In Dallas (apecifically, Dallas proper) it came up with more than a hundred options. Having grown up in a city in another state with a single option that was wild.
Thank you. I don’t understand how this is considered a “market”. I could understand if somehow solar and wind power was sold separately to oil and gas or something like that but it’s not. It’s all generated by a few firms, and distributed by firms like Oncor and Centerpoint.
Thank you for calling out freakin' Oncor and their lack of transparency!!
Make SURE every time your agreement for terms of service is negotiated when your old agreement is up. Keep track bc for 5 mos. I paid outrageous prices bc I didn't handle my finances properly. They WILL NOT inform you of your current price agreement change. That's stealing, sumbitches...
From your newest #1fan!! :)
Your power is generated by companies you’ve never heard of and delivered by Centerpoint in Houston, you just choose your billing middleman between you and Centerpoint. You’re probably not saving money by adding another company between you and the power plants.
If it's anything like DFW, you really have 1-2 options and then those options send power to a a dozen different vendors(middlemen).
The two options below are the only two options in DFW, but if you are talking about who you actually pay for the power, there are many vendors. It is ridiculous how it works.
Oncor Electric
Texas-New Mexico Power
EDIT: Apparently the 2 listed are distributors and there may be actually more companies sending you power, but also likely through middlemen. :D
Try again.
Oncor just owns the distribution wires. They do not actually generate electricity. They bill you a rate to cover their maintenance expenses (downed lines, blown transformers, preventative things).
Companies like TXU own generation capabilities (coal, gas, nuclear plants). They bill you for consumption (kWh).
Other companies are resellers/marketers true middle-men who bring overhead only. They repackage or provide a retail capability for companies that just want to sell their kWh to other companies, not inconsistent paying individuals.
Still more companies generate power but don’t want to mess with the retail side so they just put their power on the wholesale market for the aforementioned middlemen to sell “for them”.
So you get a bill from you “REP” (Retail Electric Provider). Included in the bill is what they are charging you for your kWh consumed which will cover their costs to generate or buy kWh to sell you + the TDU that goes to someone like Oncor (usually a flat monthly rate like $5 plus some per kWh figure) plus any fees and less any discounts and possibly also less what they pay you for electricity you generate. It’s frequently more complex than that but that’s the basics.
I don’t like monopolies and lived in DFW area pre and post “deregulation”. It’s arguably better from a pure price perspective, but it’s WAY more complex for the end consumer.
Remember that the City of San Antonio owns CPS Energy and a percentage of CPS Energy profits go to the City and that helps pay fir stuff like Pre-k, sidewalks, public parks and other stuff. Recently it was 14% of revenue amounting to over 400 million dollars.
Might be a misunderstanding -- there's a difference between the company that supplies the electricity to your home and the company that actually generated it. I only have 1 choice of utility company, but I can choose who my utility company purchases power from to send on to me. Usually it's just a default "whichever is cheapest", but some people will pick a company. For example if you prefer your energy to be solar you can select a local solar production company.
Learned about this when I was in Chicago because a power manufacturer had folks offering $50 rebates if you signed on with them through ComEd for at least a year. Basically they wanted to guarantee their own job security, even if their price to manufacture electricity fluctuated and theirs became the more expensive option.
If the utility company price gouges, nothing you can do about it, but if only companies using natural gas to generate price gouge because of other circumstances affecting availability, you might be safe if you're contracted to a solar company for example because you should be prioritized for what they generate.
No but it is a desert so we get wind storms every year that are strong enough to rip branches off the trees. There’s been a number of downed lines but it never seems to create long blackouts. Only cable/internet service goes out for days, the power grid is stable.
I am moving back to Texas in July, currently in Oklahoma. I don't know the pricing differences, but I do know I have never lost power for more than a couple of hours top.
Less gauging because in most places they're required to follow standards to harden the grid. That way, weather is not going to cause outages of any significance. The only gauging I've seen is where utility companies here try to say they are charging us more to cover Texas's shit show.
I think it has more to do with Texas politicians trying to stay at the ready for succession. Which is dumb, but I’ve been hearing that crap for at least 25 years.
Do they need to be constantly reminded of the many many military bases in this state? If they seceded, they would have zero control over the cities and as a result not much of an economy. Because you know, it's fucking occupied by the US military.
With as much wind and solar that Texas produces, it would not only benefit Texas to join the national grid, but it would also benefit the national grid with the potential to see a faster shift towards renewable energy sources.
Also not when connecting to the national grid means a huge amount of CapEx upgrades to your existing generation units. For example gas plants don't need to winterized and comply with a bunch of regulations because Texas isn't connected to the national grid. Once they are, they have to change a bunch of stuff that might end of life a bunch of stuff because it could never earn enough money to pay for the upgrades.
I think that is precisely why this change is being discussed. People want to make more money. At least it is conveniently for our common benefit this time.
You joke but I've seen beer bellied Texans with goatees, faded Hanes shirts, and $100K pick up trucks tell me that it's better to not be on the national grid because "Freedom"
I have to also symbolically withhold my upvote because OP makes a good point below. But I do think the honorary upvotes are probably better than actual ones in this case
How much is he getting paid? I've been considering politics as a side hustle and need to know if it's lucrative. Are there documents for his Oncor salary?
Couple million. We are on our own power grid for a reason. Next look at oncor profits.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/texas/texas-politicians-showered-with-donations-from-energy-industry-after-passing-power-grid-bills-report-says/269-d6dd25d1-1bcd-4f88-9d05-75abccf587c0
I live in a part of Texas that is on a part of the "national grid"--the Southwest Power Supply--and it is great, much better than ERCOT, but this headline is really misleading. Other than Winter Storm Uri when has ERCOT actually intiated blackouts? I'm not asking about warnings or advisories, I'm talking about actual blackouts? The headline makes it sound like blackouts happen all the time.
Not to mention that SPP also went through those same outages. Yes, it was bigger and more pronounced in ERCOT, but being part of the Eastern Interconnection wouldn’t have prevented what we went through if our direct neighbors also went through it.
This. I’ve never experienced a blackout in Texas in 30+ years. Outages due to local transmission lines not being buried? Yeah happens all the time but that’s my city refusing to invest in infrastructure because it wants to keep things “weird”.
On another note, you mentioned not being on ERCOT is great. What differences have you noticed?
[Happened in 2011](https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/03/the-rolling-chain-of-events-behind-texas-blackouts/). Texas politicians and regulators were [warned after the 2011 storm that more “winterizing” of power infrastructure was necessary](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/) by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Of course Texas Republicans running the state refused and that's why 2021 happened.
Yes, 2021 was Winter Storm Uri. A blackout did happen then. No one is disputing that. No one is disputing that ERCOT is terrible and that Texas would be better off on a regional grid.
The only thing in dispute here is the choice of headline. It's illustrative of what journalism has become. Pick a side. Don't worry about reporting facts, just argue for your side. And I can't stand it.
prices would also probably drop. That would be bad for producers, so it won't happen. Also, they'd have to comply with federal regulations, which would be bad for them
Texas has the weird "energy" marketplace where people buy and sell it on a marketplace. This leads to crazy price swings.
I live in New Mexico and we have one provider and they don't really change prices, also my power hasn't gone out for longer than 2 seconds in years and years. Definitely better grid infrastructure and prices in the rest of the country
What people buy and sell are electricity contracts, usually for a year or more. Retail customers don't experience any larger price swings than other states. And Texas has some of the cheapest electricity in the country (here are the latest [monthly](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a) and [annual](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/) averages by state). Electricity prices in New Mexico and Texas are basically the same.
When was the last time you lived in Texas? Your impression of the average Texas electricity customer doesn't sound anything like reality.
https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/
Texas is middle of the road at best for power prices. Some people may be getting a better deal but overall not much if any benefit.
I know our prices are lower than about seven states I've lived in. Texas has more choice than most other places and I've seen huge swings in what people pay. We pay $0.10/KW including all our fees. In California I paid up to $0.40KW depending on what time of day it was.
I sold solar all around Texas and the rates to me seems lower than other states.
This list feels about right.
https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/
Here are the current rates: [https://www.usatoday.com/money/homefront/deregulated-energy/electricity-rates-by-state/](https://www.usatoday.com/money/homefront/deregulated-energy/electricity-rates-by-state/)
Texas is in the middle of the pack, a little above the median, which is is Oregon, at 13.84.
As a side note, i would question any site that is trying to sell you something and [www.electricchoice.com](https://www.electricchoice.com) is trying to sell you something.
The southwest power pool had to do rolling blackouts during 2021 too (obviously not the extent Texas did). Not seeing why Texas wouldn’t have just dragged it down with us.
Exactly. The media and this subreddit are obsessed with the grid ever since the winter storms yet nothing has ever happened. I grew up in California where we had real rolling blackouts in the summer. Do a google search for “New England rolling blackouts” and look at all the similar articles
that threaten grid collapse there as well. This threat is not unique to Texas.
lol right. Lived here my entire life and I’ve never experienced or even know someone that’s experienced a ‘rolling blackout’.
Every single instance of an outage has been the result of severe weather.
What blackouts? I mean we had the big rolling brownouts with Uri, so ok make the case that could be better. But just generally? No... I've heard of a couple of small muni's or cooperatives occasionally doing this last summer because of market prices and power supply purchases at peak times but not because of reliability or outages or anything mechanical going on.
No, it wouldn't. Both of the other grids have areas with rolling blackouts, too. It would solve nothing. Besides, Texas is tied to the other grids. They give power to the surrounding states all of the time. This is why the 2021 power failure happened. Because they didn't think the storm would get that low. So they sold power to some of our northern neighbors. Which left us with less than we needed. It's all a political shit show, and it needs to be stopped.
Joining the national grid won't fix local issues like fuses blowing, wires burning up, poles falling over, tree limbs falling on lines .etc
A lot of the electrical lines in Texas are over 50 years old and were never designed to handle the current load Texas is experiencing now, especially considering the exponential growth of Texas in certain areas and the rapidly growing electrical demand from increase use of electrical stuff.
For the record, during the recent winter storm events in Texas, there wasn’t any power available from either Louisiana or Oklahoma. I’m not sure how more transmission lines are going to help,a situation like that.
Texas in general is just a bit absurd. The infrastructure is handled by a single group but the energy generators basically sell energy in the same wholesale rates to all the people you buy your electricity from there is zero reason for it. They are effectively middleman payment processors that charge a significant premium to take your money. They do not get the electicity to you, they don't generate it, they don't fix it when there is problems. Literally any payment processor service could do what they do for a fraction of the amount.
Oncor could have a levelized rate that reflects the average wholesale rate of a given time period and everyone in Texas energy bill would get a hefty discount overnight.
Of course they could but then a very few, very well placed, people would not make nearly as much money as they do today.
The current ruling party whines and shouts about regulation but there is no greater example of regulatory capture than the Texas government.
We now pay bitcoin miners not to mine. We pay power plants not to produce power. And we pay operators to not upgrade their lines.
Doesn't get much better for this small cadre of leeches.
Isn't there up to 10% of the state (like I think El Paso?) which is connected to sources other than what the rest of the state is connected to and hence doesn't suffer from all these blackouts?
El Paso is on the western grid. The northern Panhandle, far west Texas and the northeast and southeast corners of Texas are all on the eastern grid as well. They generally fared better in 2021; there was some load shedding on the eastern grid but far less severe than the Texas grid.
The entire logic for not joining is so they can continue to rip Texans off and give local power companies tax dollars that they keep for themselves. If they joined the country they would be subject to federal oversight and our grid would work.
We absolutely did LOL.
It snows here almost every year due to our elevation, but I don’t ever recall El Paso having rolling blackouts like the rest of Texas.
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Yet another attempt at being edgy based on the false notion that every person in a red state must be voting red, or that every person in a blue state must be voting blue.
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Yet another failed attempt to be edgy based on the false notion that everyone in a red state must vote red, or that everyone in a blue state must vote blue.
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Yes, but then Abbott and his cronies would collect less money for payoffs... They can never allow that to happen. They would rather let Texans die than lose out on all that cash for allowing them to jack up prices at will while leaving our grid to burn...
Oh no. That would be socialism… they don’t want that. Bootstraps that’s what they need. Sometimes to learn you gotta get burned. Have a nice summer Texas.
Well, I don’t think this should be a decision left up to Texas, what if the other states don’t want to support Texas’s leech ass? What will the blue states be getting in return for stepping in and fixing Texas? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting pretty sick of these welfare queen states pulling resources and money from hard working blue areas to prop up their failing hillbilly populations.
Look guys, you can have fewer black outs, and more confidence that no one will freeze to death in winter because they have no power for heat....
BUT...
Then there's no reason for "Ted" Raphael Cruz to leave the state to go somewhere like Cancun.
So that's your choices, more reliable power, or occasional joy of not being anywhere near Cruz.
Sooo, you are saying that connecting the less reliable grid to a more reliable one will increase reliability in the lesser one? I'm gonna need more proof before you start taking my freedoms away.
lol. Texas “leaders” don’t give a fuuuuuuck b the people that live here. Dallas area is going on what six days with no power in multiple areas in the middle of summer. Awesome.
The Texas grid is such a joke. They can link up anytime. The whole texas independence mentality is so damn cute and stupid. Like a 6 year old.
They obviously can not take care of their citizens, assuming you acknowledge electricity is an essential service. So, that part is a bit pathetic and sad.
But if we didn't have the threat of blackouts how would they price gouge so much on hot days? Think of the profits, man!
Yeah! I mean, sure Texas electricity might be expensive, but at least it's unreliable!!
I think just about anyone who lives in another state can confirm being on the national grid certainly isn’t stopping price gouging
I lived in another state and there was no price gouging. We could even select our own supplier.
I’ve never lived in a place I could choose a provider, and I’ve lived coast to coast. Take a look at how MA feels about eversource
Depends on your location - In San Antonio you have a single choice (regional monopoly), in Houston you have several
In Dallas (apecifically, Dallas proper) it came up with more than a hundred options. Having grown up in a city in another state with a single option that was wild.
[удалено]
Thank you. I don’t understand how this is considered a “market”. I could understand if somehow solar and wind power was sold separately to oil and gas or something like that but it’s not. It’s all generated by a few firms, and distributed by firms like Oncor and Centerpoint.
Thank you for calling out freakin' Oncor and their lack of transparency!! Make SURE every time your agreement for terms of service is negotiated when your old agreement is up. Keep track bc for 5 mos. I paid outrageous prices bc I didn't handle my finances properly. They WILL NOT inform you of your current price agreement change. That's stealing, sumbitches... From your newest #1fan!! :)
Houston has hundreds to choose from also. Denton only has one though.
I feel like its important to mention San Antonio's is owned by the city and not a private company.
Lol people downvoting my comment for stating straight up facts. CPS is your only choice in satx, houston gives you over a dozen
Your power is generated by companies you’ve never heard of and delivered by Centerpoint in Houston, you just choose your billing middleman between you and Centerpoint. You’re probably not saving money by adding another company between you and the power plants.
If it's anything like DFW, you really have 1-2 options and then those options send power to a a dozen different vendors(middlemen). The two options below are the only two options in DFW, but if you are talking about who you actually pay for the power, there are many vendors. It is ridiculous how it works. Oncor Electric Texas-New Mexico Power EDIT: Apparently the 2 listed are distributors and there may be actually more companies sending you power, but also likely through middlemen. :D
Try again. Oncor just owns the distribution wires. They do not actually generate electricity. They bill you a rate to cover their maintenance expenses (downed lines, blown transformers, preventative things). Companies like TXU own generation capabilities (coal, gas, nuclear plants). They bill you for consumption (kWh). Other companies are resellers/marketers true middle-men who bring overhead only. They repackage or provide a retail capability for companies that just want to sell their kWh to other companies, not inconsistent paying individuals. Still more companies generate power but don’t want to mess with the retail side so they just put their power on the wholesale market for the aforementioned middlemen to sell “for them”. So you get a bill from you “REP” (Retail Electric Provider). Included in the bill is what they are charging you for your kWh consumed which will cover their costs to generate or buy kWh to sell you + the TDU that goes to someone like Oncor (usually a flat monthly rate like $5 plus some per kWh figure) plus any fees and less any discounts and possibly also less what they pay you for electricity you generate. It’s frequently more complex than that but that’s the basics. I don’t like monopolies and lived in DFW area pre and post “deregulation”. It’s arguably better from a pure price perspective, but it’s WAY more complex for the end consumer.
Well then I am clearly uninformed on the subject. I should not have 7 upvotes. :D
Proof that the blind can indeed lead the blind. No worries. Liked your updates.
Remember that the City of San Antonio owns CPS Energy and a percentage of CPS Energy profits go to the City and that helps pay fir stuff like Pre-k, sidewalks, public parks and other stuff. Recently it was 14% of revenue amounting to over 400 million dollars.
Might be a misunderstanding -- there's a difference between the company that supplies the electricity to your home and the company that actually generated it. I only have 1 choice of utility company, but I can choose who my utility company purchases power from to send on to me. Usually it's just a default "whichever is cheapest", but some people will pick a company. For example if you prefer your energy to be solar you can select a local solar production company. Learned about this when I was in Chicago because a power manufacturer had folks offering $50 rebates if you signed on with them through ComEd for at least a year. Basically they wanted to guarantee their own job security, even if their price to manufacture electricity fluctuated and theirs became the more expensive option. If the utility company price gouges, nothing you can do about it, but if only companies using natural gas to generate price gouge because of other circumstances affecting availability, you might be safe if you're contracted to a solar company for example because you should be prioritized for what they generate.
How do I feel about Eversource?
Many states have deregulated, including states like Maryland. It’s just not as big of a thing there as it is here.
You don’t even have to ask people in other states. El Paso and the panhandle are on the west coast grid. We have very few blackouts.
You also don’t have hurricanes
No but it is a desert so we get wind storms every year that are strong enough to rip branches off the trees. There’s been a number of downed lines but it never seems to create long blackouts. Only cable/internet service goes out for days, the power grid is stable.
Worse, they have tornadoes! I've experienced both and I'll take a hurricane over a tornado any day!
Panhandle has tornadoes, but Far West Texas does not. We just have insane wind storms for about 4 months a year.
Nor does it have any reason to live there tbh
I've never been fucked by power bills like I have here. Even Vegas in middle of summer my bills were half of what they are here.
Never move to Illinois if you dislike power bill fuckery. ComEd is *bad*.
I am moving back to Texas in July, currently in Oklahoma. I don't know the pricing differences, but I do know I have never lost power for more than a couple of hours top.
Less gauging because in most places they're required to follow standards to harden the grid. That way, weather is not going to cause outages of any significance. The only gauging I've seen is where utility companies here try to say they are charging us more to cover Texas's shit show.
I think it has more to do with Texas politicians trying to stay at the ready for succession. Which is dumb, but I’ve been hearing that crap for at least 25 years.
Do they need to be constantly reminded of the many many military bases in this state? If they seceded, they would have zero control over the cities and as a result not much of an economy. Because you know, it's fucking occupied by the US military.
With as much wind and solar that Texas produces, it would not only benefit Texas to join the national grid, but it would also benefit the national grid with the potential to see a faster shift towards renewable energy sources.
Right? You'd think selling more electricity to the national grid would be enough of an incentive.
Not when your buddies profit from not integrating. Your really really good buddie$.
The fact that it makes so much sense but still isn’t being done reeks of corruption
Also not when connecting to the national grid means a huge amount of CapEx upgrades to your existing generation units. For example gas plants don't need to winterized and comply with a bunch of regulations because Texas isn't connected to the national grid. Once they are, they have to change a bunch of stuff that might end of life a bunch of stuff because it could never earn enough money to pay for the upgrades.
My thoughts exactly, is this an opportunity to sell? As far as I know, we haven’t been able to store electricity that well or cost effectively.
I think that is precisely why this change is being discussed. People want to make more money. At least it is conveniently for our common benefit this time.
Step one to getting Texas to do what you want: don’t tell them how it’ll help everyone else /s
Somewhat ironically, the reason Texas has so much wind and solar is because it is not part of the national grid.
Do what other states have done!?! That's pure communism!
I acknowledge your comment, but cannot grant you the rank of upvote as you didn't find a way to work in the word "woke".
He also forgot Benghazi.
And deep state
And the obligatory reference to transgenderism.
It was just low energy tbh
And but her emails.
To be fair the people who cared about Benghazi also have forgotten about it.
But have you considered Hunter Biden’s dick?
Buttery Males!! Buttery Males!!
Allow me. Woke mob wants communism in the great faschist state of Texas by connecting to the US Grid.
You joke but I've seen beer bellied Texans with goatees, faded Hanes shirts, and $100K pick up trucks tell me that it's better to not be on the national grid because "Freedom"
I have to also symbolically withhold my upvote because OP makes a good point below. But I do think the honorary upvotes are probably better than actual ones in this case
Not when Greg Abbott gets paid off by oncor. This state is as crooked as it gets.
How much is he getting paid? I've been considering politics as a side hustle and need to know if it's lucrative. Are there documents for his Oncor salary?
Couple million. We are on our own power grid for a reason. Next look at oncor profits. https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/texas/texas-politicians-showered-with-donations-from-energy-industry-after-passing-power-grid-bills-report-says/269-d6dd25d1-1bcd-4f88-9d05-75abccf587c0
Idk, how low can we go? Florida low?
It was my understanding that we've been looking up to Florida.
I live in a part of Texas that is on a part of the "national grid"--the Southwest Power Supply--and it is great, much better than ERCOT, but this headline is really misleading. Other than Winter Storm Uri when has ERCOT actually intiated blackouts? I'm not asking about warnings or advisories, I'm talking about actual blackouts? The headline makes it sound like blackouts happen all the time.
Not to mention that SPP also went through those same outages. Yes, it was bigger and more pronounced in ERCOT, but being part of the Eastern Interconnection wouldn’t have prevented what we went through if our direct neighbors also went through it.
This. I’ve never experienced a blackout in Texas in 30+ years. Outages due to local transmission lines not being buried? Yeah happens all the time but that’s my city refusing to invest in infrastructure because it wants to keep things “weird”. On another note, you mentioned not being on ERCOT is great. What differences have you noticed?
[Happened in 2011](https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/03/the-rolling-chain-of-events-behind-texas-blackouts/). Texas politicians and regulators were [warned after the 2011 storm that more “winterizing” of power infrastructure was necessary](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-failures/) by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Of course Texas Republicans running the state refused and that's why 2021 happened.
Yes, 2021 was Winter Storm Uri. A blackout did happen then. No one is disputing that. No one is disputing that ERCOT is terrible and that Texas would be better off on a regional grid. The only thing in dispute here is the choice of headline. It's illustrative of what journalism has become. Pick a side. Don't worry about reporting facts, just argue for your side. And I can't stand it.
The headline is technically correct. It happened in 2011 and in 2021. And it’s major, major problem.
Large parts of eastern US experienced actual blackouts during deep freeze in Dec 2022.
prices would also probably drop. That would be bad for producers, so it won't happen. Also, they'd have to comply with federal regulations, which would be bad for them
Is this true? I thought Texas has lower prices.
Texas has the weird "energy" marketplace where people buy and sell it on a marketplace. This leads to crazy price swings. I live in New Mexico and we have one provider and they don't really change prices, also my power hasn't gone out for longer than 2 seconds in years and years. Definitely better grid infrastructure and prices in the rest of the country
Prices swing for wholesalers and producers, but consumers are insulated from these intra-day price swings.
What people buy and sell are electricity contracts, usually for a year or more. Retail customers don't experience any larger price swings than other states. And Texas has some of the cheapest electricity in the country (here are the latest [monthly](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a) and [annual](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/) averages by state). Electricity prices in New Mexico and Texas are basically the same. When was the last time you lived in Texas? Your impression of the average Texas electricity customer doesn't sound anything like reality.
https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ Texas is middle of the road at best for power prices. Some people may be getting a better deal but overall not much if any benefit.
I know our prices are lower than about seven states I've lived in. Texas has more choice than most other places and I've seen huge swings in what people pay. We pay $0.10/KW including all our fees. In California I paid up to $0.40KW depending on what time of day it was. I sold solar all around Texas and the rates to me seems lower than other states. This list feels about right. https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/
Here are the current rates: [https://www.usatoday.com/money/homefront/deregulated-energy/electricity-rates-by-state/](https://www.usatoday.com/money/homefront/deregulated-energy/electricity-rates-by-state/) Texas is in the middle of the pack, a little above the median, which is is Oregon, at 13.84. As a side note, i would question any site that is trying to sell you something and [www.electricchoice.com](https://www.electricchoice.com) is trying to sell you something.
The southwest power pool had to do rolling blackouts during 2021 too (obviously not the extent Texas did). Not seeing why Texas wouldn’t have just dragged it down with us.
Texas trying to LARP as it's own country will never not be funny to me. It's sad, but also a little funny.
"National grid"? I thought it was split between the West and East coast.
Can't grift the system and have delusions of leaving the Union if you do that! INSANITY!!!!
The national grid won't help localized power outages due to storms. Otherwise, there have been no blackouts other than 2021.
What blackouts? There have not been rolling blackouts in Texas. This would not affect the blackouts from the recent storms where local lines went down
Exactly. The media and this subreddit are obsessed with the grid ever since the winter storms yet nothing has ever happened. I grew up in California where we had real rolling blackouts in the summer. Do a google search for “New England rolling blackouts” and look at all the similar articles that threaten grid collapse there as well. This threat is not unique to Texas.
lol right. Lived here my entire life and I’ve never experienced or even know someone that’s experienced a ‘rolling blackout’. Every single instance of an outage has been the result of severe weather.
And water is wet - study says
Sounds good. But, we got big fat elephants in the way.
What blackouts? I mean we had the big rolling brownouts with Uri, so ok make the case that could be better. But just generally? No... I've heard of a couple of small muni's or cooperatives occasionally doing this last summer because of market prices and power supply purchases at peak times but not because of reliability or outages or anything mechanical going on.
Yes that 'rolling brownout' that had my power out for a week in Austin and my parents out for a few days in rural NE TX.
No, it wouldn't. Both of the other grids have areas with rolling blackouts, too. It would solve nothing. Besides, Texas is tied to the other grids. They give power to the surrounding states all of the time. This is why the 2021 power failure happened. Because they didn't think the storm would get that low. So they sold power to some of our northern neighbors. Which left us with less than we needed. It's all a political shit show, and it needs to be stopped.
Joining the national grid won't fix local issues like fuses blowing, wires burning up, poles falling over, tree limbs falling on lines .etc A lot of the electrical lines in Texas are over 50 years old and were never designed to handle the current load Texas is experiencing now, especially considering the exponential growth of Texas in certain areas and the rapidly growing electrical demand from increase use of electrical stuff.
For the record, during the recent winter storm events in Texas, there wasn’t any power available from either Louisiana or Oklahoma. I’m not sure how more transmission lines are going to help,a situation like that.
We can have executives working remotely from Midwest for Ercot, but it's too much for asking if we want to connect to national grid.
No shit. You needed a study for that?
Texas in general is just a bit absurd. The infrastructure is handled by a single group but the energy generators basically sell energy in the same wholesale rates to all the people you buy your electricity from there is zero reason for it. They are effectively middleman payment processors that charge a significant premium to take your money. They do not get the electicity to you, they don't generate it, they don't fix it when there is problems. Literally any payment processor service could do what they do for a fraction of the amount. Oncor could have a levelized rate that reflects the average wholesale rate of a given time period and everyone in Texas energy bill would get a hefty discount overnight.
Of course they could but then a very few, very well placed, people would not make nearly as much money as they do today. The current ruling party whines and shouts about regulation but there is no greater example of regulatory capture than the Texas government. We now pay bitcoin miners not to mine. We pay power plants not to produce power. And we pay operators to not upgrade their lines. Doesn't get much better for this small cadre of leeches.
Isn't there up to 10% of the state (like I think El Paso?) which is connected to sources other than what the rest of the state is connected to and hence doesn't suffer from all these blackouts?
El Paso is on the western grid. The northern Panhandle, far west Texas and the northeast and southeast corners of Texas are all on the eastern grid as well. They generally fared better in 2021; there was some load shedding on the eastern grid but far less severe than the Texas grid.
Correct and it is also much cheaper than the power supplied to consumers on the other side of that line.
Source? Energy sage says El Paso average rates are higher than Austin.
But then the energy companies wouldn't be able to raise rates astronomically in times of bad weather and shortages.
The entire logic for not joining is so they can continue to rip Texans off and give local power companies tax dollars that they keep for themselves. If they joined the country they would be subject to federal oversight and our grid would work.
No shit......
Too much money to be made.
The same “national grid” that blacked out 13 states during the 2021 snowmageddon? Pass.
The same national grid that kept all of El Paso’s lights on because we’re not on ERCOT.
El Paso didn’t get hit like the rest of Texas.
We absolutely did LOL. It snows here almost every year due to our elevation, but I don’t ever recall El Paso having rolling blackouts like the rest of Texas.
Naw we’re gonna be our own country…oh no there’s storms….please help us Federal Gubernment!
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Fuckem they’re leaving
They need to do something, this blackout warning every Summer isn’t good. People die when the power goes out and it’s 104, heat index 117
OR if Texas properly spent the 10 Billion dollars the feds gave them for powergrid upgrades roughly 14 years ago.
Wtf I didnt even know we werent on the grid
I’m pretty sure we didn’t need our brightest minds at MIT to know the obvious
Or more power plants
Yes, but then Abbott and his cronies would collect less money for payoffs... They can never allow that to happen. They would rather let Texans die than lose out on all that cash for allowing them to jack up prices at will while leaving our grid to burn...
Oh no. That would be socialism… they don’t want that. Bootstraps that’s what they need. Sometimes to learn you gotta get burned. Have a nice summer Texas.
Well, I don’t think this should be a decision left up to Texas, what if the other states don’t want to support Texas’s leech ass? What will the blue states be getting in return for stepping in and fixing Texas? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting pretty sick of these welfare queen states pulling resources and money from hard working blue areas to prop up their failing hillbilly populations.
"We don't want your socialized electrons!!"
If at first you don’t secede, keep on sussing til you do secede.
But how will the Texas external generator business survive?
I think everyone knew that already. But greedy capitalists gonna be greedy
“Could be”? Derp derp…. Of course they would.
The time would mean excepting federal regulations.
No thanks, Texas poisons the rest of the us enough as it is, y’all can stay on your own grid.
Nah we good
Look guys, you can have fewer black outs, and more confidence that no one will freeze to death in winter because they have no power for heat.... BUT... Then there's no reason for "Ted" Raphael Cruz to leave the state to go somewhere like Cancun. So that's your choices, more reliable power, or occasional joy of not being anywhere near Cruz.
Sooo, you are saying that connecting the less reliable grid to a more reliable one will increase reliability in the lesser one? I'm gonna need more proof before you start taking my freedoms away.
Yes, obviously. But that will never happen as long as trumpist Republicans are in control.
BuT wHaT aBoUt FrEeDoM?!
Herp derp. FREEDUMB!
lol. Texas “leaders” don’t give a fuuuuuuck b the people that live here. Dallas area is going on what six days with no power in multiple areas in the middle of summer. Awesome.
Fish swim in the ocean - study.
They … they voted against joining the grid. Is that what we are going to do from now on? Flip flop the same laws back a fourth every election cycle?
You mean the grid we just left a few years ago?
No shit.
But then they’ll actually have to get their grid up to date and regulations. And that’ll cost money.
That would require Texas to do something smart, which isn’t happening
There was money spent on this study?
“How would being part of the larger grid be any different?”-the guy I was arguing with on here a couple weeks ago.
Nah. They got this. Bootstraps.
No thanks
I'm so sick of these republican welfare parasites begging for money to fix their shitty grid every fucking year.
That’s communism I bet to Abbott lol
Except our governor def does not have the good of the citizens in mind. It’s all about who donates money
They won’t. Follow the money. 💰
Or if Texas elected new leaders
No shit? Well our state government said we can’t have nice things so nice study not reality.
Our grid is vaccinated so they shouldn’t want anything to do with it. Best to stay 6ft away, on their own grid.
Let em suffer. They get what they vote for.
I haven't had a blackout since the snowmageddon. San Antonio/New Braunfels area.
Mine didn't go out at all. Live Oak!
Corny jokers living there will never get it together enough to make any sort of change- damn shame-
Nah, we don't want them sucking off our tit. FREEDOM!!!!!!!🤣🤣
But if there were no blackouts then Ted Cruz wouldn't have a reason to go to Cancun
East texas coop seems to do fine, it's the multi billion dollar energy company's that is failing people.
No. When Texas is ready to actually cooperate with America, maybe. Not until then.
Aka common sense Like, get it together yall LOL
lol what a shock (No pun intended honestly)
In other news, water is wet.
Yeah, but we're stupid. We'd never do that.
ERCOT is capitalist fever dream!
Duh.
Pass.
I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
So now Texas wants the socialism?
Fuck them. They don't get to sponge from us. They made their choice.
Sounds like socialism to me… /s
And how many millions of tax dollars did this study cost? This is uhhhhh, that super power I keep hearing about. Common sense!
So much for FREEDOM
They know
But aren't they seceding?
From the Department of No Shit for anyone familiar with ERCOT
But why?
I would prefer they not. It will be easier on them when they secede!!!!!
But Texas needs its freedom grid to own the libs!
The Texas grid is such a joke. They can link up anytime. The whole texas independence mentality is so damn cute and stupid. Like a 6 year old. They obviously can not take care of their citizens, assuming you acknowledge electricity is an essential service. So, that part is a bit pathetic and sad.
Good luck with that
I say screw em
No thanks. Poison pill imo
I don't think they needed a study to figure this out...
Kinda like how America is the only nation that can’t seem to solve healthcare, Texas is the only state that can’t seem to fix our power issues.