4 ms·

$28B / 17 years / (29M people * 60%) = $94.66 average per year per person My electric bill usually hovers around $100 per month. If it increased by $8 per mon

$28B / 17 years / (29M people * 60%) = $94.66 average per year per person My electric bill usually hovers around $100 per month. If it increased by $8 per month over the course of two decades, I wouldn't bat an eye. It looks like inflation alone could account for the difference (38.48% since 2004). That said, the recent incident suggests that quality-of-service has probably decreased. EDIT: I forgot about households. Looks like there is an average of 2.85 people per household in Texas. $94.66/yr * 2.85 = $269.78/yr or $22.48/mo. EDIT 2: I originally cited 9% inflation since 2016. I have no idea why I did that. I've corrected it to show 38.48% inflation since 2004. EDIT 3: The $28B only applies to 60% of residents. I've corrected the equations again to account for that.

ryneandal 6y ago
Since this math is per-person, I'd definitely notice a $25/month increase.
- CivBase 6y ago
  Good point. I didn't consider households.
  - ryneandal 6y ago
    Another important note (although it's solely based on anecdote I've observed and heard from friends) is electric costs don't scale linearly with the addition of people in a household. No worries about not considering households, that's just life before starting a family. Lots of learning occurs :)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
tryptophan 6y ago
This article was disappointing. It provided 0 information about whether or not the deregulation was the cause for the increased prices. The headline could have just as easily been "Texas electric bills were 28B higher as adoption of EVs increased(or any other thing that has changed since 16 years ago)".
- freeone3000 6y ago
  You can compare against the rate of increase of US East or US West. An apples-to-apples of SPP (in East) vs ERCOT puts SPP at $5/MWh cheaper.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  It's a filler piece that's there to collect the easy clicks and following ad dollars from the people who see a title who confirms their biases. Based on the title I knew there was a high risk of it being nothing and I clicked anyway. So I guess it did confirm my biases in an edge-case sort of way.
refurb 6y ago
There seems to be a number of confounding factors too? What were the changes in wholesale prices? Retail prices? Was there greater demand? Bigger homes? How does that price change compare to surrounding states? I mean if Texas went up by $57 per person but other states went up by $75, a smaller increase is a plus.
- CivBase 6y ago
  Indeed. Not to mention investments in renewable energy. According to this random website I found which claims to use data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics[0], electricity on average across the US costs 51.49% more in 2021 than in 2004. If that's true, Texans might actually be saving quite a bit. [0] https://www.in2013dollars.com/Electricity/price-inflation/2004-to-2021?amount=100 https://www.in2013dollars.com/Electricity/price-inflation/20...
conductr 6y ago
> That said, the recent incident suggests that quality-of-service has probably decreased. I don’t even know if this is true. I think _the system_ was never designed for this type of weather. It would have failed had this weather happened in any of the prior years too. We just need to quit ignoring the footnotes when they say “100 year flood” or similar things that people often sweep under the rug when designing building codes, energy system SOP around weather proofing, etc. In Texas, if Harvey and now this event has taught us nothing else it’s that anything can happen at any time. The statistical approach to rareness of certain events should be a warning which it hasn’t been. It’s been a minimum bar to achieve and while debatable where the bar belongs it seems like the bar should be higher.
- altcognito 6y ago
  They were specifically warned about winterizing in 2011, the current governor sued to prevent "over-regulation". While we can't say what would have happened, it can't be said that they didn't have an opportunity to potentialy avoid a problem.
  - conductr 6y ago
    That’s my point. They knew it was a fringe chance this could happen. We do this risk assessment elsewhere and easily ignore the risk like they did. Why did they rebuild New Orleans? We all know it’s flooding again right? They expect it to not happen on their watch but it very well could happen tomorrow. Just like Texas didn’t want to invest in winterizing each and every year just in case a once in a hundred year event happens. I’m suggesting we need to take these fringe occurrences more seriously. Especially when we know weather volatility is likely to increase.
    - hilbertseries 6y ago
      If Texas was on the federal grid they also would have been able to import excess power from other states and ease the energy crunch.
      - 6y ago
rcurry 6y ago
The cost of electricity may be a bit higher than in other states, but your overall cost of living in TX is so low that it doesn't really matter. For instance, in terms of my daily commute I'd be paying about $500 more a year just for gasoline if I was driving the same distance (20 miles) in CA every day of the week.

ryneandal 6y ago

Since this math is per-person, I'd definitely notice a $25/month increase.

CivBase 6y ago
Good point. I didn't consider households.
- ryneandal 6y ago
  Another important note (although it's solely based on anecdote I've observed and heard from friends) is electric costs don't scale linearly with the addition of people in a household. No worries about not considering households, that's just life before starting a family. Lots of learning occurs :)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

tryptophan 6y ago

This article was disappointing. It provided 0 information about whether or not the deregulation was the cause for the increased prices. The headline could have just as easily been "Texas electric bills were 28B higher as adoption of EVs increased(or any other thing that has changed since 16 years ago)".

freeone3000 6y ago
You can compare against the rate of increase of US East or US West. An apples-to-apples of SPP (in East) vs ERCOT puts SPP at $5/MWh cheaper.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
It's a filler piece that's there to collect the easy clicks and following ad dollars from the people who see a title who confirms their biases. Based on the title I knew there was a high risk of it being nothing and I clicked anyway. So I guess it did confirm my biases in an edge-case sort of way.

refurb 6y ago

There seems to be a number of confounding factors too? What were the changes in wholesale prices? Retail prices? Was there greater demand? Bigger homes? How does that price change compare to surrounding states? I mean if Texas went up by $57 per person but other states went up by $75, a smaller increase is a plus.

CivBase 6y ago
Indeed. Not to mention investments in renewable energy. According to this random website I found which claims to use data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics[0], electricity on average across the US costs 51.49% more in 2021 than in 2004. If that's true, Texans might actually be saving quite a bit. [0] https://www.in2013dollars.com/Electricity/price-inflation/2004-to-2021?amount=100 https://www.in2013dollars.com/Electricity/price-inflation/20...

conductr 6y ago

> That said, the recent incident suggests that quality-of-service has probably decreased. I don’t even know if this is true. I think _the system_ was never designed for this type of weather. It would have failed had this weather happened in any of the prior years too. We just need to quit ignoring the footnotes when they say “100 year flood” or similar things that people often sweep under the rug when designing building codes, energy system SOP around weather proofing, etc. In Texas, if Harvey and now this event has taught us nothing else it’s that anything can happen at any time. The statistical approach to rareness of certain events should be a warning which it hasn’t been. It’s been a minimum bar to achieve and while debatable where the bar belongs it seems like the bar should be higher.

altcognito 6y ago
They were specifically warned about winterizing in 2011, the current governor sued to prevent "over-regulation". While we can't say what would have happened, it can't be said that they didn't have an opportunity to potentialy avoid a problem.
- conductr 6y ago
  That’s my point. They knew it was a fringe chance this could happen. We do this risk assessment elsewhere and easily ignore the risk like they did. Why did they rebuild New Orleans? We all know it’s flooding again right? They expect it to not happen on their watch but it very well could happen tomorrow. Just like Texas didn’t want to invest in winterizing each and every year just in case a once in a hundred year event happens. I’m suggesting we need to take these fringe occurrences more seriously. Especially when we know weather volatility is likely to increase.
  - hilbertseries 6y ago
    If Texas was on the federal grid they also would have been able to import excess power from other states and ease the energy crunch.
    - 6y ago

rcurry 6y ago

The cost of electricity may be a bit higher than in other states, but your overall cost of living in TX is so low that it doesn't really matter. For instance, in terms of my daily commute I'd be paying about $500 more a year just for gasoline if I was driving the same distance (20 miles) in CA every day of the week.