Workers repair a power line in Austin, Texas, USA, on Wednesday, February 18, 2021.
Thomas Ryan Allison | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Sunday called on the state of Texas to pay for the huge electric bills that many Texans reported after the severe winter weather caused power and energy prices to rise.
Tight conditions last week caused major failures in the network and the attacking demand that left millions of people without heat and electricity. While power is being resumed in most of Texas, some households are being charged as much as $ 10,000.
“For people who get these exorbitant electricity bills and have to pay to repair their homes, they do not have to bear the responsibility,” Turner said in an interview on CBS ‘”Face the Nation.” “These exorbitant costs must be borne by the state of Texas and not by the individual customers who did not cause this disaster this week.”
The high utility bills in Texas are due to the state’s unregulated power grid being cut off almost from the rest of the state. In the market-driven system, customers choose their own power suppliers. In many cases, as demand increases, prices rise as well.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages power for about 90% of the state, was unprepared for the cold conditions and the increase in demand for power while people tried to heat their homes.
“Everything that happened this past week was predictable and preventable. Our system in Texas is designed for summer heat and not necessarily a winter event,” Turner said.
“Climate change is real and these major storms can happen at any time,” he added. “These systems need to be defended … we need to open up the Texas network.”
The excessive bills prompted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to hold an emergency meeting with lawmakers to address how the state can reduce the burden on consumers.
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“We have a responsibility to protect Texans from spikes in their energy bills as a result of severe winter weather and power outages,” Abbott said in a statement after the meeting.
“We are moving fast to alleviate this problem and will continue to work together throughout the week on solutions to help Texas families and ensure they do not get stuck with rising energy bills,” Abbott added.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., Said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that the state will use federal government disaster funding to support clients with high utility payments.
After more than 3 million people in Texas lost power last week, ERCOT said it was back to normal and that it was recovering the millions of customers. More than 30,000 people in Texas did not yet have power at 11:30 a.m. Sunday morning, according to recent data from PowerOutage.us.
More than 1,300 public water systems were disrupted due to the extreme weather, and more than 15 million people were under order to boil their water as of Saturday, according to the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality.
President Joe Biden on Saturday approved a major disaster statement for 77 Texas provinces, including unlocking federal aid for Texans, grants for repairs to housing and homes, and cheap loans to cover uninsured property losses. The state’s goal is to eventually have all 254 provinces under the declaration.