Posted on 02/22/2021 12:04:13 AM PST by knighthawk
If you choose a variable rate plan based on real-time spot market pricing and the rate skyrockets, how is that not “transparent?”
Yes, they could have. Follow the money as to why they did not.
“They signed a contract.”
Under certain conditions, one of which was NOT that Biden could illegally demand power plants shutdown during a winter storm.
“I was just following orders” has never been a sustainable explanation for murder.
If this dilemma looks familiar to you, it should. It's one of the single biggest reasons why health care costs are out of control.
"We are the best facility in the country for your triple bypass surgery, but we can't tell you how much it will cost until we send you and your insurance carrier the bill later."
The cheapest plan was spot rate, and spot rates zoomed.
It’s reminiscent of a floating rate mortgage, in a way. Cheaper, but riskier than a fixed rate plan.
When I worked for an electric utility in Beaumont, TX back in the 94-97 years, the electric utility companies were regulated by the Texas Railroad Commission or something like that. At this time Texas was in the infancy of embracing the free market concept of electric utility regulation. It was possible for a “electric utility provider” to go into the business of providing electric power service without owning a single KW of power generation nor any transmission or distribution lines or substations. The alleged utility company purchased its electric energy in the open market and then paid the transmission and distribution companies a fee for delivering the power to the end users meter.
Now if Abbott is successful in his efforts to protect the customers from these astronomical rate increases, he may bankrupt these quasi-power companies. There may be a ton of phantom electric companies for sale cheap in Texas.
Not even close to being related but you should report any murder.
“I think if ERCOT failed in winterization of equipment..resulting in high rates..why should rate payers pay for their errors and misrepresentations?
As for Abbot..you would think ERCOT is supervised by the PUC which is under Abbot. ERCOT members and PUC should be replaced and buck stops with Abbot.”
ERCOT cannot winterize anything because it owns nothing but a control center somewhere in the bowels of Texas. ERCOT is a non-profit organization consisting of a board of directors charged with the responsibility of “CONTROLLING” the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power in the Texas grid that is owned by multiple electric generation, transmission, and distribution companies. Some of these companies may own only generation facilities, some may own only transmission facilities, some may own only distribution facilities, and some may own all three. In some cases the company billing the end user may not own any physical facilities but the electric meter at the end user’s house. This is what the “free-market regulatory model” looks like.
Appears to me that Griddy is selling at the marginal rate perhaps devoid of most of the fixed cost and the cost of the “green energy” sources. If so, and if everyone opted for Griddy, then the concept would collapse.
No, you full well know that price, every second, if you want. You can stop extra expense by curbing or turning off your electricity use.
You also fully know you selected a non-standard plan, because the default is around $0.12 a minute.
I think this is the actual issue. Personally, I always go with a fixed rate because I want to attempt to budget the expected cost as much as I can. Also, I'd be pretty surprised if it was actually a good deal in the long run, because there are periodic squeezes that happen when individual stations are taken down for maintenance.
I seriously doubt that people are ever informed that there is essentially no limit to how much they can be charged per Kwh as we saw over the past week. It's essentially like the futures market. You can save a cent or two per Kwh, but the potential is there for essentially limitless charges on the other side. IIRC, similar things have happened before when things went badly sideways on the production side, but probably not in such a widespread way, a least in Texas.
Some will say that it's the consumer's own fault if they are uneducated about the risks. I can sympathize with that viewpoint a bit. I think these contracts need some kind of price banding where the range of pricing could be as low as half, to as much as double or something like that, but since they are written by the power company in an attempt to limit its own risk, that's not going to happen.
You may want to scan thru the following to get a overview of the
Texas electric power system and ERCOT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_of_Texas
I want Texas to sue Biden for his deliberate failure to act.
I also want a Class Action lawsuit against Biden for the losses of the Texas citizens.
Insurance companies should also be suing Biden for his total INACTION.
Big problem. Last report I read if accurate says 69 people froze to death because of the decisions made here. Massive cluster, beyond belief, especially in Texas. Someone’s going to get destroyed over it, and they should be.
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