interconnection, why wouldn't the second biggest benefit too? Daily demand is cyclic, even with no additional capacity added, being connected to grids in other timezones that have different demand peak-times is a net win.