Also, a contributing factor to gas compressor station outages in Texas during Winter Storm Uri was ERCOT (Texas' electric grid operator) load shedding without knowing they were shedding gas compressor loads. This led to reduced gas supply available for generation.
> When load is being shed involuntarily, customers designated as “critical load” can be exempted. Critical
load is typically demand from entities, such as hospitals, for whom a power interruption could be
extremely costly. To be deemed as critical, the customer must first file paperwork. The winter storm
revealed that certain parts of the natural gas supply chain – such as natural gas compressor stations –
were not designated as critical load. In consequence, their power was cut, thereby reducing flows of
natural gas along the state’s pipeline network and contributing to partial and complete derates at
multiple natural gas power generation units. The loss of their output in turn necessitated further load
shedding, potentially creating an unstable feedback loop. This represented a single point of failure in
the energy supply system.
every hospital I’m familiar with has its own backup power generation. Sometimes diesel so they can fully island off the grid for a while (but unsure about water & heat source). And with roll-up generator hookups+contracts if that fails.
Those should be the first requirements before being able to be deemed critical.
Heck, I’m familiar with some orgs that sell their backup generator capacity to be on-call to the grid in the event of supply shortage. To them it’s a profitable load test that reduces the risk of outage.
My local hospital gets a deal from the local power company that they kick on their generators at peak demand times, and the power company pays them handsomely for it. The hospital gets to test their Emergency power works as expected, and the power company reduces their load by a few Megawatts for a few hours.
> Those should be the first requirements before being able to be deemed critical.
Strong agree; however, it would be highly unusual to find that any facility that knows to file critical load paperwork has neglected this, so I'm not sure that it would actually do much other than inconvenience the process.
> When load is being shed involuntarily, customers designated as “critical load” can be exempted. Critical load is typically demand from entities, such as hospitals, for whom a power interruption could be extremely costly. To be deemed as critical, the customer must first file paperwork. The winter storm revealed that certain parts of the natural gas supply chain – such as natural gas compressor stations – were not designated as critical load. In consequence, their power was cut, thereby reducing flows of natural gas along the state’s pipeline network and contributing to partial and complete derates at multiple natural gas power generation units. The loss of their output in turn necessitated further load shedding, potentially creating an unstable feedback loop. This represented a single point of failure in the energy supply system.
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/i... (pages 13-17)
https://engineering.cmu.edu/news-events/news/2023/04/25-gas-... ("U.S. natural gas pipelines vulnerable to electric outages")
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061902... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tej.2023.107251 ("How vulnerable are US natural gas pipelines to electric outages?")