121 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 19 Aug \ parent \ on: The Political Takeover of the Texas Electricity Market econ
Yeah, honestly its a VERY complex topic and I'm sure I have major gaps in knowledge.
I will say that California's reliability of power has been much better the last few years than it was in the 2010s in my experience.
The one area that is ridiculous to compare is cost of power. Californians are paying exorbitant prices per KwH. And yet, the "power companies" (calling them private companies is kinda dishonest based on how they are regulated) have struggled to keep their systems maintained. Even with all the solar and wind power generation California has to import power from other states which I believe is the main reason for the higher rates. I suspect the rates were suppressed below market prices and this is what led to the disrepair in the systems. The headlines are often that PG&E didn't maintain their lines and this led to wild fires. I believe that central planning led to mismanagement due to the market being manipulated to keep prices artificially low. And prices are low because there are strict prices controls in California on electricity. Had the state allowed more power generation (nuclear) specifically these companies would not have to import power.
Texas doesn't seem to have a truly free market for power but it is more free than most states I've looked into. I'm sure there are problems with the way it is structured. I'm sure there are people taking advantage of the system to profit off of it but IMO it is far better for the consumers than what is in place in states like California where the state basically runs the power grid by proxy.
I want to add one more caveat. There have been MANY national media stories about California's insane power issues. Newsom telling people to not use power for example. The truth is that in some places we almost never have outages. We also don't have weather that leads to outages but in the past outages due to peak usage were very common. They still happen but they are less widespread. I think this is largely due to the expansion of home solar.
But, the state has peaked in the utility of home solar due to the duck curve. The solar isn't constant in its production of power and it doesn't align well with usage either. So there are times there is to much power being produced and others when there isn't enough. The state used to incentivize solar installation but they have been rolling those programs back. Now the push is for batteries for power storage but the cost is very high. It makes most systems harder to justify economically.
Every house is different. If a household owns EVs it probably does make sense because they would typically be charged at night and your rates in California are insane. You will save a lot if you charge up your home batteries during the day and use them to charge your car at night.
The other darker side of power and solar in California are the programs that the state runs for low income people. We have these companies that go around getting lower income home owners to allow them to install solar on their roofs. Its a complex scheme but basically you stop paying the power company directly and start paying the solar company. You don't own the panels or any of the equipment. But they give you a fixed payment and they pay your power bill. But there are many little caveats to these deals and I believe a lot of people don't know what they are getting into.
Its all so overly complex IMO. Its truly a mess and the incentives are so messed up its hard to talk to people about it without them getting sucked into a mental loop.
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