Energy Twitter Takeaways from Winter Storm Elliott

Initial takes from #EnergyTwitter on the biggest test for US winter grid reliability since Uri.

Dec 27, 2022

Elliott shattered winter electricity demand records in Texas and across much of the Southeast. PJM and MISO hit stage 2 EEAs while TVA and Duke Energy Carolinas resorted to rolling blackouts during the morning of Christmas Eve.

Grateful to all the folks who worked in extreme conditions through the holiday to keep power flowing. Here are some of the initial Twitter takeaways following the biggest test for cold-weather grid reliability since Winter Storm Uri.

Aaron Bloom’s official take on addressing the reality of correlated outages in extreme weather events. Full unrolled thread here:

Aaron Bloom @ElectrifyBloom

4) Require mandatory interregional planning. It can just be a roll up of IRPs, to the extent they exist. We don’t need the best plan, just a transparent plan. We don’t have any plan today. 6/6

Similar from abluecrab, outlining, uh, explicitly the need for massive energy efficiency. Unrolled here:

abluecrab @abluecrab1

One thing that has come to me out of today is that the Southeast, like the West, has an issue with over reliance on neighbors for tail events WHILE all having assets with correlated failure rates.

abluecrab @abluecrab1

I am increasingly convinced that the only way out of these events is massive energy efficiency. Otherwise you end up with large amounts of correlated capacity (out of necessity) normally shit capacity factors and serious risk of failure during these major events

Market advocates opining on the opacity of the vertically-integrated, monopoly Southeast:

Travis Kavulla @TKavulla

Weird how it has been essentially impossible to know the scale of outages, fuel mix, demand, and wholesale prices in TVA -- an instrumentality of the federal government -- while ERCOT, MISO, PJM have been a pretty open book.

King of Power @TermPowerTrader

ERCOT, despite high prices (a feature, not a bug, of the ERCOT market to be clear) appears poised to limp through this cold with no issues. Meanwhile, let's check in on the part of the grid with no markets, government ownership of the infrastructure, and central planning.

Tennessee Valley Authority @TVAnews

We are asking for everyone’s help in ensuring the power grid remains stable for us all. https://t.co/thtxMNv1jP

Gas markets (and marketers) truly went through it. The gas-power nexus is alive and well:

Paul Phillips @BlueFlameBlues

The mild temps aren't going to help this week, but this weekend was one for the record books....

Andrew Gelston @agelston

Reviewing the 2022 LTSA and the Southeast has pulled wool over NERCs eyes. A bit of a thread incoming. (1/8) Most of the country is in dangerous, but isn't it one of the regions most dependent on a single fuel? @NERC_Official @FERC NERC Report: nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Rel…

Some initial predictions for the future:

Drew Smithee, PE @DrewSmithee

My new bold prediction. We just end up with a very explicit NERC rule about reserve margin.

Jacob Mays @jacob_mays

@DrewSmithee If so it would be a mistake. If there’s anything the last few years have reinforced, it’s that reserve margin doesn’t really mean much by itself.

Peg Leg @tipvortice

@jacob_mays @DrewSmithee Which is exactly why it will happen.

Lower weekend and holiday demand likely averted deeper and more widespread blackouts:

Christina Cress @CressNC

One of most notable things imo re Duke’s rolling blackouts is they happened on 1. X-mas Eve; and 2. A Saturday; meaning system demand would *not* have included a not-insignificant amount of non-residential retail load due to planned holiday shutdowns/reduced ops, etc.

Amperon successfully defended its extreme weather load forecasting title. There were generally large demand shape and volume misses across multiple ISOs in the extreme cold: