5 ms·

That's how it is for electricity in Texas. You pay a delivery charge, and then usage charge, both based on kw/h.

junon 5y ago
You also pay for power you don't even use, from other power providers, in the case of extreme crisis, it seems. I've never lived there but from the outside Texas's power situation seems broken at best.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  That's accurate. We're in constant fear of losing power whenever there is a freeze warning (we're on that today and tomorrow at least), rain or heat. That's all thanks to the greedy for-profit system enabled by "conservative" politicians.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    That's not really accurate. I've lost power 4 times total in 30 years here. Usually big Texas thunderstorms, never heat. The 100 year winter freeze I lost power for two days, that was the longest ever. Haven't lost power since then, didn't lose power for a couple years before that. We have the cheapest rates because of the way distribution and providers are setup. The problem with big user bills were SV companies like Griddy tricking people into buying variable rate electricity, something we made illegal since then.
    - Bilal_io 5y ago
      I am not denying your experience, but I was talking about my own. I lost power for over 3 hours just 2 nights ago. And since the horrible experience we had in February 2021 we (me and everyone I know) have been living in fear it might happen again. A quick look at Centerpoint's own outage tracker[1] shows outages everywhere in different parts of Texas. 1. https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Image_Callout https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Im...
      - nomel 5y ago
        I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily remove the fear aspect, with minimal preparation.
        Spooky23 5y ago
        Because in the pursuit of efficiency, we are less resilient. I maintain a old inefficient boiler for my home. It has a pilot light and stays lit as long as there is service. It costs me about $250-400 more annually vs an efficient boiler.
        Bilal_io 5y ago
        "fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
        nomel 5y ago
        As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
        Bilal_io 5y ago
        Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people. > Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.
    - sfteus 5y ago
      That's great that your power has been mostly reliable, but it is not the case for a lot of the people here. In my family alone, my brother and his wife lost power at the apartment they had then for 3 days during the ~2014 winter storm, during which our apartment lost power for around a day. My parents lost their power for all 4 days of the storm last year, and had to travel 15 miles or so to my brothers house after their inside temperature dropped below freezing on day 3. They just let us know their power is out again this afternoon. My wife and I are lucky enough to have since purchased a house close to some critical infrastructure so we've rarely lost power comparatively, but we still lose power several times throughout each summer during heat waves. I also want to reiterate: this happened in 2011, again in 2014, again in 2021, and again in 2022. The storm in 2021 was objectively the worst of the bunch, but 2011 was similar. It is _not_ a 100 year freeze. It is happening more regularly, and our government has ignored recommendations to better prepare for it going on over a decade now. EDIT: Just to round this out, a federal report was provided in the wake of the last "100 year" storm that occurred in 2011[1]. In it, there are several dozen recommendations, many of which were at least in part the cause of the 2021 outages as well. ----- [1]: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-re...
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Just replying to other anecdotes with my own. And I disagree with your assessment of our weather and government.
        shkkmo 5y ago
        This is one of those cases where annecdotes of power loss have a much higher informative value than annecdotes of stability. The former tell you there is a bad situation wheras the later just add a little bit of context about the severity.
        hunterb123 5y ago
        It's not, that's your rationalization to make your anecdote more important.
secabeen 5y ago
But that's the problem! The cost of the grid is the same whether it delivers you 100kWh or 10,000kWh. The delivery charge should be a fixed monthly charge, based on the size of your meter, not scaled to the number of kWh you consume.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  It encourages you to use more electricity though, which is not good.
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    The current system in PG&E territory encourages me to prefer gas to electricity everywhere I'm able to make the choice. That's surely worse.
    - Panzer04 5y ago
      Only if it means you’d prefer resistive heaters to heat pumps. In home gas is more efficient than a resistance heater.
      - zbrozek 5y ago
        False; the heat pump is still more expensive. You need COP of >=4 with baseline rates, and it only gets worse from there (the baselines are tiny, and TOU is also bad). Heat pump water heaters only barely scratch 4 under ideal conditions, so you'll generally do worse with a HPWH than with a condensing gas one. Arithmetic is about the same for home heating systems. Basically around here (PG&E) you should only electrify if you can also get your electrons from not-the-grid.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Encourages you in what way? Your bill is still higher the more energy you consume, just increasing more slowly than if the rates were higher. Many believe (and I’m inclined to agree) that encouraging a switch from locally burned fossil fuels to electricity is better even if that electricity is currently* generated partially from fossil fuel. The theory is the electric plants could more easily become cleaner than if millions of home need to have their heating equipment upgraded. The problem where I am is that natural gas is so cheap (though less than previously) that it’s hard to make electric heating competitive. * no pun intended
Dma54rhs 5y ago
The way electricity market in Texas works in general looks very similar to EU countries.
danans 5y ago
In CA it's the same these days with the advent of community choice aggregators (CCA) [1]. If a CCA is available in your area, and you choose to use it, you pay the main utility for transmission/distribution, but the CCA for energy, both on per kWh basis. It all gets aggregated on the same (confusing) bill. Because they control the energy sourcing, CCAs can offer things like 100% carbon-free or 100% renewable plans. Some even subsidize batteries to add to homes in exchange for a portion of the stored energy capacity. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation

You also pay for power you don't even use, from other power providers, in the case of extreme crisis, it seems. I've never lived there but from the outside Texas's power situation seems broken at best.

Bilal_io 5y ago
That's accurate. We're in constant fear of losing power whenever there is a freeze warning (we're on that today and tomorrow at least), rain or heat. That's all thanks to the greedy for-profit system enabled by "conservative" politicians.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  That's not really accurate. I've lost power 4 times total in 30 years here. Usually big Texas thunderstorms, never heat. The 100 year winter freeze I lost power for two days, that was the longest ever. Haven't lost power since then, didn't lose power for a couple years before that. We have the cheapest rates because of the way distribution and providers are setup. The problem with big user bills were SV companies like Griddy tricking people into buying variable rate electricity, something we made illegal since then.
  - Bilal_io 5y ago
    I am not denying your experience, but I was talking about my own. I lost power for over 3 hours just 2 nights ago. And since the horrible experience we had in February 2021 we (me and everyone I know) have been living in fear it might happen again. A quick look at Centerpoint's own outage tracker[1] shows outages everywhere in different parts of Texas. 1. https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Image_Callout https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Im...
    - nomel 5y ago
      I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily remove the fear aspect, with minimal preparation.
      - Spooky23 5y ago
        Because in the pursuit of efficiency, we are less resilient. I maintain a old inefficient boiler for my home. It has a pilot light and stays lit as long as there is service. It costs me about $250-400 more annually vs an efficient boiler.
      - Bilal_io 5y ago
        "fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
        nomel 5y ago
        As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
        Bilal_io 5y ago
        Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people. > Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.
  - sfteus 5y ago
    That's great that your power has been mostly reliable, but it is not the case for a lot of the people here. In my family alone, my brother and his wife lost power at the apartment they had then for 3 days during the ~2014 winter storm, during which our apartment lost power for around a day. My parents lost their power for all 4 days of the storm last year, and had to travel 15 miles or so to my brothers house after their inside temperature dropped below freezing on day 3. They just let us know their power is out again this afternoon. My wife and I are lucky enough to have since purchased a house close to some critical infrastructure so we've rarely lost power comparatively, but we still lose power several times throughout each summer during heat waves. I also want to reiterate: this happened in 2011, again in 2014, again in 2021, and again in 2022. The storm in 2021 was objectively the worst of the bunch, but 2011 was similar. It is _not_ a 100 year freeze. It is happening more regularly, and our government has ignored recommendations to better prepare for it going on over a decade now. EDIT: Just to round this out, a federal report was provided in the wake of the last "100 year" storm that occurred in 2011[1]. In it, there are several dozen recommendations, many of which were at least in part the cause of the 2021 outages as well. ----- [1]: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-report.pdf https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-re...
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Just replying to other anecdotes with my own. And I disagree with your assessment of our weather and government.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        This is one of those cases where annecdotes of power loss have a much higher informative value than annecdotes of stability. The former tell you there is a bad situation wheras the later just add a little bit of context about the severity.
        hunterb123 5y ago
        It's not, that's your rationalization to make your anecdote more important.

secabeen 5y ago

But that's the problem! The cost of the grid is the same whether it delivers you 100kWh or 10,000kWh. The delivery charge should be a fixed monthly charge, based on the size of your meter, not scaled to the number of kWh you consume.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago
It encourages you to use more electricity though, which is not good.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  The current system in PG&E territory encourages me to prefer gas to electricity everywhere I'm able to make the choice. That's surely worse.
  - Panzer04 5y ago
    Only if it means you’d prefer resistive heaters to heat pumps. In home gas is more efficient than a resistance heater.
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      False; the heat pump is still more expensive. You need COP of >=4 with baseline rates, and it only gets worse from there (the baselines are tiny, and TOU is also bad). Heat pump water heaters only barely scratch 4 under ideal conditions, so you'll generally do worse with a HPWH than with a condensing gas one. Arithmetic is about the same for home heating systems. Basically around here (PG&E) you should only electrify if you can also get your electrons from not-the-grid.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Encourages you in what way? Your bill is still higher the more energy you consume, just increasing more slowly than if the rates were higher. Many believe (and I’m inclined to agree) that encouraging a switch from locally burned fossil fuels to electricity is better even if that electricity is currently* generated partially from fossil fuel. The theory is the electric plants could more easily become cleaner than if millions of home need to have their heating equipment upgraded. The problem where I am is that natural gas is so cheap (though less than previously) that it’s hard to make electric heating competitive. * no pun intended

Dma54rhs 5y ago

The way electricity market in Texas works in general looks very similar to EU countries.

danans 5y ago

In CA it's the same these days with the advent of community choice aggregators (CCA) [1]. If a CCA is available in your area, and you choose to use it, you pay the main utility for transmission/distribution, but the CCA for energy, both on per kWh basis. It all gets aggregated on the same (confusing) bill. Because they control the energy sourcing, CCAs can offer things like 100% carbon-free or 100% renewable plans. Some even subsidize batteries to add to homes in exchange for a portion of the stored energy capacity. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation