I don’t think it is that simple. I would bet the restrictions are laws and regulations tied to environmental issues. Those generally have very serious penalties for non-compliance. Huge fines, lawsuits, possible impact on licenses, tied to federal funding
The socialist/communist environmental wackos have been decades entrenched in land, utility, agriculture power in this country. By now they wield a big stick.
If Texas had simply defied them there may have been ways for them to shut down those utilities not in compliance. I would be surprised if they don’t have the power to do that. Shutting down and bankrupting the utility companies in the name of saving the environment would not have helped.
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” Obama, 2008
And now it seems to also apply if you want to run your plant at 100% capacity for a week.
“I would bet the restrictions are laws and regulations tied to environmental issues. Those generally have very serious penalties for non-compliance. Huge fines, lawsuits, possible impact on licenses, tied to federal funding”
Captain Obvious?
“I don’t think it is that simple. I would bet the restrictions are laws and regulations tied to environmental issues. Those generally have very serious penalties for non-compliance. Huge fines, lawsuits, possible impact on licenses, tied to federal funding”
You are correct, without the waiver provided by the DOE, the generating facilities would have been liable for violations of their permits, which at least under the CAA and open to fines, lawsuits, etc.
I think people are missing that the DOE did what was asked by ERCOT, and used their authority under the FPA to waive the emission and effluent limits during emergency conditions. That always comes with only while needed language and reporting etc. all the utilities can handle that easy because they are expert at government paperwork.
The odd thing is the $/MWhr minimum requirement, but if I had to guess it was to create a floor in prices for those units to motivate getting compliant resources on line as soon as possible. Scarcity pricing was well above that at times. It doesn’t harm the generator - they can’t accept less than that.