@joshdr83 We need transmission, but we would not need so much so soon if not for the fact that we have spent the past 15 years overbuilding wind and solar. My LinkedIn post explains a little more what's going on. https://t.co/uc9hd92OSR
@joshdr83 Josh, I'm happy to discuss offline rather than making jokes at serious policy debates on Twitter. Thousands of landowners are about to have their land taken to build lines that we largely could avoid if we were building more gas generation where it was needed.
@joshdr83 As one example: the three western 765-kV lines have a total transfer capacity of about 6 GW. 4-5 GW of new gas in West Texas plus some energy storage would obviate the need for those lines.
@RocCityBuilt@TheFrackingGuy@clawrence Also, most of these large facilities are bringing their own power because they are not counting on the grid for full reliability and because the #txlege required them to curtail during emergencies, which many of them don't want to do. Not a sign of a reliable grid.
@RocCityBuilt@TheFrackingGuy@clawrence FWIW, I think ERCOT's reliability assessment next year is going to support our assessment that the winter problem is far from solved in Texas.
@TheFrackingGuy@forrest_f_@mitchrolling@rk__upadhya@xiaowang1984@TermPowerTrader The problem is that ERCOT energy market pays the same clearing price to wind and solar and it does to thermal. No treatment of the different capacity and operating characteristics. It's as if we internalized Lazard's LCOE formulas into our market design, with all their flaws.
@TheFrackingGuy@DavidBakhtiari That's correct @TheFrackingGuy. And term limits make staffers and bureaucrats more powerful than legislators. The support for term limits is well-intentioned, but the empirical evidence is that they do more harm than good. Just look at California.