Many of the units I worked on as a field engineer were not in turbine halls.

India: Gas Turbines (GT) with Heat Recover Steam Generators (HRSG) - Cogen plant (steam for process IPCL) - all outdoors
Pakistan: GT, HRSG and Steam Turbines (ST) in a Combined Cycle (CC) plant. All outdoors
Puerto Rico: Simple Cycle GT for peaking. All outdoors
Worcester Mass: Simple Cycle GT for peaking, All outdoors
Hartford Conn: COGEN plant installed indoors
Pittsfield MA: Cogen/CC indoors
Pittsfield MA: Simple Cycle outdoors
Stanford university: COGEN plant mixed installation
Rensselaer NY: COGEN indoors
Long Island, NY: Simple Cycle outdoors
Long Island, NY#2: Simple Cycle outdoors
Dover Delaware: Simple Cycle Outdoors
Bayonne NJ: Combined Cycle, outdoors
Cherry hill NJ: Combined cycle/Cogen - indoor hall (Chemical refinery)
Cherry Hill NJ#2, Combined Cycle outdoors
Laurel MD: Combined cycle outdoor
Pawtucket, RI: Combined cycle/Cogen - Indoor
Indian Head, MD, multi unit station, Cogen - Outdoors
South Jersey: Simple Cycle outdoors

My sister Austin finally got water back today. She got power back three days ago.

Not sure if states other than Texas allow consumers to pick their rate plan, but word to the wise: at least once a decade (and sometimes more often), the spot price of natural gas and electricity "blows out", i.e., it goes abnormally high for some [usually] short term period. Because of that, I would NEVER have a fully floating rate plan like Griddy offered. That's a recipe for disaster.

For those not familiar with the Texas power market, we can choose amongst dozens, maybe hundreds, of different rate plans. Want only renewable energy ? There's a plan for that. Want free nights and weekends? There's a plan for that. Want a plan that is really cheap if you keep your usage under a certain amount? You get the idea. You can see for yourself at www.powertochoose.org. Use zip code 77002 to see current rate plans.

Over the years, I've changed my power provider a couple dozen times. And it's saved me a bundle. But I never once thought about taking the floating rate deal. If I had a business/factory that I could shut down, or if I had a whole house generator like Redbeard, I might consider it, but the savings versus the locked-in rate would need to be significant. The risk of a blowout is just too great.

The Texas power market is a neat system, but it's not perfect. There are games that the providers play. You have to read the contract and understand your risk. I keep a spreadsheet of my past 5 years of monthly power usage and "backtest" any plan I'm considering against my historical usage. If you know what you're doing you can save a bunch. I've probably saved at least $10k over the past decade. But it's admittedly a system that's not for everybody.

Based on this past week's happenings, the right (regulatory) answer is for contracts for residential service to have a capped price. Maybe that cap is 50c/kwh. Don't know. But it can't be unlimited (or $10/kwh or whatever it is now). That would force all power providers to have some amount of risk management, not just a pass through rate. And such risk management would improve demand for standby generation, thus making the system more reliable.

Correct but not all of TX.

Where I am we have a choice of exactly one provider and one plan.

They are the 2nd largest co-op in the state.

It's not just griddy customers.

City of Denton had a single day expenditure that eclipsed their total spend from 2020.

https://dentonrc.com/business/officials-denton-municipal-electric-paid-207-million-for-energy-during-outages/article_1ae59757-c532-5ba9-bfbc-252b2222f51a.html#:~:text=Officials%3A%20Denton%20 Municipal%20Electric%20paid%20%24207%20million%20f or%20energy%20during%20outages,-By%20Paul%20Bryant&text=Denton%20Energy%20Center%2 0on%20Jim,2021%2C%20in%20Denton%2C%20Texas.

Yes and no. I can't choose. It's about infrastructure and who built it. Transmission. In some areas, they don't want competition, some will allow competitors to come in. Maintenance is the bottom line.

I can push my city to change it with my vote, but it takes many others also.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lights-stayed-during-texas-storm-160028286.html

This story explains it pretty well.

“My savings is gone,” said Scott Willoughby, a 63-year-old Army veteran who lives on Social Security payments in a Dallas suburb. He said he had nearly emptied his savings account so that he would be able to pay the $16,752 electric bill charged to his credit card — 70 times what he usually pays for all of his utilities combined. “There’s nothing I can do about it, but it’s broken me.”

Katrina Tanner, a Griddy customer who lives in Nevada, Texas, said she had been charged $6,200 already this month, more than five times what she paid in all of 2020. She began using Griddy at a friend’s suggestion a couple of years ago and was pleased at the time with how simple it was to sign up.

Boil Water noticed dropped in Houston area. This is huge.

I agree. I think in the other thread I detailed that many cities and the rural electric cooperative have single provider, single plan systems. Austin, Denton, San Antonia, Bluebonnet Electric are a few examples.

My son and I made a quick trip up to the family property in central Texas to evaluate the damage. Of the five structures with water, three made it through the freeze with no problems. On one, the CPVC line going to the outside hose bib cracked in the utility room, an easy fix as the pipe is exposed. On another, the CPVC cracked inside of an interior wall. I am thinking of just abandoning the old pipe and run PEX along the wall right below the ceiling in the bathroom. Just add to the rustic atmosphere.

Family members that live within 1/2 mile of us have 5 leaks, they think. GVEC. We were very lucky to be on the same grid as critical infrastructure. Seguin.

It's a mess.

We are thinking of a kitchen & bathroom remodel in a couple of years. If so, we are re-doing the piping in the entire house.

That seems to be the norm out in the country near us. When we were buying the property that we just bought, I called 3 different places before I found the only place that we can get power from. It's a co-op. One of the other places was also a co-op, but that served a different area. And in the process, I found several other co-ops that serve other areas. If you're in the co-ops area, you get power from the co-op. Mine says it's voluntary that you join the co-op, but if you want power that you don't have to make yourself, then you are a member of the co-op.

Never fully understood dereg. Ohio deregulated several years ago. The co op I'm a member of didn't opt in so here I am! Can't complain though. My service has gotten gradually better over the years to where it now takes 10 cows farting to knock out power rather than just one! :)

It doesn't make sense to me how I could be on Midwest lines but paying AEP for my power.

Most likely AEP pays Midwest for the use of their infrastructure. They rent the lines.

Maintenance of those lines could be all on Midwest, but normally it is an agreement where both play separate roles in maintaining transmission to customers.

Why did Texas decide not to connect to national grid? Isn't that kinda vulnerable to black swan events?

I also buy electricity from "Griddy" equivalent, but whole Swedish grid buys leccy from abroad if needed. (Actually, we sometimes sell in north and buy in south).

Just checking in. We survived the storm. I don't need snow for another decade, thank you.

I agree. Last Monday I had a high of 9 and a low of -7 and a foot of future snow starting.

Today 63 and 30 and most snow melted.

Because TX hates the Fed and connecting to other grids would have exposed it to regulation.

The generating source only had a few customers to pay for all the costs to generate.
If they were connected to the rest of the Western Intermountain Grid those costs would of been aggregated across a bigger group of customers. The historical decision from the 20's and 30's to stand on their own and not share electrical capacity was a solution for then that bit them in the ass today.