The power bill of a resident of Texas rose by more than $ 7,700 this month as the outages and severe weather in the area increased the cost of electricity.
Royce Pierce, a 38-year-old Texas contractor and resident, owes the power company, Griddy, $ 8,162.73 for its electricity usage. The total was a sharp increase compared to his account for his two-story home last month, which was $ 387.79.
“It’s amazing. I honestly did not believe the price at first,” Pierce told the Daily Beast. “It’s not a great feeling to know that there’s a looming bill we just can not afford.”
Pierce noted that his family tried to use less electricity to limit costs. These efforts include turning off the thermostat to 50 degrees and not using the lamps or the oven.
“There’s nothing we can do now. It’s already an insane thing and I do not care about the money when it comes to people’s health,” Pierce said, adding that if the coronavirus pandemic did not affect his work not, “we said. could have taken care of this.”
Photo by Ron Jenkins / Getty Images / Getty
Griddy told all his customers earlier this week that they should switch to another power supply because electricity prices rose to $ 9,000 per megawatt-hour on Monday.
“We have made the unprecedented decision to tell our customers – for whom we have worked very hard – that they are better off with another supplier in the short term,” said Griddy CEO Michael Fallquist. a statement said.
“We want that which is good by our consumers, so we encourage them to go away,” Fallquist continued. “We believe that transparency and honesty will bring them back.”
Griddy customers are exposed to the real-time fluctuations in wholesale markets, as members pay $ 9.99 a month and then pay the direct cost of the electricity on Texas’ power grid based on the time of day they used it.
Griddy’s business model often saves customers money, but lately he’s done the opposite because the cost of power on the Texas network has risen exponentially amid the disruptions caused by severe weather conditions.
Before Texas was hit by extreme weather conditions that caused major power outages in the state, the price of electricity was less than $ 50 per megawatt-hour, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Texas has been experiencing widespread disruptions since 1:25 a.m. CT when ERCOT called on transmission companies to limit the availability of power to residents in an effort to prevent a total eclipse amid the severe weather conditions.
The state has been experiencing unprecedented amounts of snowfall and record-breaking cold temperatures in the area since Sunday.
More than 425,000 Texans were without power Thursday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.
Newsweek Griddy issued, but did not hear in time for publication.