this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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It's not a coincidence that Texas is a hotbed of development for "microgrid" systems to cover for when ERCOT shits the bed -- and of course all those systems are made up of diesel and natural gas generator farms, because Texans don't want any of that communist solar power!
I've got family in Texas who love it there for some reason, but there's almost no amount of money you could pay me to move there. Bad enough when I have to work on projects in the state -- contrary to the popular narrative, in my personal opinion it's a worse place than California to try and build something, and that's entirely to do with the personalities that seem to gravitate to positions of power there. I'd much rather slog through the bureaucracy in Cali than tiptoe around a tinpot dictator in the planning department.
Not to mention their Governor, who seems to be in a race with FL's Governor for the "evil monster of the century award."
Governor hot wheels!
I am a power grid engineer and we are quoting multiple solar systems with BESS capabilities a month for Texas. It’s not all diesel.
I exaggerate -- but Magic Rock is doing booming business installing strings of natural gas generators at Buc-ee's across the state, and I'm currently dealing with an institutional client who wanted to provide backup power for a satellite campus, and didn't even stop to consider battery-backed PV on the way to asking for a natural gas generator farm.
At least we're trying to make reforms to our bureaucracy here in California, the problems mostly originate on the county and city levels. As for why the state is/was rather decentralized relatively speaking, well its cause we roughly the size of Great Britain (the island not the empire) and half the state is mountainous to some degree.