Hacker News Reader

I dunno, the power grid is an enormous capital investment. It seems like having more than one would be like having completely independent road systems, that is, seriously inefficient.

View on HN

We do.

In the continental US there's three independent grids: East, West, and Texas. There's some interchange of power between the grids with DC ties, but it's pretty minimal capacity-wise.

God bless Texas. :)

Yeah, occasionally folks ask us why Texas has its own grid. We just answer "because Texas". ;)

We do have a couple independent road systems when it comes down to it. Having built such an extensive paved road system allows for there to almost always be an alternate route to travel if something comes up. Electric grids don't work the same way obviously, but we did make the capital investment when it came to roads.

I feel like there's an important distinction between separate systems versus systems which have some inherit redundancy. Both the transport and electrical network have some inherent redundancy, but they're both monolithic, so to speak.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com