Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".
My office back in Dallas which is not normally open offered to let people stay the night since they happen to be on the same grid as a hospital and I seriously considered trying to make it there today
(edit: when you're on the internet, better to specify which unit you use, your audience is international)
But obviously we're much more prepared for temperatures like this here.
The power is out - there is no heat. For a lot of folks, this is more akin to camping without proper gear, during the winter, and without a fire.
There isn't much infrastructure to deal with snow and ice, either, nor are most folks going to be prepared to deal with frozen pipes.
The folks in Texas don't have the same sort of house insulation either: Since it doesn't get that cold, but it does get hot, the houses are designed to keep the house cool. And since this cold is very rare, folks aren't likely to have actual winter coats. What makes the cold tolerable for me - in Norway - is that I'm fairly prepared for it. They aren't.
-6 is really darn cold for the unprepared.
Hope your power came back already. If not / or for another time: candles are great for heating a single room. Small, safe, but they make a difference.
How do you think people safely camp in cold climates? You can sleep safely at far far below zero in a sleeping bag.
I'm pretty sure sleeping in your car would be more dangerous just because of the discomfort leading to worse quality sleep and fatigue.
I don't understand - how do you think people camp in cold parts of the world? Of course you can sleep in those conditions.
I think the chances of random families in TX having 0 degree cold weather camping gear are low.
Dr. Fahrenheit was of course the famous European physicist who invented the mercury-in-glass thermometer.
If they gave everyone power 50% of the time, everyone would crank everything they have to the max during those periods to get some heat into their buildings. Unless their total ability to consume energy is less than 2x their average consumption, it's not going to help.
To have any effect on overall power consumption, they first have to overcome this effect, and reduce power availability so people can't just shift the load.
Depending on creativity (if you have an electric tumble dryer... that's a fan heater), I bet many people could easily 10x their average power consumption.
If I had power for a short period of time and cold was an issue, I'd be dumping ~10 kW into water immediately (the only energy storage I can improvise on short notice).
That doesn’t have to be the case. I have gas heat [0], that works fine when our power is out.
(Not intending to detract from the rest of your point)
[0] a basic Williams wall furnace on a 50 year old thermostat.
* pilot is manual piezoelectric; doesn’t require electric power
These heaters are super common in California, and some larger homes have multiple of them. I assume they’re not as efficient as more modern solutions, but they are certainly reliable and low-maintenance.
Dearborn gas heater example just like the one I had:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
In The Heights many original homes have a smaller version(s) built into the wall, sometimes a tiny one right there above the bathtub.
After converting to showers sometimes it's right in your face while standing.
Without a full set of built-ins, there were natural gas petcocks in each major room for portables or relocatables like Dearborns.
1) Natural gas has been a problem because the moisture in it has been freezing pipes
2) The cold has caused the pressure in propane tanks to drop, impairing their functionality.
None of this might have been a huge problem if Texas didn't keep its power grid almost completely separate from the rest of the country. That has meant they can't easily bring in capacity to cover their own lack. Though even moderate winterization would probably have significantly reduced the problems. It's not like they have to prepare for continuous -10 F.
Don't they have any kind of smart meter in Texas? Maybe reprogramming them is a slow operation that cannot be done to almost every meter in a short timespan?
The only real power consumption anyone does above usual is plug in their phones. And obviously their heaters run full blast.
Here is our simi-successful attempt to survive.
* boarded up all the windows and doors with sheets, curtains, and heavy drop clothes
* limit going outside to fewest essential trips
* close all bedrooms and abandon them. All pets and occupants sleep in close proximity in a common area
* we have lots of sleeping bags and mink blankets. It’s more about layers
Agreed that they’re misusing “rolling outages”. We got an hour of power a day for the last two days and don’t foresee getting even an hour today. I don’t know who they think they’re fooling because everyone here knows exactly that these outages aren’t rolling and is out for ERCOT blood.
Also, it's up to the power distributors in different cities to cut in the ways that they can. Some are doing rolling blackouts, and others (like mine...) aren't.
This makes it seem like they would have at least some influence on the rolling outages, no?
If you hit the About section and watch their videos, you learn of ERCOT's role as a market facilitator and administrative body. They don't actually own any of the infrastructure, they are just a mediating influence through which granular activities are coordinated. They have the highest level view of activity as a whole on the grid, but there is no centralized control room or intimacy with utilities systems that allows ERCOT any semblance of fine grained control beyond being a message dispatcher and info propagter. Powerful and influential? Yes. Top down driver of day to day operations? No.
If anyone is interested in more about the Midnight Connection scandal, I highly recommend
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/4...
You are crazy to not have a backup generator! It is an essential item to have!
Now I live in a single-family home and have an entire RV parked beside the house (with an on-board generator, and around 100 hours of fuel in the RV's gas tank to run it). I can run an extension cord to power the house furnace as needed, but unless it was below freezing and I was worried about the pipes freezing in the house, I'd probably just let the house stay dark and move into the RV during an extended power outage.
So I can confidently say "You are crazy to not have a backup Recreational Vehicle!". Maybe I should buy a travel trailer to back up the RV.
Might be easier to convince them if you shared the electricity . . .
Do not run a propane generator in or near your garage if it's attached to your home, since there's a serious risk of CO poisoning. It should be located as far away from the house as possible and away from windows and doors.
Prefarably at least 20 meters, especially if it is a gas-powered generator (OP mentioned theirs is propane, which is not quite as dangerous as gasoline).
Edit: I hope you have battery powered CO detectors on each floor and near the bedroom.
Have the water pipes been emptied as a precaution? Otherwise they’ve all exploded due to being frozen, right?
Morbid, yes, but you guys should really get into housing-first for taking care of homelessness.
I think enough air circulation to avoid your breath causing mildew everywhere will mean without a ton of thermal mass, your house is going to get within a few degrees of the daily high within a day or two.