Monticello Power Plant

[CDF]

I hate to see more power plants shut down. The population is growing and we need more power. Just watched a 250 lb female newscaster tell the audience to set our thermostats to 78 or higher to help the power grid. I’ll bet I’d need a jacket to visit her house.

[BiggieSmalls]

Coal and Nuclear are great for base load requirement and do well when running. They don't do well with load swings or cycling and now they are treating some like gas plants.. Most of them are reaching end of life, heck a lot of them should've been decommissioned 10 yrs ago but they keep limping them along.

Wind is good when the wind is blowing (they are deemed "must run" units by ERCOT if available) and solar (it just happens) really makes good sense when the sun is out.

Peaking units aren't 100% reliable but do their jobs, 40-60mws in 20 mins.

A lot of the gas units are 30-40 years old and are being replaced with Combined cycle units, Coal Gasification or Super Critical units, but not fast enough and the emissions regs are making them less efficient, like our vehicles.

ERCOT, EPA and TNRCC all have a hand in the problem, plus the influx of new residents.

[Bob G]

Shut down

Actually, it’s been 7 units. The 3 at Monticello, 2 at Fairfield (Big Brown) and 2 at Rockdale. Martin Lake may be next. Also, they have shut down some gas units but not sure on the number.

Which gas units? Do you know any of the locations and when they were shut down?

tending the fire,
Bob G.

[Garbuster]

One thing I'd like to mention that I recently learned about solar panels is the months that they are least efficient. End of June through middle of September. They will shut off to keep from overheating just like your cell phone does. Some of ya'll probably knew that but I didn't

[kevin nicholls]

Anyone know the deal on this Cap Rock Energy, i think is the name, they're the ones with the generators behind all the Walmarts and other big chain stores. I thought they were supposed to parallel to grid in times of peak usage. Ercot was going to pay for the kw's put onto the grid. A lot of companies were getting rich on that deal, i guess it didn't work out..

[sqiggy]

Which gas units? Do you know any of the locations and when they were shut down?

tending the fire,
Bob G.

Not real sure, but I want to say Hubbard and Midlothian. There was talk of shutting down Trinidad and Lake Striker.
I don’t work on the gas side but every once in a while, they will send us to a gas unit to repair some tube leaks. The last one was at Trinidad and the guys that went said that place was wore out. Of course, most of these units were built back in the 50’s. The last new gas unit built that I know of was Jack County.
Also heard that Perky Power plant right outside of Marshall will go off line, I think, 2023.

[Bryan11]

This wasn’t ERCOT’s doing. Vistra shut down the plant. Now ERCOT did have to approve it, but it was Vistra’s doing. Super cheap NG priced out coal over the last 6 years. Most of that time power was trading for $25/MW. Coal can’t play and be profitable in that arena. Now this is my tin foil hat talking, but Vistra is very powerful and has a lot of lobbyists. I don’t believe it was in the people’s best interest to shut these units down, but it for sure was in Vistra’s best interest. If you decommission plants and tighten the reserve margins, now all your other plants make A LOT more money. Which they did in August of 2019 and February of 2021. If Vistra and NRG didn’t have their hands in ERCOT’s pockets, they should have, at minimum, deemed the plants necessary for reliability and had them on RMR contracts. Didn’t happen and now here we are. The explosive growth of Texas, decommissioning of plants, and the tremendous hurdles the federal government places on new thermal generation has us where we are at today.


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Your first 6 sentences were accurate. Vistra is a for profit business that is publicly traded and reports to a board of directors that operates not only in the ERCOT market, but also PJM, MISO, CAISO, and some others. They are not doing anything different than any other utility company right now, they are divesting from the coal market and cutting the plants that are returning the smallest profit margin in a very very tough market to compete in. All major utility companies are making some move towards renewables because thats what investors want and believe the market is heading.

Also, check your facts about the Feb 2021 incident, Vistra is on par to lose $1.5 billion from the week due to the lost generation that it had to purchase at market prices and the astronomical spike in natural gas prices it paid to try and keep units running that it was not obligated to run during the event.

I was an employee at one of the coal plants shut down and am a current employee at another coal plant. I can promise you i understand the realities of these places shutting down, but at the end of the day, it's all business decisions.

[Garbuster]

Not real sure, but I want to say Hubbard and Midlothian. There was talk of shutting down Trinidad and Lake Striker.
I don’t work on the gas side but every once in a while, they will send us to a gas unit to repair some tube leaks. The last one was at Trinidad and the guys that went said that place was wore out. Of course, most of these units were built back in the 50’s. The last new gas unit built that I know of was Jack County.
Also heard that Perky Power plant right outside of Marshall will go off line, I think, 2023.

Yes you are correct. Pirky will cease operation in 2023. It burns lignite coal. We're scheduled to "cease coal operation" in 2028. We burn Powder River Basin coal. I work at Welsh

[CentralTXHunter]

Your first 6 sentences were accurate. Vistra is a for profit business that is publicly traded and reports to a board of directors that operates not only in the ERCOT market, but also PJM, MISO, CAISO, and some others. They are not doing anything different than any other utility company right now, they are divesting from the coal market and cutting the plants that are returning the smallest profit margin in a very very tough market to compete in. All major utility companies are making some move towards renewables because thats what investors want and believe the market is heading.

Also, check your facts about the Feb 2021 incident, Vistra is on par to lose $1.5 billion from the week due to the lost generation that it had to purchase at market prices and the astronomical spike in natural gas prices it paid to try and keep units running that it was not obligated to run during the event.

I was an employee at one of the coal plants shut down and am a current employee at another coal plant. I can promise you i understand the realities of these places shutting down, but at the end of the day, it's all business decisions.

You’re correct there. They are reporting a loss from the winter storm event. They are making a business decision to increase profits in the coal plant closures. Which they’re entitled to do so. My main point was that ERCOT could have not allowed the decommissioning if they deemed they were a necessity for reliability of the grid. Which they didn’t do. Even with all the forecasting of growth and the lack of new plants opening. Which I attribute to them lining the pockets of ERCOT to make sure they allowed the decommissioning. My biggest issue with deregulation is what has happened over the last decade. We broke it all up, but slowly there are monopolies being formed again. Much like Ma Bell and the juggernaut of AT&T today. Vistra and NRG aren’t allowed to own more than 20% (i think) of ERCOT’s generation assets each, but there’s not a cap on the # of retail energy companies they can own. They continue to buy them up and reduce competition. The current volatility in the market has reduced the number of new start ups in the retail energy market. The only thing they don’t have a piece of (and can’t with the current laws) are the TDUs. Centralization and lack of competition is bad for the consumers and I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.


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[sqiggy]

I work at Welsh

Is that Cason? That’s 3 units there correct?
Between the units that have been shut down and the ones that will be in the coming years, I’m afraid Texas will be looking at some dark days ahead.

[Slew]

Is that Cason? That’s 3 units there correct?
Between the units that have been shut down and the ones that will be in the coming years, I’m afraid Texas will be looking at some dark days ahead.

3rd world power to go with my 3rd world water!!! Awesome!!

[Killer]

You’re correct there. They are reporting a loss from the winter storm event. They are making a business decision to increase profits in the coal plant closures. Which they’re entitled to do so. My main point was that ERCOT could have not allowed the decommissioning if they deemed they were a necessity for reliability of the grid. Which they didn’t do. Even with all the forecasting of growth and the lack of new plants opening. Which I attribute to them lining the pockets of ERCOT to make sure they allowed the decommissioning. My biggest issue with deregulation is what has happened over the last decade. We broke it all up, but slowly there are monopolies being formed again. Much like Ma Bell and the juggernaut of AT&T today. Vistra and NRG aren’t allowed to own more than 20% (i think) of ERCOT’s generation assets each, but there’s not a cap on the # of retail energy companies they can own. They continue to buy them up and reduce competition. The current volatility in the market has reduced the number of new start ups in the retail energy market. The only thing they don’t have a piece of (and can’t with the current laws) are the TDUs. Centralization and lack of competition is bad for the consumers and I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.


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I my opinion where the Texas law makers screwed up in deregulation is when they deregulated the generation side also. They should have keep the wires and the generation regulated. This way they would have control over what shuts down, comes off line, generation margin and such. Right now you have for-profit-companies and ERCOT regulating this and it is not good.

The difference between a for-profit-company and a utility is that a for-profit-company has competition every where and if they go under lives are not lost, business ruined, personal homes ruined and a complete shut down of society the way we know it. If the for-profit-company shuts down or goes out of business the owners/stake holder suffer not usually the entire public. You could argue airlines and maybe a few other companies, but again these are close to a public utility in the service they provide.

You explained it well, the generation plants are ran for a profit; they are not worried about spending 100 of thousands of dollars to weather proof plants for something that may or may not happen. They want to make the most dollar off every MW produced and sold. Less competition for them means more money per MW. Its a win-win for them and a loose-loose for the consumer. We got sold a bag of goods on the way deregulation was broke down in Texas years ago.

[Hoggslayer]

How long has it been off line? Curious how the fish reacted when they turned the heat off.

They shut the one down at Fairfield a few years back and fishing is great now. Before that it was overrun with Tilapia and castneters. They trashed everything up and ruined that place. It's actually nice now.

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[trophy8]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/25/warren-buffett-texas-power-plants/

[Pstraw]

Between the units that have been shut down and the ones that will be in the coming years, I’m afraid Texas will be looking at some dark days ahead.

This is the problem that I see. Texas doesn't have available the reliable capacity to sustain the current population growth. A certain electric bill increase isn't going to be the problem. It will be when the switch is flipped and the lights don't come on.