A Look At The Texas Power "Mafia"

fmdog44

fmdog44

Well-known Member
Location
Houston, Texas
This is from our Houston NBC Affiliate Read Amu Davis's Post

Time to switch power providers? Why waiting until after the Texas electricity crisis could be costly​

HOUSTON – Like way too many people in Texas right now, KPRC 2 Consumer Expert Amy Davis has been facing power, water, and cell phone connection issues during this extreme power crisis.
As we experience another day of widespread outages, Amy’s been looking at information on switching power companies. Why? Not because it will get anyone’s lights on faster, but because residents and business owners could be out a lot of money if some electricity providers start to fold in the days ahead.
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Amy is now sharing the information she’s gathered on her Facebook page.

KPRC 2 Amy Davis’ Facebook post on February 17, 2021​

Bad cell connection won’t let me do a Facebook LIVE... so posting this for the latest info.
- As of 3:05pm Tuesday, CenterPoint Energy said they could not restore power to homes until more electricity is created. #ERCOT will not allow them to bring more customers back online. CenterPoint said customers without power should be prepared to have no power for several more days.
- These conditions in the electric industry mean we will likely start to see some retail electric providers (These are the companies you pay for electricity.) go out of business. If your electric provider abruptly closes, you will be stuck with what’s called the “Provider of Last Resort (POLR)” & a sky high electric rate of 25 to 30 cents a kilowatt.
In an emergency meeting Monday, the Public Utility Council raised the price of wholesale electricity to $9000 a megawatt. That is what the retail electric providers pay to get it. You would pay about $9 a kilowatt. And if you are on a variable rate plan or your fixed rate contract expires and you go month to month... that is the rate you would be facing. That factors out to something like $450 a day for the average homeowner. Multiply $450 by 30... and that would be your electric bill for one month.
Some electric providers are telling customers to please leave... even offering $100 off their last electric bills to encourage customers to go somewhere else. This is because those companies didn't buy enough electricity to continue to give it to you for the price you agreed to pay. Basically, they ran out... and if they have to buy more now, the electricity will cost them $9000 a megawatt... but because you're under contract, they have to give it to you for pennies. Those businesses can't sustain that... and they will just go under. If you get an offer or warning from your electric company- take it.. switch now. You do not want to be stuck with a provider of last resort.
Right now on the Power to Choose website, there are only about 27 plans for Houstonians to choose from. Usually there are 100+ plans. If your contract is coming up soon, lock in a new one.
Yeah. It stinks. Prepare yourself... and make sure you are locked in with a fixed rate. Even a high 15 cents a kilowatt right now is better than $9 a kilowatt.
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If you need it, the Power to Choose website Amy mentioned can be found HERE.
MORE VIDEOS:

How outages could impact your power bills?​

 

Thanks, Dog, I'm finally not confused. So, these are what we locally call 3rd Party Providers, right? Some of them call themselves "carriers", some "deliverers". From 2018 to 2020 at least 6 different 3rd Party utility provider sales people came to give me their schpiel, half of them came multiple times. Early on, I signed up with 2 different ones a couple months apart because I wasn't seeing any reduction of my (already very low) elec bill after the first switch. And after the second one I still didn't see a significant change, but I did notice in the fine print that they (the 2nd third-party provider) would soon be paying way more for the electricity they were buying and selling. So I cancelled them and went back to the Big Guy, Pacific Gas & Electric.

The 3rd-party companies kept sending sales people even after I started telling them not to bother. And they came by the droves to this depressed area of my city (preying on the poor? Yep I'm sure of that). Anyway it really ticked me off, so I called PG&E and told them to remove me from the list if there was one, and to never change my service unless I personally called and gave permission. That worked.

Some of the salespeople couldn't explain what the 3rd-party service even was or how it worked, and it was obvious they earned commissions. It stunk from the start. That's why I gave it a couple months, 2 different ones, and that's it.
 
I can't understand how/why Texas allowed their electric utility services to get into such a mess. I've never heard of a city or a State which had a hundred, or more, potential providers. That just "reeks" of mismanagement and customer rip-offs. Most places I've lived had One electric company, and outside of normal storm related outages, etc., there were never any issues. I strongly suspect that when things begin to settle down in Texas, there will be a bunch of lawsuits, and most of the "shady" providers will be put out of business. Heck, Texas may even consider joining the rest of the nation and incorporating their facilities into the national grids....thus having backup if/when the next crisis happens.

Where we live, everyone is a member of a "Co-op" that supplies power for about 20 rural counties. They purchase the power from multiple resources in several states, and we pay 9.2 cents/KWH. If the co-op has excess profits at the end of the year, we get a rebate on our December bill....we usually get a reduced bill at the end of the year.
 

Don M. said:
I can't understand how/why Texas allowed their electric utility services to get into such a mess. I've never heard of a city or a State which had a hundred, or more, potential providers. That just "reeks" of mismanagement and customer rip-offs. Most places I've lived had One electric company, and outside of normal storm related outages, etc., there were never any issues. I strongly suspect that when things begin to settle down in Texas, there will be a bunch of lawsuits, and most of the "shady" providers will be put out of business. Heck, Texas may even consider joining the rest of the nation and incorporating their facilities into the national grids....thus having backup if/when the next crisis happens.

Where we live, everyone is a member of a "Co-op" that supplies power for about 20 rural counties. They purchase the power from multiple resources in several states, and we pay 9.2 cents/KWH. If the co-op has excess profits at the end of the year, we get a rebate on our December bill....we usually get a reduced bill at the end of the year.
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The original idea was to fight the monopoly that big, major power companies had and allow small independent companies to compete. It was thought that this would bring the cost of utilities down. Exactly what went wrong I don't know, but if, as I've read, the independents were buying the product from the big companies, then the problem is obvious.
 
Murrmurr said:
The original idea was to fight the monopoly that big, major power companies had and allow small independent companies to compete. It was thought that this would bring the cost of utilities down. Exactly what went wrong I don't know, but if, as I've read, the independents were buying the product from the big companies, then the problem is obvious.
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I read an article this morning saying that there was competition in the beginning, but then from mergers, the number of providers has been greatly reduced, and prices now, on average, are higher than the national average.

That's what happened with trash collection in my neighborhood. It was privatized a while back to allow for more choices and competition, but then collectors merged, now there are only two to choose from.

I'll see if I can find the article about the power providers... yeah, here it is...
Texas’s deregulated electricity market, which was supposed to provide reliable power at a lower price, left millions in the dark last week. For two decades, its customers have paid more for electricity than state residents who are served by traditional utilities, a Wall Street Journal analysis has found.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-...billion-higher-under-deregulation-11614162780
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Irwin said:
I read an article this morning saying that there was competition in the beginning, but then from mergers, the number of providers has been greatly reduced, and prices now, on average, are higher than the national average.

That's what happened with trash collection in my neighborhood. It was privatized a while back to allow for more choices and competition, but then collectors merged, now there are only two to choose from.

I'll see if I can find the article about the power providers... yeah, here it is...
Click to expand...
Arrr, I can't read the meat of the article (which always comes at the end) unless I subscribe, and I don't wanna. And idk if I'd find out from that article but I am curious to know if the independent companies failed because the major companies had a hand in making sure they did or if these utility entrepreneurs just didn't know what they were doing.

Could be both, actually.

(I might delve into the article later, then unsubscribe...if I can get a free trial)
 
Murrmurr said:
Arrr, I can't read the meat of the article (which always comes at the end) unless I subscribe, and I don't wanna. And idk if I'd find out from that article but I am curious to know if the independent companies failed because the major companies had a hand in making sure they did or if these utility entrepreneurs just didn't know what they were doing.

Could be both, actually.

(I might delve into the article later, then unsubscribe...if I can get a free trial)
Click to expand...
Just turn off Javascript. That works for a lot of sites where you have to subscribe.
 
We, in PA. went through the "power contract "thing about ten years ago. Of course, if you signed a contact, your electric bill would vanish. And the price of power from the non-contract providers was way expensive. As soon as you signed on the contract's dotted line, the variable cost of power sky rocketed. People were getting enormous bills. Sound familiar Texas? It's the same thing that happened in the mortgage business- variable rates that wildly fluctuated in favor of the bank. In 2011, Texas had a similar problem with cold temps. Supposedly, "it'll never happen again".
 
Imagine what have resulted if the power over 90% of the state would have collapsed as they said it was four minutes from happening. Nothing would be open for business. All phones would die due to no charging. All batteries would die off so no portables. No gasoline. No doctors or hospitals. Riots and looting like never before. Home break ins everywhere. Shootings everywhere. Starvation sets in. No fluids to drink.
All because some business did not want to spend the money to winterize their power grids.
 
We got a pleasant surprise with our electric bill. It would have been $102 higher than the previous Month but the power company gave us a "Comfort Credit" of $45, reducing our bill to $57 higher than last Month.
 
Besides an intensive, private, conservation effort, a quick (private) make/buy study on solar energy may be in order...

When the electric grid no longer is a support structure; perhapse its time to, at least, consider leaving/getting off.

Enjoy!
 

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