Standby Generator

[Texasmark]

Well, true to form, at 10 PM last night, ERCOT managed power to a whole county crapped out and my standby generator came on.
Been running now non stop at 5:30 PM. Somebody there fed the citizens of this great state a pile of dung that they had everyting
fixed from the -4F last year....it hasn't been below 20 this time around and swaths of power are out.

I had a feeling that the trouble makers would be saddling us with one do without after another so I upped the propane tank used to
feed my household generator from a 250 to a 500 gallon tank. Glad I did. Took the 250 and tied it into the household existing 500
gallon tank for good measure.

I thought I liked the fact that TX. is on its own network so that national blackouts wouldn't be affecting us but I'm having second
thoughts. Primary election advertising has started for party nominees this spring. I thought I liked the way the current Governor
was handling things....not so sure now.

 

[guido]

Texasmark,

Yep, the man lied again tonight on the news.... again! We got it covered no problem,

Guido.

 

[Jim Kruft]

Sure glad that you are enjoying the power as we in ND are paying more for power and gas because of the
power problem in Texas

 

[Russ from MN]

Yes, our Nat. gas rates in MN are up this winter because of what happened in Texas last winter!

 

[Billy Shafer]

You can't blame that on Texas. Only a small portion of Texas is on the national power grid. If I recall correctly. Alot of NG comes from the north. The lack of gas in Texas. Was not from a lack of gas supply. It was from the pumping stations freezing up.

 

[dcarp]

Abbott, Patrick & Paxton are the 2nd coming of the 3 stooges. The 3 of them couldnt handle running an outhouse.

 

[shaun wallace]

Didnt go out in Jones and Taylor County Tx.

 

[Steve@Advance]

So far ours has stayed on, 'nuff said about that!

But look at the growth in Texas! Never seen so many warehouses, business, apartments, houses being built.

Allen West?

 

[Charles in Aus.]

Dcarp spare a smile for poor Australians , a few years ago our Prime Minister was called Abbott and Federal Treasurer Costello ! :roll:

This post was edited by Charles in Aus. on 02/03/2022 at 08:56 pm.

 

[Rkh]

Wait till the whole country gets dependent on green power.

 

[dcarp]

LOL

 

[MarkB_MI]

How much longer can TX pols escape being held responsible for their mismanagement of the state's energy infrastructure? Based on the past couple of decades, I'd say just about forever.

 

[John T]

Not to worry mates, it's not gonna get that cold anymore in Texas due to Global Warming !!

Best wishes yall take care now and keep warmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Gonna be near 80 here today yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

John T

 

[miangus]

Yes complete electrification with intermittent generation sources coupled with inadequate storage technologies , yes that's the way to go.

 

[miangus]

Cheapest is not always the most reliable. When you do not pay for reliability you do not get reliability. You seamed to have found a solution, but it did cost you money.

 

[Texasmark]

John, they changed the name to Climate Change remember, since it was obvious the Global Warming hooplah was proven to be a farce.

 

[dr sportster]

Don't tie into the national grid ? Good idea ?

 

[Texasmark]

I sized my Generac Standby Generator system for a survival mode type living during a power outage to reduce the size of the unit and conserve fuel, not knowing how long it would be out, thinking back about the portable units I'd haul out with the extension cords and multiple gas cans, and running out of gas and all that hooplah.

This morning I was warming the house and had put my oatmeal in the 1250 watt microwave forgetting that I had several electric heaters, plus appliances (potentially) running besides the Propane gas heater. Well it took about 30 seconds and the electricity just died out....lights just dimmed down and went out and there I was standing there in total darkness........ generator just shut down.

I immediately had visions of getting dressed and going out and flipping the breaker, hoping that was the problem and before I could get half way through that thought process the generator started itself and the lights and heaters came back on.....with the microwave off. So I shut off a couple of heaters, heated my cereal, microwave was off, turned on the heaters and sat down in front of my computer and tuned in to YT. I didn't know it would self start after an overload but now I know. Must have a current sensor feeding the control board.

 

[Texasmark]

McKinney to Denton was farm land now full. McKinney to Farmersville getting full...Princeton just added a 2700 person sized sub division. 3 story apartment complexes are springing up everywhere. Melissa went from 1500 population to 4500 in about 5 years and there is no end in sight. TXDOT can't finish a new road upgrade before the developers have it full of commuters. Glad I'm retired and don't have to drive to work.

 

[Texasmark]

On second thought probably just a couple of resistors in a voltage divider and a chip sensing low voltage....assuming the low voltage condition was the generator's inability to provide in spec voltage levels at the existing overloaded current condition.

 

[jm.]

If you look close you will see the two in feeds. When we built this house I installed two 200 amp service boxes . One side is what I call essential , like well, freezers, heat ect. Other side is less essential. Installed 20 kw Generac and have never looked back. Soon as the power drops it kicks on and have service. In hindsight I probably could have put the whole house on it. Thing would be if all the big loads kicked in at the same time might be a problem. With water heater and well on I never hear it labor. 370 hrs at 6 years and no problems so far.

 

[Gene Davis (Ga.)]

For many years we used an 8Kw Winco unit that was trailer mounted and I just pulled it under the open carport and hooked it to a manual transfer switch and it served well. We just had to do some load managing and keep gasoline handy for it. We found a nice low hour 20-ES Onan that produced ~18.5 Kw on natural gas and installed it tied into the same manual transfer switch but hard wired as opposed to the #6/3 cord from generator to the transfer switch. It takes about 2 minutes to get everything going like this as compared to about 1/2 hour with the old 8 kw unit and we have more electricity for things also. This is a very dependable quiet and easy starting unit and no getting out in the bad weather to gas it up either!

 

[Traditional Farmer]

Loss of power in my area is pretty common because of all the Pine trees that heavy snow and ice pull over and break off,lost power for almost 5 days 1st week of Jan.I finally bought a PTO
generator.With the condition of the power grid nationwide,closing power plants and more things that use electricity like EV I'm sure the outages will get more common.

 

[woodbutcher]

Our rates are up in TX too.

Butch

 

[sotxbill]

ERCOT is a backbone tie system only. They can transfer power between power zones and power providers. If there is a failure down within the power company, ERCOT can not help you. And if your company chooses not to buy spot power at the current grid price, they also can not help you. Most power companies are private entities and do and plan as they wish. Texas PUC oversite can encourage them to follow certain guidance but can not protect you from the local power company's stupidity. Gov Abbott has said a check of preparedness had showed that all but 3 power companies had made the recommended changes for extra cold weather protection. Ercot made sure that no one had too many power plants down for maintenance by cooperative scheduling. Tough puc rules have discourage excess power generation by keeping profits minimized.

 

[Bob - MI]

We put in a 12kw Briggs generator a couple of years ago. 12kw can do the whole house with incorporation of smart modules that drop off selected high draw items that you set as priority. Went 2 years without any interruptions and then one morning when I got up at 5:45 I heard the generator running. It ended up running for 26 hours and for the most part it did fine. We did however find that the electric stove burner won't work well if the refrigerators are doing a defrost cycle so we are going to install a couple of new modules to prevent that in the future.

Otherwise very pleased with the results.

 

[Texasmark]

On the spot power I was reading that it could go as high as $9,000.00 per MWHr during a peak demand. That is mind boggling.

I get the COOP magazine and this issue discussed the relationship between the consumer and the source of your power including the ridiculous spot power price. Our power COOP and others buy power from Rayburn Country EC, a distribution COOP serving NE TX. Their fuel sources are natural gas, renewables, and purchased power.

I pay $25 per meter hookup fee per month and 11 cents a kWHr. which is below the national average, a cent or two. This December I got a $125 reimbursement from the coop for them being profitable in 2021.