In Texas this week, cooling temperatures are flooding the state’s power grid, filling up rolling blackouts, multi-day power outages – and devastating electric bills.
According to the Dallas Morning News, some Texans have incurred as much as 17,000 power bills for just a few days of electricity, many times more than the normal cost of power in Texas.
In particular, it’s Texas residents who have relied on bulk power plans, rather than fixed-rate plans, who have been hit by a winter storm and have seen their bills rise after a sharp surge in electricity demand in the state this week as temperatures have dropped. Texas, which has a regulated electricity market, has a number of providers, both wholesale and fixed rates.
Fixed rate customers pay an agreed-rate for their power, but wholesale buyers pay a variable rate; Whatever the current price per kilowatt-hour of electricity. Wholesale power plans offered by Texas energy company Gridi can be lucrative, as during good weather, a customer on a variable plan will pay less than one on a fixed-rate plan, according to Texas spokesman Andrew Barlow’s Public Utilities Commission.
The problem is that the weather isn’t always good – in Dallas on Tuesday, the temperature was 4 degrees Fahrenheit lower than the anchorage in Alaska.
It turned blackouts across the state amid rising demand for electricity due to the cold weather; In return, that demand pushed up wholesale prices in the Dallas area on Wednesday with a surface of $ 8,800 per megawatt hour.
According to Reuters, the wholesale rate was just $ 50 per megawatt-hour before this week’s storm. On Wednesday, the Texas Public Utilities Commission pushed wholesale prices to 000 9,000 per megawatt-hour or $ 9 per kilowatt-hour.
Gridy, the wholesale power company that has suffered the most from customers online, warned consumers on Monday that their rates could rise immediately with the onset of cold weather – but that warning did not come in time to replace many Texans. The service provider, the Dallas Morning News, reported Friday and people are still being protected by their power bills.
“પાંચ 5,000 for five days is outrageous,” Dallas resident Deandre Ups told Morning News reporter Maria Halkias on Friday. “No one could have expected this except the people who run the service and the power grid.”
The winter storm was not the first time wholesale customers in Texas were stuck with large bills due to unpredictable weather; In 2019, the heat wave led to an increase in electricity consumption – and a sharp rise in wholesale prices – causing many Texans to pay hundreds of dollars more than they expected. But for some Texans, the current situation is worse than the order of many parameters, and amid the epidemic downturn, U.S. Together, financially difficult times come.
According to The Verge, “Last year, 4.8 million Americans were unable to pay at least one energy bill and received a disconnection notice from their utility company.” Texas ’supervised wholesale power bills are sure to exacerbate the post-storm problem.
As Texas struggles to recover from the winter storm – President J. Biden approved a major disaster declaration for the state on Saturday – it’s unclear what comes next for Texans stuck with the astronomical energy bill.
In a statement Friday, however, Gridi said he seeks relief from customers of the Electric Reliability Council Texas of Texas (EARCOT), which manages most of the state’s power grid, and the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
“Gridy is continuing these efforts and is committed to giving customers credit for the dollar-to-dollar relief,” the company said. If this relief fails, customers may come on the hook for bills worth thousands of dollars.
Electric bills are a big part of Texas’ power problem this week
The state of Texas has been in unprecedented trouble this week due to its unique power system: like the rest of the lower 48s, most of the loan is dependent on the star state earkot. Independent, internal power gridIs, which supplies about 90 per cent of the state’s electricity.
El Paso is the only Texas city that is part of the Western Interconnect Power Grid. The rest of our state has its own old power grid thanks to officials trying to evade federal regulations. Thanks to them, 2.5 million texts have no power pic.twitter.com/Ik9SSc4ioh
– Sunrise El Paso (@ SunrisePaso) February 16, 2021
As Umair Irfan of Vox explained earlier this week, it has been a tough week for the grid, even though Texas is “the largest oil, natural gas and wind power producer” in the country. Demand has outstripped supply, leading to blackouts and dramatically higher prices.
According to Irfan:
Adequate resources of the state have been put to the test due to the sudden cold snap this week, with demand reaching record highs for winter, more than 69,000,000 MW. Which is 3,200 MW more than the previous record set in 2018.
Power supply fell sharply in the last few days as demand reached new heights, far below operators’ expectations. In general, earcoats plan to stay warmer in winter and expect less energy demand. Summer Texas Power providers frequently list downtime and maintenance during the winter months in preparation for a large annual surge in electricity demand in the summer. Adequate wind and solar energy resources of the state are also depleted in winter, so Ircot is not dependent on them to meet their expected demand.
Texas’ power grid was also cut off from normal power supply after natural gas pipelines froze in the winter, and energy generation went up across the board. This put the state in even worse trouble, and contributed to the high power prices.
According to NBC, Texas’ decision to stay on the independent grid dates back more than 80 years, and was intended to keep Texas utilities free from federal regulation. It has succeeded in that calculation – but at the cost of not being able to borrow power from other states in times of crisis.
“The Texas power grid is truly an island,” Rice University professor Daniel Cohen told Vox earlier this week. “Whatever happens stays in Texas.”
By Friday, things were getting normal with the Texas grid, although the state is still facing water and food shortages. ERCOT ended emergency situations and returned to normal operations; The number of people without power rose to about 58,000 by Saturday afternoon instead of millions.
For Gridi customers and other Texans on the bulk plan, however, the effects of the storm will last in the form of huge power bills.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” Aquila Scott-Amos, a Texas resident, told the Daily Beast this week. “Now I owe Gridi 2,869.11. This is going to put me in debt, this will mess up my credit. Will they cut me off? In the midst of this ongoing crisis? ”
