Solar and batteries or generator when grid goes down?

[Tony Scott]

Winterizing gas service is more about removing the moisture in the product. It is the moisture that freezes and stops the flow when the lines get clogged with ice. It is not about how the lines are made. Most natural gas that is going to be transported long distances where it might be exposed to cold weather has moisture removed. In Texas the gas was was not winterized because no one thought it would get that cold. Also some equipment which ran on electricity had no backup. Therfore pumps and other equipment failed to move product.

Thank you for the information. As far as Texas not knowing, they had the same problem 11yrs ago and did nothing to keep it from occurring again.

 

[Ampster]

As far as Texas not knowing, they had the same problem 11yrs ago and did nothing to keep it from occurring again.

Exactly. They thought (assumed) it would not happen again. That is why checking or evaluating assumptions when doing any long term planning is so important. Probabilities and upside and downside risk assessment are also important processes in planning.

 

[Delmar]

Texas line were not winterized either and they had the same event 11yrs ago and never fixed the problem.

I am an hour north of Houston and am not aware of any NG delivery issues during the February 2021 freeze. Temps went down to the mid teens and power plant problems were from water pumps freezing. I ran my furnace blower from the inverter, and many homes operated NG generators.

 

[Tony Scott]

I am an hour north of Houston and am not aware of any NG delivery issues during the February 2021 freeze. Temps went down to the mid teens and power plant problems were from water pumps freezing. I ran my furnace blower from the inverter, and many homes operated generators.

what are you saying exactly? The state had no gas problems?

Greg Abbott Says Natural Gas 'Frozen In Pipelines' As Texas Battles Outages

Texas could be facing natural gas outages as the state endures its third day of power cuts due to the severe weather conditions.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Delmar]

what are you saying exactly? The state had no gas problems?

I don’t know anyone who claimed there was a NG delivery problem. Considering I do not know either Greg Abbott or you, my statement stands.

 

[Ampster]

my statement stands

Yes it all depends on where you are standing. I have several friends in Texas and they lost electrical power and gas supply. Dallas suburb and San Marcos. It could only be hearsay but I heard that some Natural Gas fired plants could not operate because they could not get Natural Gas.

 

[time2roll]

If I was relying on a generator I would still want several days fuel on site. Connected to a utility gas supply would not be good enough for me.
I stand in an earthquake area where gas distribution can fail.

 

[Delmar]

Yes it all depends on where you are standing. I have several friends in Texas and they lost electrical power and gas supply. Dallas suburb and San Marcos. It could only be hearsay but I heard that some Natural Gas fired plants could not operate because they could not get Natural Gas.

I can only comment about my local power plant in Willis TX. The freshly commissioned, high-tech combined-cycle natural gas power plant was not designed for single-digit temps and shutdown due to the cooling water freezing.

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/montgomery-county-power-station-willis-texas/

Luckily the old power plant on the same site was not decommissioned, and was winterized, so it continued to operate with no issues for the gas supply. However with other Texas plants and windmills shutdown, so the old plant was load-sharing and we had daily 8-10 hour rolling blackouts that perfectly matched the capacity of my golf cart.

 

[Delmar]

This likewise may be hearsay, however some of my customers are in the oil exploration business so I get inside information. What I have learned:

Fracking has released tremendous amounts of NG as a byproduct of oil production. The drill rigs will get fined if they flare-off the gas so will take any price from a buyer, which is why the NG price dropped a few years ago. And reduced emissions as cheap NG displaced coal, but I digress…

Some rigs in North Dakota have no choice but to flare-off the gas and pay the fine. There are no buyers because the remote location makes it cost prohibitive to run a pipeline to a user. Some chemical and plastic companies that heavily use NG are considering building plants up there because of the nearly-free gas supply.

 

[wattmatters]

And reduced emissions as cheap NG displaced coal, but I digress…

As do I - one of the issues is fugitive emissions from fracking. Due to the greenhouse potency of methane, this can in some cases result in it being worse than the coal burning it replaces.

 

[Delmar]

As do I - one of the issues is fugitive emissions from fracking. Due to the greenhouse potency of methane, this can in some cases result in it being worse than the coal burning it replaces.

Fact #1: US emissions were continually rising until the mid-2000’s when fracking became popular. Cited resource

Fact #2: coal-fired electricity generation was continually rising until the mid-2000’s when fracking became popular. Cited resource

Fact #3: electric generation is the only sector that continually reduced emissions since the mid-2000’s when fracking became popular. (cite below).

Yes it is my inference that reduced emissions is a direct result of fracking, instead of being a mere coincidence. My simple mind sees them as oddly connected.

 

[Minimoose]

I have a small solar grid tie system and will soon expand to net metering and a 5K solar system to start then 10K. I decided against going the battery back thing and here is why. Let me say this I was in the direct path of Hurricane Ida in South Louisiana a month ago. We lost power for 16 days. I have a triple fuel gasoline, propane, and natural gas 14,000 watt American made Generator. My house is two story with a two ton A/C central for each floor. We ran the Generator on natural gas. For 16 days. We let the Generator rest 2 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. Changing the oil and filter every 100 hour. Our national gas bill was $260.for 320 hours of running time. We ran one a/c at a time. Washed clothes used microwave, toaster etc. 2 refrigerators also TV computers. Just like being on the grid! The Generator was under $4,000 a good lithium 8 battery set up would cost $6,400 for just the batteries. Generator is just sitting there for next time. So you say "but I can use my batteries at night to power my home. It's costing you over 0.50 a KWH when net metering would
cost less that 0.10 a KWH for being your batteries and the grid don't have batteries that need changing. This is just my thoughts after getting some good info.here on this forum.

I've kept mine simple and portable. I have two 400ah battery banks and 2 inverters with 1300 watts of solar total. One is strictly for the well and the other is for essential items like food storage and maybe computer or tv entertainment. I have a 5000 watt generator if I need to run the well off of that and a 2500 watt genetator for household stuff. I also bought a ecoflow delta as a backup for my backup. My testing shows that I could probably make 24-48 hours without sun from the battery banks, but I can always recharge using either generator if the sun doesn't shine. My 2 refrigerators and stand up freezer along with 2 computers is less than 1000 running watts total. I'm not grid tied with any of this and prefer to keep it that way. I've learned a lot from forums like this and from videos like Will puts out, but learning never stops! lol

 

[wattmatters]

Yes it is my inference that reduced emissions is a direct result of fracking, instead of being a mere coincidence. My simple mind sees them as oddly connected.

It’s also correlated with the introduction and strong growth of renewable energy in the grid. Pretty sure this is far more responsible for grid emission reduction than fracked gas.

Renewables became the second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020

www.eia.gov