Electric Vehicle Charging Prices Explode In Texas Following Winter Storm

[AVANTI R5]

Millions of people across the states of Texas remain without power this week after a historic winter storm pummeled the state. This has not only created a very dangerous situation for people who are struggling to stay warm as freezing temperatures persist, but also highlighted an interesting side effect of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ auction-based allocation system. More specifically, the price spikes that have come along with reduced capacity of the power grid. This could prove difficult for those with electric vehicles, as one Fox Business report states.

Texas is the only state in the continental United States with a deregulated energy market. ERCOT is responsible for managing 75 percent of the state’s electric architecture and supply, and has come under fire during this emergency situation. The company operates real-time auctions in which providers bid to fill their power grid needs. Like with any type of auction, as supply goes down and demand goes up, so too does the price. This resulted in prices spiking above the grid’s $9,000 per megawatt-hour cap. According to the report from Fox, power typically costs $25 per megawatt-hour.

Texas is facing massive power grid issues after a winter storm punished the state. The ERCOT may be partially responsible for price surges.
ERCOT’s Control Room. Image Via ERCOT.

With prices so high, it would cost the average Tesla owner nearly $900 to fully charge their vehicle, if they had access to electricity in the first place. A typical electric vehicle “fill-up” would run a driver $18. While this pricing is all-but theoretical based on the current situation, it is shocking nonetheless. Think of this as the electrified version of gas shortages that take place up north when these blackouts take place.

It is important to note that this sort of pricing surge cannot happen outside of Texas. It is a direct result of the deregulation and privatization of the state’s power grid. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ own auction system also didn’t do much to help in this situation. That said, this winter storm situation reminds us how important the national power grid is to our way of life. As electric vehicles become more prevalent, we are going to need to take some serious steps to ensure that the grid is ready for the added load.

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[AVANTI R5]

Stories Surface Touting Tesla Powerwall Use During Texas Winter Storm

Tesla owners are being saved from TX's unusually cold weather and power outages

As Texas finds itself in a harsh winter and as the state struggles with rolling blackouts, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has expressed his disdain at the situation. On Wednesday, the CEO took to Twitter to note that Texas’s Electricity Reliability Council (ERCOT) is not exhibiting much reliability right now. For some Tesla owners living in the Lone Star State, however, the past days have not been as difficult.

Over the past few days, Tesla owners from Texas have shared some of their experiences, especially those who opted to install a Powerwall battery in their homes. Coupled with solar panels, Powerwalls allow the lights to literally stay on during a power outage. And based on what has been shared online so far, this is exactly what has been happening.

$TSLA power walls saving the day in [email protected] pic.twitter.com/YCL6rzu93s

— dayyanl (@dayyanl) February 16, 2021

A video shared by @dayyanl on Twitter, for example, showed that his home was the only one left with lights as his neighborhood was plunged into darkness. In a later comment, the Tesla Powerwall owner remarked that several of his neighbors might be looking to purchase their own batteries after this winter’s experience. It is pretty hard to miss a house that makes its own power in the middle of an outage, after all.

29 hours on backup power, very grateful for powerwalls during Texas rolling blackouts from r/teslamotors

Other Tesla Energy customers have also remarked that their solar panels have continued to gather ample energy in the daytime, allowing them to store enough energy in their Powerwall for use at night. This was something that has proven extremely convenient amidst Texas’ rolling blackouts, with some owners remarking that they have not even noticed the power from the grid being shut off.

An update for you on winter power loss. Texas houses are not built for unprecedented freezes like this. I was delighted with my Tesla solar/powerwall installation before, but now OMG thank goodness!!! Roof still snow covered! @elonmusk #tesla @AustinTeslaClub #solarenergy pic.twitter.com/cI9KqGQPDk

— Michelle (@Michelle4Texla) February 15, 2021

Even owners of Tesla’s electric cars have found some use for their vehicles’ large batteries. A Model 3 owner, for example, opted to utilize his vehicle as a warm sleeping pod for his wife, dog, and newborn daughter during a power outage. In a post on the r/TeslaMotors subreddit, u/Razzooz, the Tesla owner, noted that without the all-electric sedan and its hefty battery, his family might have experienced a very rough night.

My Tesla kept my family from freezing last night. from r/teslamotors

Texas’ extreme weather has already claimed over two dozen lives this week, with some struggling to find warmth inside their homes. In the Houston area, a family tragically passed away after succumbing to carbon monoxide from car exhaust in their garage. Another family also met tragedy after they tried to use a fireplace to keep warm.

As of Wednesday, over 3 million customers remained without power across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Over 200,000 customers also lost power in four Appalachian states, and another 200,000 experienced the same in the Pacific Northwest. ERCOT, for its part, has noted that electricity had already been restored to 300,000 homes and businesses as of Tuesday night.

Need5

[AVANTI R5]

Texans Using Ford F-150 Generators To Combat Blackouts

We'll bet Ford never thought the F-150 would save the day like this.

Texans are facing one hell of a rough February as freezing temperatures have caused the state's underprepared electrical grid to fail. Texans have been trapped without heat or light and unable to use stoves for days now, and compounding the issue is frozen and burst water pipes. Some people are managing better than others through either luck or judgment, and, in the case of a retired refinery worker called Randy Jones, a little bit of both. According to Detroit Free Press, Jones replaced his 2015 Ford F-150 with a brand new hybrid F-150 in early February. Little did he know how opportune his timing was.

It's another terrific advert for the F-150 Hybrid and its standard Pro Power Onboard system. The system uses the running engine as a generator that provides power to an inverter so the energy can be used to power appliances. A battery pack acts as a buffer, so the engine doesn't always have to be running and automatically restarts when needed. It's one of the coolest features of the F-150 Hybrid.

Jones bought his new hybrid F-150 with the larger system optioned, a 7.2-kW system rather than the standard 2.4-kW one - and shared images via f150gen14.com three days into the outage. Along with the photos, he says he "Ran power to some lights, coffee pot, 75" TV, toaster oven, space heater and refrigerator. I ran it for about 10-12 hours per day to keep the freezer food frozen. I guess that's not much load because it only used a few gallons of gas over that time."

It's such a good advert for the Pro Power Onboard system that Ford CEO Jim Farley retweeted Jones's images, saying: "The situation in the SW US is so difficult. Wish everyone in Texas had a new F150 with PowerBoost onboard generator...."

Jones is sharing his forward-thinking and fortunate timing for the power failure in Texas. "I bought the truck specifically because of the generator for my own safety. I'm happy I bought it," he told Detroit Free Press, "Some of my neighbors are too because they could charge their cell phones and iPads off my power supply."

[dwf137]

It is important to note that this sort of pricing surge cannot happen outside of Texas. It is a direct result of the deregulation and privatization of the state's power grid.

reap what you sow... How's that deregulation working?


The F150 hybrid generator sounds pretty awesome, didn't realize it had that ability.

[heavyD]

Yeah that generator is a great idea.

[torquemada]

it´s a must have for third world countries....

[Masterauto]

It's not just EV charging but Natural gas and all electricity. Windmills frozen and gas mains too. whole world may come to standstill as none can get electronics or parts to manufacture as none can find sea containers to ship anything in our global economy,
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/n...lIcGzVVAy1uliY

[Masterauto]

Freezing rain now in NE and common to lose power

[mhoward1]

This whole fiasco will most like affect gas prices for the entire country. News is saying expect $2.80-$3 by last March.

[AVANTI R5]

Originally Posted by Masterauto

Freezing rain now in NE and common to lose power

Check this out Master

Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic monthslong blackouts, officials say
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02...outages-ercot/

[legacy_etu]

Thank goodness Texas closed down 3 coal power plants in the last 10 years, amirite?


Diversity is a good thing.....

[mhoward1]

Good thing they never winterized their powerplants, green or otherwise.

Ohio, Iowa and North Dakota were like "Huh, our wind turbines and solar farms are just fine" to the Texas Governors' quote about green energy doesn't work in the cold.

[SubaDuba420]

Originally Posted by mhoward1

This whole fiasco will most like affect gas prices for the entire country. News is saying expect $2.80-$3 by last March.

Don't know what the rest of the country is at currently, but in New England we've been steadily climbing the past few months and in RI i'm paying $2.50 on AVG for regular87 the past 3 tanks. So i'd say that's definitely coming.

[subyski]

Texas officials chose to isolate themselves from the national grid so they can't purchase power from other locations.

When designing power plants (fossil or renewable) or any facility, they can be designed for cold weather but most of the Texas facilities were not.

This was just a perfect storm (no pun intended) for Texas to experience this.

[4S-TURBO]

yeah but California. AMIRIGHT

[dwf137]

Originally Posted by subyski

Texas officials chose to isolate themselves from the national grid so they can't purchase power from other locations.

When designing power plants (fossil or renewable) or any facility, they can be designed for cold weather but most of the Texas facilities were not.

This was just a perfect storm (no pun intended) for Texas to experience this.

Not really a "perfect storm"... A similar event happened 10 or 11 years ago to Texas, and privatized companies decided that profits were more important than making the recommended winterization upgrades so they could supply reliable power to their customers.

Texas lawmakers pointing to un-winterized windmills as a failure point really cracks me up. There are windmills in ****ing Antarctica (admittedly likely different designs). Don't spend the money to keep your **** running, and it don't run. The windmills failed because of poor management, not because there's something inherently wrong with them. Wind supplies a very low amount of electricity to Texas in the winter.

[godfather2112]

Nothing better than when the "go at it alone" state suddenly cries for federal support

[SCRAPPYDO]

power is back, we had 3 days of ill effects and thing are pretty much back to normal for most people.

Wednesday we had 3.5million people without power. Thursday we had 250000 people. By the end of today we will have almost everybody back to normal. ERCOT did screw this up, no doubt, but I would take the Texas model all day long. I enjoy my low rate all day long. The only people paying that crazy high rate above are the people who were on a temporary price plan that expired. Story is Crazy in its exceptionalism.

Long story short,

We took too many plants off line for service. Something we do every single year. but this year it was not managed properly. NO excuses for anybody. The windmills that were billed as reliable, were not. BUT, they are not to blame entirely either as they produce so little in the winter may as well be garden statues.

You have to look higher in the food chain for more insight to this. More natural gas plants are needed to help supply the exploding population of Texas. However, due to enormous texas government incentives to build more solar and wind, fewer and fewer natural gas (read as reliable and dependable) power plants are built. We are quickly getting to a point were we will have black outs if we do not get more powerplants built in the next 10 years as our issues will get worse. The more people who retreat from other high tax states to come here combined with the new Open Borders will be making our water, and electricity needs go crazy high along with the population boom.

We will see, but even with all the things that went wrong, it was great to see people pulling together. Sharing food , water, wood, materials, etc. Plumbers were going house to house helping people who needed it. A few of us in my neighborhood helped out some folks with broken pipes spraying water (they did not wrap them, and that is a no no here).

Like Harvey, and every other issue, things will be fixed and people will take care of themselves. Ice sucks though, not going to lie

[subyski]

Originally Posted by SCRAPPYDO

power is back, we had 3 days of ill effects and thing are pretty much back to normal for most people.

Wednesday we had 3.5million people without power. Thursday we had 250000 people. By the end of today we will have almost everybody back to normal. ERCOT did screw this up, no doubt, but I would take the Texas model all day long. I enjoy my low rate all day long. The only people paying that crazy high rate above are the people who were on a temporary price plan that expired. Story is Crazy in its exceptionalism.

Long story short,

We took too many plants off line for service. Something we do every single year. but this year it was not managed properly. NO excuses for anybody. The windmills that were billed as reliable, were not. BUT, they are not to blame entirely either as they produce so little in the winter may as well be garden statues.

You have to look higher in the food chain for more insight to this. More natural gas plants are needed to help supply the exploding population of Texas. However, due to enormous texas government incentives to build more solar and wind, fewer and fewer natural gas (read as reliable and dependable) power plants are built. We are quickly getting to a point were we will have black outs if we do not get more powerplants built in the next 10 years as our issues will get worse. The more people who retreat from other high tax states to come here combined with the new Open Borders will be making our water, and electricity needs go crazy high along with the population boom.

We will see, but even with all the things that went wrong, it was great to see people pulling together. Sharing food , water, wood, materials, etc. Plumbers were going house to house helping people who needed it. A few of us in my neighborhood helped out some folks with broken pipes spraying water (they did not wrap them, and that is a no no here).

Like Harvey, and every other issue, things will be fixed and people will take care of themselves. Ice sucks though, not going to lie

Good to hear things are getting better.

What rates are you paying?

What I gather is that 25% of the power generation in Texas is from wind. But Oklahoma and Kansas provides 32% and 39%, respectively. But if the natural gas/coal plants are not cold weather ready either, well not a whole lot can be done.

ERCOT sounds like they did a lot of mismanagement and everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else. My guess is that there will need to be some design changes or retrofits if they want to be on an electric island so this doesn't happen in the future. Another cold snap will happen again. I mean, we plan for 50 yr / 100 yr floods, maybe ERCOT needs to acknowledge 10-20 yr freezes and winter protect some amount of their power production.

[subUrbanAuthority]

Electric Auction Council of Texas just doesn't have the same ring to it, how slick.

[dwf137]

Originally Posted by SCRAPPYDO

power is back, we had 3 days of ill effects and thing are pretty much back to normal for most people.

Glad you're back to normal. Being without power for that long of a time, especially in the cold and when I'm guessing a lot of Texas might rely on electricity for heat, is no fun. Hopefully they can get things a bit more prepared for the next time this inevitably happens again.

[White out]

This entire situation is hilarious.

I love the "national grid" position. B**ch I remember the late 2000's blackout of the east coast & midwest.

[SoDealer]

Originally Posted by SCRAPPYDO

power is back, we had 3 days of ill effects and thing are pretty much back to normal for most people.

Wednesday we had 3.5million people without power. Thursday we had 250000 people. By the end of today we will have almost everybody back to normal. ERCOT did screw this up, no doubt, but I would take the Texas model all day long. I enjoy my low rate all day long. The only people paying that crazy high rate above are the people who were on a temporary price plan that expired. Story is Crazy in its exceptionalism.

Long story short,

We took too many plants off line for service. Something we do every single year. but this year it was not managed properly. NO excuses for anybody. The windmills that were billed as reliable, were not. BUT, they are not to blame entirely either as they produce so little in the winter may as well be garden statues.

You have to look higher in the food chain for more insight to this. More natural gas plants are needed to help supply the exploding population of Texas. However, due to enormous texas government incentives to build more solar and wind, fewer and fewer natural gas (read as reliable and dependable) power plants are built. We are quickly getting to a point were we will have black outs if we do not get more powerplants built in the next 10 years as our issues will get worse. The more people who retreat from other high tax states to come here combined with the new Open Borders will be making our water, and electricity needs go crazy high along with the population boom.

We will see, but even with all the things that went wrong, it was great to see people pulling together. Sharing food , water, wood, materials, etc. Plumbers were going house to house helping people who needed it. A few of us in my neighborhood helped out some folks with broken pipes spraying water (they did not wrap them, and that is a no no here).

Like Harvey, and every other issue, things will be fixed and people will take care of themselves. Ice sucks though, not going to lie

Bull Scrappy. States with winterized equipments have similar $ per watt rates as Texas and some lower. Only in Texas can someone be brainwashed into thinking putting all of the citizens at risk for the sake of money going into the pockets of the richest of citizens is a good idea. There was no need for what happened to have happened. Every state north of Texas had even more severe weather come down from the arctic than what was experienced in Texas and their worlds didn't stop. Many of them use a much higher % of wind energy, and their world's didn't stop...and they deal with this kind of weather annually without hiccups. The entire Texas electrical grid failed regardless of energy source. Stop excusing away bad ideology and bad business. 1989, 2011, and 2021... shame shame.

[SCRAPPYDO]

Not saying it is excusable. Just saying things are back to normal right now for most of Texas. We survived Harvey which would have left most of the country in shambles. We have our strengths and weaknesses. Just like everybody else. Could things have been done better, well sure. And I am sure things will be addressed in some manner, but I wager politics will probably get in the way... Not making excuses at all. But would not change anything to invite federal control over our power.

We will manage. If the rolling blackouts become as bad as California's, I wager people will start complaining and action will be taken.

It sucked to be cold for a day, but others have it much worse. We have gas fireplace and gas cooktop so we could cook and get warm and take warm showers to help.

I am thinking of installing a natural gas generator though for minimal things like running the fridge and fan in the furnace so we can be covered. Deals are dropping everywhere for home generators. Seems like a decent purchase for 2500 dollars.

[subyski]

The only argument against that is that Texas is the only state in the lower 48 that operates their electric grid independently, so I don't understand the whole, "But would not change anything to invite federal control over our power". The rest of the 47 states operate on the two halves of the national grids. Local regional/state utilities still control the local power generation. I don't see what makes the Texas system so beneficial. It sounds like a small percentage of homeowners are going to get a massive bill because of this too.