Adding insult to injury: Many Texans are about to get stuck with VERY high electricity bills for February

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, DoraBora said:

Also, I'd love to see info on someone who has already, today, just days after we "tried to secede", asked for big handouts to bail out our unregulated utility owners.  

Maybe she's referring to Rep. Michael McCaul's statement that federal disaster funds will be used to pay some of the exorbitant electric bills. Many politicians are saying that consumers shouldn't have to pay the bills, but I haven't seen anyone suggesting that the energy companies should have to eat the cost. So if they use federal funds to pay the outrageous bills, then the energy companies whose bad policies and lack of planning caused the disaster to begin with get what they want with no penalty or consequences for their actions.

[Carrie12345]

While I do find the hypocrisy of the state absolutely sickening right now, I think it’s still “our” job to help the people. I don’t care what was or wasn’t allowable; it simply is not okay to charge anyone $1,000/dy for electricity, and particularly not when it’s essential to saving life and property. Period.
 

I don’t like my electric bill, and I do have to put time and effort into shopping suppliers, but I don’t have a choice in the company that *delivers my supply, and therefore have never investigated my deliverer. It would be devastating to my family (of comfortable means) to discover that some sort of event triggered a thousands dollar bill, even before considering additional impacts of that event.

I don’t believe there really are any equivalents. Normally, when a company messes themselves up entirely (I’m using a different phrase in my head), oh well for them. Bye bye. But Texans still need power.

[Lanny]

Many years ago, I read about how they unbundled Internet service in many places and people could then select from a number of providers, with the exception of the "Last Mile" cable to their home. That led to a lot of people being very frustrated when they had a problem because each company would say it was the fault of another company and that extended the time to resolve many issues.

This seems similar. They didn't have that in the 28 years I lived in Texas and I am thankful for that.

It is something like Adjustable Rate Mortgages. One might save money but in this case some of the people are reporting astronmoical bills that would put most people into Bankruptcy.  There is  a lot of risk when the price is not "Fixed".  Adjustable Rates can be extremely dangerous.

[DoraBora]

 

6 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Maybe she's referring to Rep. Michael McCaul's statement that federal disaster funds will be used to pay some of the exorbitant electric bills. Many politicians are saying that consumers shouldn't have to pay the bills, but I haven't seen anyone suggesting that the energy companies should have to eat the cost. So if they use federal funds to pay the outrageous bills, then the energy companies whose bad policies and lack of planning caused the disaster to begin with get what they want with no penalty or consequences for their actions.

Ah, I see... I wouldn't call one Congressman making such a statement "asking for big handouts", but okay.  Amy and I look at things differently.  (The secession and lawsuit statements got under my skin.  I'm sorry, @Amy in NH.)

Don't the feds have rules about how disaster money can be spent?

The original story here was about outrage over customers being billed crazy high amounts for electricity.  It's a dramatic story, but is it widespread?  Who has been billed thousands of dollars, apart from Griddy customers?  We haven't had enough time to learn how many people we're talking about.

I don't know how my own electric bill will change, but I expect it to be higher because our usage was up last week.  It looks like it will be down this coming week.  When I use more power, I pay more.  That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

In related news:  The Public Utilities Commission has instituted a temporary moratorium prohibiting power companies from disconnecting service or sending out invoices while the state tries to sort this out this thing.

[MEmama]

Here’s a peek into the future of reliability..exciting times ahead for those of us who look forward to embracing technology...

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-saves-owners-texas-winter-power-outage/

 

[DoraBora]

An email from my power company this morning:

 

As Texas recovers from the recent winter weather emergency, here’s how you can count on us. Insulating your Rate You may have heard about sky-high variable rates in the news, but rest assured that as a TXU Energy customer, you won’t see any near-term impact to your rate due to this winter weather event. Whether you’re on a fixed or variable pricing plan, our customers are always insulated from extreme variable wholesale power price swings like the recent ones. Payment Flexibility Like many Texans, you may be experiencing higher usage due to the historic low temperatures. Please call us anytime if you need more time to pay or would like to set up a longer-term payment plan. Peace of Mind about Usage If you're seeing usage on days your home didn't have power, it’ll be corrected soon. The information you may see online is due to estimated usage because your utility provider wasn’t able read your meter during the power outage. As soon as we receive refreshed data, it’ll be corrected. Here for You 24/7 Last week was tough, but we’re here to assist you in any way we can. Please call us anytime at 800-818-6132 or (click here) for more information.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by DoraBora
removed links

[ktgrok]

15 hours ago, Frances said:

I’ve never lived anywhere with a choice, I honestly didn’t know that even existed in the US until all of the news articles about TX. My city is served by three different power companies, but it’s totally dependent on where you live, not which company you choose.

Same. We have no choice in the company, and it used to be there was no choice of "plan" either. Now we can choose to either pay each bill as it comes, or use the budget billing method, which charges exactly the same amount per KW but averages the usage over the past 11 months or something. So, you can either pay high bills in July with tons of AC use and a low bill in November, or pay medium bills year round, but at the end of the year, you'd pay the same amount for the year, regardless of which you choose.. It's just easier to budget using the second method, so I do that. That way instead of a big unexpected spike or even an expected spike, I get gradual change. But the charges are the same either way, a flat fee per kw/h or whatever it is. 

[Plateau Mama]

15 hours ago, Jann in TX said:

We knew it was going to be bad-- just never imagined this bad. It was a horrible tragedy. 

 

 

Let's compare this to a hurricane.  You are expecting a CAT 2 hurricane.  You know it could easily be a CAT 1 or 3 because that is just how they work.  You go to bed prepared for a CAT 2.  You wake up and discover it is going to be a CAT 5 direct hit.    That is what happened to the entire state of Texas. You don't prepare to be locked in your home for a week, no electricity, no water, that just doesn't happen here.  People here don't have supplies or the knowledge of what to do for an extended power outage. 

This was our first winter here so we were pretty prepared because we are used to this.  That being said I thought it would be a 2-3 day stay at home deal.  I had planned on having electricity so I had to go to the store during the power outages and get things that we could cook on the gas stove.  I stood in line for an hour.  We have 0 degree sleeping bags, long underware, high end ski jackets.  Most people here do not.    

[73349]

2 hours ago, ktgrok said:

Same. We have no choice in the company, and it used to be there was no choice of "plan" either. Now we can choose to either pay each bill as it comes, or use the budget billing method, which charges exactly the same amount per KW but averages the usage over the past 11 months or something. So, you can either pay high bills in July with tons of AC use and a low bill in November, or pay medium bills year round, but at the end of the year, you'd pay the same amount for the year, regardless of which you choose.. It's just easier to budget using the second method, so I do that. That way instead of a big unexpected spike or even an expected spike, I get gradual change. But the charges are the same either way, a flat fee per kw/h or whatever it is. 

We have no choice of company, and if we choose "balanced billing," they actually charge extra for that service. 🙄

 

The Texas state government throws residents under the bus all the time, so the electricity issues are not, if you will forgive the phrasing, a shock.

[forty-two]

15 minutes ago, Plateau Mama said:

Let's compare this to a hurricane.  You are expecting a CAT 2 hurricane.  You know it could easily be a CAT 1 or 3 because that is just how they work.  You go to bed prepared for a CAT 2.  You wake up and discover it is going to be a CAT 5 direct hit.    That is what happened to the entire state of Texas. You don't prepare to be locked in your home for a week, no electricity, no water, that just doesn't happen here.  People here don't have supplies or the knowledge of what to do for an extended power outage. 

This was our first winter here so we were pretty prepared because we are used to this.  That being said I thought it would be a 2-3 day stay at home deal.  I had planned on having electricity so I had to go to the store during the power outages and get things that we could cook on the gas stove.  I stood in line for an hour.  We have 0 degree sleeping bags, long underware, high end ski jackets.  Most people here do not.    

Exactly.  We moved back to TX a few years ago, after nearly a decade in IL, and three winter storms, in one week's time - it was *exactly* like being back in IL, only without plows and salt trucks.  (Waking up to 0F temps on Tue?  I didn't even know that was *possible* here - and it was over 15 degrees less than the already ridiculous low predicted.)  We have a hill going out of our subdivision, and it was impassible for anything but 4x4s for a solid week.  Up north I look at a hill like that as a liability wrt ice, but it never occurred to me it would matter here.  I mean, last month's snow was a once-in-a-generation event for our area, and it all melted within a few days. 

We lost power for five days, and we also couldn't go anywhere but on foot - and thankfully we still had our good winter gear, so that was a live possibility.  But where would we have even gone - for the first few days *all* the roads were impassible - would anything even be open?  All we had was what we had in the house.  And it turned out that was enough.  But most of what we needed we had for other reasons, not for winter storm prep - we easily could have not had it.

And the real kicker, for me, was that we also lost cell service for four days.  Without an unpowered landline, we had no way to contact *anyone*, for any news about anything.  I was ready for losing power, but not for an extended loss of cell service.

But, yeah, this was insane - we never in living memory *ever* had anything like this.  We mostly don't even get winter storms at all here.  My sister's NY colleagues were asking her if it really was as apocalyptic as the news was making it sound, and she was like, "Yeah, it actually is rather like an apocalypse."

[melmichigan]

18 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Both Abilene and San Angelo, Texas, smashed their all-time snowiest calendar day Sunday, in records dating to the late 1800s.

 

In 1989, in 2003, and in 2011, the state experienced, to varying degrees, simultaneous shutdowns of power plants and parts of its natural gas–producing infrastructure, as significant swaths of both of those critical systems were incapacitated by arctic temperatures, triggering blackouts. It was predicted to continue to happen without change. Change that didn’t come. It’s not a once in a lifetime event. It’s a pattern of disregard. Hopefully there is enough outrage and pressure to actually see through what needs to be done to assure it doesn't continue.  https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/texas-blackout-preventable/?fbclid=IwAR0gDNInL4ANcHE9npEGvvXVMCdeMNNyO1mwNMifPuBskRLlIL4OBSsmVBU

We'll all admit it was quite a storm, but dang a little exaggeration going on here based on your own links.

 

[Bootsie]

36 minutes ago, melmichigan said:

 

In 1989, in 2003, and in 2011, the state experienced, to varying degrees, simultaneous shutdowns of power plants and parts of its natural gas–producing infrastructure, as significant swaths of both of those critical systems were incapacitated by arctic temperatures, triggering blackouts. It was predicted to continue to happen without change. Change that didn’t come. It’s not a once in a lifetime event. It’s a pattern of disregard. Hopefully there is enough outrage and pressure to actually see through what needs to be done to assure it doesn't continue. No

We'll all admit it was quite a storm, but dang a little exaggeration going on here based on your own links.

 

Winter Storm Uri Spread Snow, Damaging Ice From Coast-to Coast, Including the Deep South (Recap) | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

This is the link from what I quoted.  What is being exaggerated?

  
In this situation, not only was there record snowfall, there were record temperatures--and over much of the state.  I have not found statistics to compare to other times, but 80% of Texas was blanketed in snow last week.  I know of times that there was a record in the DFW area, but no snow in Houston, or record temps in Houston, but not San Antonio, or snow in Corpus Christi but none in San Antonio and Austin.  

It may be the same that there were outages, but I do not think you can even begin to compare what we experienced in Texas this past week with anything I have experienced in Texas in my life before.

But, then again, talking to my friend in Maine who has been without power twice this winter, same for my friend in Virginia--maybe it wasn't as widespread of an area.  And people I know in Oklahoma and Louisiana have been without power several times.  My family in Louisiana right now has no water and none in the afternoons because of last weeks storms--and they don't know when that will change.  Yes, we have had a mess here in Texas and a lot of people have suffered beyond belief, but it isn't like all of the other states no how to prevent this and Texas doesn't.

And today almost everyone is out in shorts--and college students are sitting out on the quad in bathing suits.  The guys are playing sand volleyball topless...

 

[melmichigan]

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Winter Storm Uri Spread Snow, Damaging Ice From Coast-to Coast, Including the Deep South (Recap) | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

This is the link from what I quoted.  What is being exaggerated?

 

The quote you took from the weather channel includes imbedded links in Abilene and San Angelo that take you to the National Weather Service Notice with the dates of the last record, which I posted above.  They certainly don't date to the 1800's.  Sad that one has to fact check even the weather channel these days.  I apologize that it wasn't your exaggeration.

[Bootsie]

7 minutes ago, melmichigan said:

The quote you took from the weather channel includes imbedded links in Abilene and San Angelo that take you to the National Weather Service Notice with the dates of the last record, which I posted above.  They certainly don't date to the 1800's.  Sad that one has to fact check even the weather channel these days.  I apologize that it wasn't your exaggeration.

I don't think that the statement was saying that the last record snowfall was in the 1800s.  It says " Both Abilene and San Angelo, Texas, smashed their all-time snowiest calendar day Sunday, in records dating to the late 1800s."  I take that to mean that the information that has been recorded goes back to the late 1800s--so there could have been a bigger snowfall in the early 1800s and we wouldn't know that.  I read it as "we have recordings since the late 1800s of snowfall in Abilene.  The most ever recorded was 9.3 inches which occurred in 1996, until this past week when 14.8 inches fell--perhaps there has been a heavier snowfall, but it would have been more than 125 years ago when that occurred."  

 

[BlsdMama]

14 hours ago, Lanny said:

Many years ago, I read about how they unbundled Internet service in many places and people could then select from a number of providers, with the exception of the "Last Mile" cable to their home. That led to a lot of people being very frustrated when they had a problem because each company would say it was the fault of another company

Many years ago? We still have the same issue. And let me say praying a premium for horrid service is no joy. But, Internet isn’t electric. A comparison I considered was a few years back, LP in Iowa hit $4/gallon in Jan/Feb. If you had a contract for a twelve month fixed price, no big deal. But if you bought gas month to month, or like many, have a triggered auto fill, you might end up with 400-900 gallons at a premium, nearly quadruple the previous year or even this last year I think I paid $1.09/gallon to fill. That is thousands, but it’s still a weak comparison to the $1,000/day some are mentioning. I’m not sure of the solution, but the problem is dreadful. 😞

Edited February 23, 2021 by BlsdMama

[DoraBora]

1 hour ago, Dreamergal said:

Texas woman who received $9,300 electricity bill files class-action lawsuit against wholesale electricity provider Griddy

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/23/texas-electric-bill-griddy/

 

I haven't seen any other company name tied to the crazy-high bills.

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, DoraBora said:

I haven't seen any other company name tied to the crazy-high bills.

My electric co-op had to purchase energy at those crazy high prices. They have enough cash reserves to cover the purchase, but will rates rates for the next several years to replenish the "emergency fund".  The consumer still ends up paying for it. It will just be financed over the next 3-5 years. 😕

I don't know which companies are impacted, but the notice my co-op sent out said that several smaller providers were considering bankruptcy because they did not have enough cash to deal with this situation. 

[Jann in TX]

The people who use Giddy are making a choice they are not forced to use this provider-- in return they have had significantly LOWER electric bills especially in summer when rates/use are typically a the highest.  This difference (savings) can be hundreds of dollars less than 'average'...

In the case of last week their advantage of 'good prices' came crashing down as the ugly down side 'potential for high prices' came into play.

I do think/understand the extreme high price was somewhat inflated (not actual cost)... BUT if the Giddy customers get their high bills paid off for them--they should give back/consider the savings from the good times too!  Maybe some sort of compromise? 

Those of us who took the less risky choice of stable pricing will still have to pay the higher than normal bills due to higher than normal usage...and we WILL see a long term increase in base price because our electric co-ops will need to earn back their losses.

[DoraBora]

1 hour ago, Jann in TX said:

The people who use Giddy are making a choice they are not forced to use this provider-- in return they have had significantly LOWER electric bills especially in summer when rates/use are typically a the highest.  This difference (savings) can be hundreds of dollars less than 'average'...

In the case of last week their advantage of 'good prices' came crashing down as the ugly down side 'potential for high prices' came into play.

I do think/understand the extreme high price was somewhat inflated (not actual cost)... BUT if the Giddy customers get their high bills paid off for them--they should give back/consider the savings from the good times too!  Maybe some sort of compromise? 

Those of us who took the less risky choice of stable pricing will still have to pay the higher than normal bills due to higher than normal usage...and we WILL see a long term increase in base price because our electric co-ops will need to earn back their losses.

Thank you, Jann.  Five minutes of research would have clued these folks into the risks of using this type of electric provider.  This recent trouble was more extreme than past Griddy price spikes, but the warnings were there.

[RegGuheert]

While the controversy surrounding Griddy is understandable, I want to point out a trend that I have seen for some time now:  Obfuscation of electricity bills.

While I live in an area where I have exactly one choice and no time-of-use metering, I have communicated over the years with solar users from around the country.  Some of the plans available are so complicated that it is nearly impossible to determine which plan is best for a given customer.  Specifically, I am talking about plans I have seen from PG&E where the solar customer COULD NOT DETERMINE whether he/she was better off with their old plan than with any of the new plans, even with detailed bills from previous months and years from PG&E.  You would need a fairly sophisticated calculator to be able to make a valid comparison.  And, frankly, I got the impression that obfuscation was EXACTLY the goal of PG&E with those plans.

In the case of Texas, additional complication seems to also come from the fact that there are maybe fifty different providers from which you could choose.  Each of those has different plans that could be compared.  It is a daunting task, IMO.

So I get that it is not fair that Griddy customers may get relief on high bills, but I also feel that many people may not have understood the risks they were undertaking.  In fact, it seems that some of the electricity resellers didn't even know those risks given the comment above that some of them have been filing for bankruptcy.  So, is it fair that those companies might get bailed out?  It is almost the same question, IMO.  (And, no, I am not opposed to bankruptcy, in general.  That is another whole discussion altogether.)

[ktgrok]

45 minutes ago, RegGuheert said:

  Obfuscation of electricity bills.

While I live in an area where I have exactly one choice and no time-of-use metering, I have communicated over the years with solar users from around the country.  Some of the plans available are so complicated that it is nearly impossible to determine which plan is best for a given customer. 

Sounds like health care plans!

[DoraBora]

1 hour ago, RegGuheert said:

While the controversy surrounding Griddy is understandable, I want to point out a trend that I have seen for some time now:  Obfuscation of electricity bills.

While I live in an area where I have exactly one choice and no time-of-use metering, I have communicated over the years with solar users from around the country.  Some of the plans available are so complicated that it is nearly impossible to determine which plan is best for a given customer.  Specifically, I am talking about plans I have seen from PG&E where the solar customer COULD NOT DETERMINE whether he/she was better off with their old plan than with any of the new plans, even with detailed bills from previous months and years from PG&E.  You would need a fairly sophisticated calculator to be able to make a valid comparison.  And, frankly, I got the impression that obfuscation was EXACTLY the goal of PG&E with those plans.

In the case of Texas, additional complication seems to also come from the fact that there are maybe fifty different providers from which you could choose.  Each of those has different plans that could be compared.  It is a daunting task, IMO.

So I get that it is not fair that Griddy customers may get relief on high bills, but I also feel that many people may not have understood the risks they were undertaking.  In fact, it seems that some of the electricity resellers didn't even know those risks given the comment above that some of them have been filing for bankruptcy.  So, is it fair that those companies might get bailed out?  It is almost the same question, IMO.  (And, no, I am not opposed to bankruptcy, in general.  That is another whole discussion altogether.)

You make some great points.  Mobile phone plans, banking services, health insurance plans, dining plans at my son's university - all seem to become more complicated each year.

I'm sure these consumers didn't fully understand the ramificiations.  If they'd read what happened in August of 2019, they might have looked elsewhere for an electric provider. 

I looked at the Griddy app on Google Play a while ago, and among the "This is so unfair"  and "You should be ashamed of yourself" reviews, I found this one, written on Tuesday:  

Despite the price spikes during the winter storm I still love this company. It wasn't their fault. Also everyone should know what they're getting into. I shut my power off myself and used firewood and didn't have a crazy bill. Be better prepared for natural disasters people.

Keep in mind that the people who are complaining about their astronomical bills were among the fortunate few who had power.  I'm not opposed to helping them with some of the expense, I just don't think taxpayers should shoulder the entire burden for them.  

Edited February 24, 2021 by DoraBora

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, RegGuheert said:

 

So I get that it is not fair that Griddy customers may get relief on high bills, but I also feel that many people may not have understood the risks they were undertaking.  In fact, it seems that some of the electricity resellers didn't even know those risks given the comment above that some of them have been filing for bankruptcy.  So, is it fair that those companies might get bailed out?  It is almost the same question, IMO.  (And, no, I am not opposed to bankruptcy, in general.  That is another whole discussion altogether.)

I don't see how you can draw the concusion that because some are filing for bankruptcy they didn't know the risk.  Would you draw the conclusion that any small business owner who files for bankruptcy did know the risk of starting a business?  Or, that anyone who has their house destroyed by a hurricane didn't know the risk of living near a coast line?  There is a big difference between knowing that there is risk that one is willing to take and not knowing that there is a risk.  

[DoraBora]

44 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I don't see how you can draw the concusion that because some are filing for bankruptcy they didn't know the risk.  Would you draw the conclusion that any small business owner who files for bankruptcy did know the risk of starting a business?  Or, that anyone who has their house destroyed by a hurricane didn't know the risk of living near a coast line?  There is a big difference between knowing that there is risk that one is willing to take and not knowing that there is a risk.  

I had the impression that the companies that are going out of business are doing so for the usual reasons -  too much debt, too few customers, too little cash.

[Ausmumof3]

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN2AT1FE?__twitter_impression=true

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas's largest and oldest electric power cooperative on Monday filed for bankruptcy protection in federal court in Houston, citing a disputed $1.8 billion bill from the state's grid operator. 

Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc is one of dozens of electricity providers facing enormous charges stemming from a severe cold snap last month. The fallout threatens utilities and power marketers who collectively face billions of dollars in blackout-related charges, executives said.

 

I saw this and it reminded me of this thread.