What kind of information are we, as energy layman, supposed to glean from this? How can one present data in a way that conveys actual significance to the audience? All of this information, yet I still don't feel any wiser.
There are some bits missing from this dashboard but as a layman who lives in TX, let me give you the rundown I gave a friend:
This dashboard gives you an overall of the capabilities and capacity of the grid.
Capacity and Demand - How much capacity the system has available against how much is being used in real-time. As the two lines get closer together, it can indicate that the grid is nearing capacity and the need for conservation or an EEA may be necessary.
Grid Frequency - While related to load, a lot of appliances keep their clocks based off of the grid frequency. Our grid is 60Hz. Deviations from that are expected and usually OK. However, anything greater than ~.5% is considered bad and a 1% variation (e.g. 59.4 Hz) can actually cause equipment damage. In fact, the reason we had load shedding back in Feb '21 was because we got down to 59.4Hz.
Wind & Solar Generation - How much of our capacity is coming from those sources. The days where Wind is down usually is when conservation notices come in.
Energy Flow to/from Other grids - How much power are we getting/sending from/to other grids. We have ties to MX, a "railroad" tie as well as ties to the eastern/western grids. We can and do import/export up to about 800 MW from those grids when needed.
ERCOT Ancillary Real Time is where things (IMO get interesting).
Supply Regulation (freq. adjustment) and ancillary supply are really the big indicators of issues. The more "supply regulation" that goes online the more we are having to adjust the frequency of the grid to compensate. If the grid frequency is too low and all of the regulation freq. up has been deployed—that's a BIG issue and indicates that the system cannot deliver enough.
If the system has deployed all of its online/offline reserve capacity, then there simply is no more generation capacity available. When things "get bad" THOSE two are the ones to watch because those are the ones that are engaged in ensuring the overall stability of the system.
