![]() At 00:00 UT on 4th June the Marine Rescue Centre in New Zealand received the first emergency signals. Warnings of the approaching low started arriving on 2nd and 3rd of June but since it was expanding and moving faster than the boats could travel, there was little anyone could do to avoid it. With a thousand miles to go, most boats expected to be at sea for at least a week a time during which the weather could change significantly. ![]() Winds were from the southwest and the forecast for the next few days was excellent. On 28th of May 1994 a fleet of about 35 boats left Auckland to set sail for Tonga. Seven yachts were abandoned, twenty people rescued, and one yacht lost with all three crew members. A dreadful storm that caused what is believed to be New Zealand’s largest marine rescue operation. “That’s more than double their worst-case.”Įxperts are still assembling a full picture of what contributed to the power failures and lawmakers have called for an investigation into ERCOT’s preparedness and handling of the situation.To find the rare images used in the advertisement for Rutgerson’s Multihull Escape Hatch we had to go 25 years back in time to the South Pacific and the Queen’ Birthday Storm in 1994. “None of their scenarios envisioned that we could possibly have over 30,000 megawatts of outages at the same time,” he said. Cohan said the state's emergency scenario wasn't so far off in some of its predictions, but it failed to anticipate the scale of outages caused by this winter storm, particularly among natural gas power plants. Governor Greg Abbott blamed the blackouts on solar and wind energy, but those power sources were not major players in the state’s emergency plans.ĭr. Researchers estimate that had the grid been able to deliver it, power needed for heating would have pushed demand around 5,000 megawatts higher earlier this week. In its seasonal risk assessment, ERCOT anticipated that “extreme” winter demand could spike as high as 67,000 megawatts statewide if conditions matched the 2011 ice storm that led to blackouts in parts of the state. It does not include auxiliary and backup power supplies used during peak demand. Energy Information Administration Hourly Electric Grid Monitor Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy for the ERCOT Region, Winter 2020-21 | Note: This graphic accounts for ERCOT’s thermal, wind and solar generation. And high gas prices further disrupted generation, as operators who could not turn a profit took their plants offline. Once power plants went offline, they were not prepared to restart in the below-freezing conditions.ĭemand for natural gas to heat homes and businesses also spiked, contributing to shortages. Natural gas production froze, and so did the pipelines that transport the gas. ![]() ![]() “But far, far more than everything else combined were the shortfalls from natural gas.”ĭuring the blackouts, the grid lost roughly five times as much power from natural gas as it did from wind. “All sources underperformed expectations,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston. But natural gas - which is a crucial power source when electricity usage peaks - was hit hardest. Energy Information Administration Hourly Electric Grid MonitorĬonservative politicians and pundits were quick to blame wind farms and renewable energy more broadly for the power outages. ![]()
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