Some households in Texas face electricity bills of $10,000

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Easy solution is to abandon the grid. Hate to say it and hate the noise of small wind turbines and the look of solar panels, but all need to avoid and can avoid this by going independent as much as possible with power. Maybe not an option for the lazy or those that enjoy the concrete jungle lifestyle as it requires a roof or some 'space'.

After the last major hurricanes, it is amazing to see how many are so clueless and dependent on the system.... For example, well employed couple next door, big new Escalade in the driveway for the woman bussing the kids, fancy big Lexus for the man, nice big cookie cutter house, didn't have $1000 for a generator/fuel to store in the garage/shed for an emergency. Hurricane comes and they suffered without power for a month. My favorite neighbors were the fools that ran out of fuel in the 1st 24hrs because they couldn't conserve or run the generator intermittently until the situation was made more clear. My favorite neighbors were the ones with the $15k-$20k whole house backup generator, you know the fancy brands, that enjoyed full power until their propane/gas/diesel tanks went empty and there was no one to refill them(all wiped out by the hurricane). Once the fuel was gone, and rapidly(couple days at most), they were no better off than the trailer bums in the ghetto looking for a gov't bailout.

If you live life beyond your means, and have nothing prepared for a simple emergency(funds/fuel/food/power/defense/heat), I just don't care.
If you fall every every get rich scheme, I don't care.

For some of us, choosing among a $20k daily driven economy car + an array, vs a $60k SUV, bro truck, or luxury import was a no brainer.
And, before someone states how cruel I am to poor people... they just never seem to be so poor not to be able afford alcohol, smokes, drugs, tattoos, piercings, iphone, painted nikes, booming system, tinted windows, rims, and a household full of electronics...

Start here or build your own:
https://www3.enphase.com/homeowners
https://www.tesla.com/solarpanels
https://www.altestore.com/store/sol...home-solar-system-with-battery-backup-p41500/
http://www.bergey.com/products/off-grid-turbines/excel-10-off-grid/
http://www.primuswindpower.com/
https://www.xzeres.com/?page_id=351
https://www.homepower.com/archive-browse

Avoid the door-to-door salesmen selling solar. Different companies have installed a dozen or so arrays in the 'hood in the past year and all were grossly overpriced with eternal financing. Foolish homeowners fall for that used car solar salesmen scheme. They'll sell you a $15k system for $30k, put the panels in the shade, and disappear if there are any issues....

Being that this is the vehicle lubrication hangout, its easy to improve your situation with a little more maintenance and less lease/loan vehicle payments, the money saved which could be used for that chicom multifuel generator and 1/2 dozen 5 gallon fuel containers, the money saved which can be used for a month of chefboyardee or porkbean cans, the money saved which can be used for a couple propane heaters and 1/2 dozen grill sized propane tanks, the money saved which can be used for a couple solar panels added every year to the roof, the money saved which can be used for a greenhouse and some home grown vegetables, the money saved which can be used for a small piece of property to raise some chickens/eggs/rabbits and more bigger garden then a shed sized greenhouse, the money saved which can be used ...

&^%( it. My iphone, playstation6, samgsung S30+ultra, bloated vehicle, and 3x daily takeout meals, while wearing Kickasso Nikes, and whatever the latest fads are, are all definitely more important than my survival.... someone else will bail me out, right?
 
Look at it in the opposite direction:

We know how expensive medical cost is, so we have medical insurance that is still expensive but with predictable cost instead of unpredictable. Some people choose to not buy insurance, or they cannot afford to, and then when things happen they cry foul that a surgery is 400k to 900k, they blame the system.

We know that there are a lot of people calling them free loafers and other bad names because many believe in market economy, and they got no sympathy. I'll stop here before going political.

SO HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE SIGNING UP FOR SPOT ELECTRICITY ANY BETTER THAN THOSE NOT BUYING MEDICAL INSURANCE?

They either pay for it right now or they pay for it with a more expensive fixed rate over the years. They have enjoyed their savings and now they pay a price for it and then the savings again afterward in the long run. On average they should even out. If they are not paying other rate payers with higher regular rates would be eating it.
 
YogiTheCat said:
This is terrible and the last thing those folks in Texas need. There is something to be said about having an alternative energy source for heating, like natural gas for example. In 2019 Berkeley, CA banned natural gas, while Oakland, CA banned it last year. The most depressing part about this news is that it just reinforces my realization that as things get harder, we, the regular people will be pushed to the brink further and further.

Link: As Texas deep freeze subsides, some households now face electricity bills as high as $10,000
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OT but I looked up the claim Berkeley banned natural gas, as that is the way to do it not say you should look it up and prove it. I see it is for new low rise buildings only, and it was a city council decision. That’s a bit different than it sounds saying Berkeley banned natural gas. I have no idea why they wanted to do that, sounds dumb, because PGE is about 25 cents/kWh if they have PGE service. Thats how city councils are sometimes.
Berkeley has essentially no land to build new buildings, so it would only be when an old one is torn down I guess.
 
czbrian said:
The people who are getty these high bills signed up for Griddy at their own risk. With Griddy you pay the spot price for power so you are gambling in a way. 99% of the time that works well but whenever a scarcity event happens, you have to be ready to cut back power usage. I’ve looked at it in the context of using solar and a backup generator but it still didnt seem worth the risk or hassle for my small usage. Most Texans sign up for fixed rate plans. My price is locked in for 5 years with Green Mountain Energy at around $0.10 a kwh and I signed my parents and brother up with the same plan when their contract rolled over with other providers. I don’t have any sympathy for the Griddy customers.
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I agree with that. They chose to take this risk, and they don't hesitate to enjoy lower prices when the power is cheap.
 
Farnsworth said:
OT but I looked up the claim Berkeley banned natural gas, as that is the way to do it not say you should look it up and prove it. I see it is for new low rise buildings only, and it was a city council decision. That’s a bit different than it sounds saying Berkeley banned natural gas. I have no idea why they wanted to do that, sounds dumb, because PGE is about 25 cents/kWh if they have PGE service. Thats how city councils are sometimes.
Berkeley has essentially no land to build new buildings, so it would only be when an old one is torn down I guess.
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Berkeley and San Jose did that on new buildings. I think the green house emission politics is one reason, but the other is the architectural part.

If you ever rented or bought a condo / apartment from a few decades ago you will realize they are all electric (range, dryer, etc) except water heater and furnace. I think there are some pipeline safety or building code issues the builders don't want to deal with and it is just cheaper to build with electric range and dryer.

Now in 2021 we already have hybrid water heater and HVAC. In a moderate climate they actually works well (assume we work out the reliability portion of it). There is also a concern of CO poisoning that could be eliminated if they are eliminated. One thing we couldn't tell for sure is whether electrical rate will be cheaper if we convert water heater and furnace to heat pump based. This would be hard to tell what happens 50 years down the road.

For the moment I'd say stick to burning gas until hybrid water heater is proven, and HVAC is more efficient and cheaper.
 
96JeepXJ said:
As we shut down more coal plants and nuclear plants in favor of natural gas and renewables, this is going to be repeated in more places and more often, even without a polar vortex. It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

Disclaimer: I am a nuclear engineer, so my biases are out in the open.
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25% of Texas energy is wind sourced. How would more coal and nuke plants have prevented this? This wasn't due to 25% of energy not being available.
Their infrastructure was not winterized. They were warned of this 10 years ago. They didn't want gov't intervention ("you can't tell me what to do") and let the free market have at it - guess what? No one wanted to pay for it, so it didn't happen. Nothing to do with "green" energy.

Disclaimer: I stayed at a Holiday Inn before.
 
I have two minor upgrades in mind following the freeze:
An adapter kit to make my dual fuel generator NG instead of LP
Short section of heat tape to wrap my main water line at the brick
(eliminating use of a heat lamp) …
 
surfstar said:
25% of Texas energy is wind sourced. How would more coal and nuke plants have prevented this? This wasn't due to 25% of energy not being available.
Their infrastructure was not winterized. They were warned of this 10 years ago. They didn't want gov't intervention ("you can't tell me what to do") and let the free market have at it - guess what? No one wanted to pay for it, so it didn't happen. Nothing to do with "green" energy.

Disclaimer: I stayed at a Holiday Inn before.
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Wind represents ~28% nameplate capacity in the ERCOT and has satisfied up to 60% of demand, which I assume was on a low demand, high wind day. Installed capacity is ~29,000MW, but on the day in question it was expected to be about 25% of nameplate (7,000MW) but the weather events contributed to it showing up, on average at about half that and a period where output hit 600MW.

No, wind was not the main failing, that was due to ~20,000MW of gas not showing up due to plant winterization problems and supply problems, but having your 2nd largest generator (wind has the 2nd highest installed capacity behind gas) not show up at the level it was expected certainly didn't help.

The big issue with wind is that it wasn't expected to show up in the first place, not whether or not it was a contributor to how things played out. When demand spiked, wind went the other direction, which is pretty typical, wind wanes during hot and cold spells, but that's something that has to be planned around when these systems are designed and in this case that backup capacity was gas, which is vulnerable to supply issues.

How would more nuke plants have prevented this? Nukes are on an 18-24month refuel cycle in the US, so fuel supply isn't an issue. While they had a sensor trip at one of the units due to a false signal, nukes are generally mostly immune to severe weather. The biggest risk is that since the units are very high output, when they do trip, you lose significant capacity.

If we look at the supply deficit, the ERCOT was short ~20,000MW, as gas was supposed to show up at full nameplate and didn't, which included filling for wind. It did at one point hit 24,000MW of missing gas though. Gas capacity is ~51,000MW, while nuclear capacity is ~5,000MW. If nuclear capacity was higher, say 15,000MW our 20,000MW deficit becomes a 10,000MW one, which would have meant fewer rolling blackouts to reduce the rift between capacity and demand. Bump it up further to 20,000MW and now you only have a 5,000WM deficit which likely could have been dealt with by shedding industrial loads while the gas problems were grappled with. All this assumes gas craps the bed in the same manner it did here due to the reasons already noted.
 
Gov. Abbott just spoke. Texans are not going to pay $10000 electric bills.

Most areas in Texas are not deregulated energy, but some are.

I know in Houston, Dallas, and some suburbs north of Austin it is Deregulated. Austin proper only has one City Owned provider.

We used to live in deregulated area (Round Rock TX), and honestly its 200 ways to get screwed. The plans for most people are confusing, and some entice you with a free Nest thermostat at the price of a long term high priced contract. Some give Google smart devices, and stuff like that as a "gift" for buying overpriced energy from them.

When I lived in Round Rock, I really had to keep on top of my energy provider and change it at the end of every contract, to avoid getting into a month to month ripoff deal.

Here in San Antonio, the city owns the electric company and the natural gas company (one in the same). The CEO of CPS energy said that customers could spread the payment over 10 years. The mayor balked and said that's not happening.

Now the Gov says that's not happening.

Honestly having city provided electric and gas is a better deal for us, and we don't have to worry about signing a contract with a new provider every 6 months to 1 year, and keeping up on it.

It has gotten so stupid ,that there are services out there that will automatically sign you up for a different provider, and they charge a fee for doing that.
 
I'm very sorry but I have no pity for these folks. You never heard them crying when the electricity bills are $100 a month. They got a plan that sold them electricity at marketvalue and they reaped the rewards while the price was low. They foolishly gambled thinking that rates would always be low and when a distater strikes that gamble fails. Come on, this, but but I didnt know was an excuse in the 3rd grade you are an adult, read the contract and stop blaming everbody and accept resposability for your own actions. Can you imagine these crybabies at a casino? I was winning until I lost it all and its the casinos fault. Wawawa. Electricity in Texas isa commodity, take the bad with the good.
 
JustinH said:
Gov. Abbott just spoke. Texans are not going to pay $10000 electric bills.
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I can see a lawsuit coming and future Texas price will go up due to the credit risk. This is Enron vs PG&E all over again, but remember what happened to PG&E back then? They went bankrupt. I don't know if these kind of things will go on credit report but I think somehow someone will sue someone else and settle in the end.

The grid should have a hard price on what maximum to pay for and what doesn't, then just refuse to bid this high of a rate then charge the utility and finally the customers this price. They didn't, they bought it, they sold it, resold it, and now the customers already used it.

This is a flaw they should have avoided, they should have done rolling blackout and say no to these high prices.
 
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So who is going to pay those electric bills in Texas? The taxpayers? Gov. Abbott himself? Stiff the electric company? Please elucidate.
 
wdn said:
So who is going to pay those electric bills in Texas? The taxpayers? Gov. Abbott himself? Stiff the electric company? Please elucidate.
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Most likely a mix of them all, including business liability insurance the generators getting a haircut on what they already sold.

What is going to happen for sure is everyone in Texas will end up paying more in the long run to avoid this, if it is not for improved grid and spare capacity, they will increase the risk of the business and generators, grids, utilities, insurance, etc will all charge more for a safety cushion.
 
Got a text from my provider today reminding me (and the majority of customers) that I have a low fixed rate and if my bill goes up - it will only be because of Kw useage going up in cold weather.
I don’t expect to see that … will see a bump in our NG bill … but it’s reasonable as well.
 
 
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I try to keep politics out of it, to keep the thread alive. So let’s focus on buyers and sellers. Right now there are both spot-market rate and fixed rate suppliers in Texas in competition, in other words you can be either or both. Fixed-rate suppliers get undercut most of the time by the spot market, because fixed rate is guaranteeing you electricity even when they themselves take a bath. Yet they cannot charge too much because the spot market suppliers dangle low rates in front of the public (most of the time).

Now suppose a public policy change eliminates spot price contracts or welches on contract law so debtors do not have to pay. Not only will every supplier soon be fixed price they will all raise their prices. The low priced competition has been eradicated.
 
wdn said:
Now suppose a public policy change eliminates spot price contracts or welches on contract law so debtors do not have to pay. Not only will every supplier soon be fixed price they will all raise their prices. The low priced competition has been eradicated.
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Like insurance, there is a reason contracts are used despite them paying more regularly. The problem I do see is they do not have a "turn me off if it goes above this price" circuit breaker. You do not have bargaining power if you do not have a circuit breaker.

I have a feeling this is intentionally left out so occasionally the generators get to hit a jackpot, just not this big of a jackpot.
 
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WagonWheel said:
Yet another instance of the media trying to pull at the heartstrings by only telling half the story…
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We have a situation here in Australia where we have a lot of natural disasters, fire, flood etc..

Inevitably, when one of these situations occur, there are people on TV telling us how they lost their home....but had no insurance and asking the Government for assistance.

Whilst we feel very sorry for them, they rolled that dice and lost, it's not up to other taxpayers to bail them out.
 
I'm trying to think of something we that buy that we don't know the price of until we get the bill besides utilities.
 
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