A Texas resident’s energy bill increased by more than $ 7,700 this month, as outages and bad weather in the area increased the cost of electricity.
Royce Pierce, a 38-year-old contractor from Texas, owes energy company Griddy $ 8,162.73 for electricity use in February. The total was a sharp increase compared to his two-story home bill last month, which was $ 387.79.
“It’s mind-blowing. I honestly didn’t believe in the price at first,” Pierce told the Daily Beast. “It is not a good feeling to know that there is an impending bill that we simply cannot pay.”
Pierce noted that his family has been trying to use less electricity in an effort to keep costs down. These efforts include lowering the thermostat to 50 degrees and not using the lights or the oven.
“There is nothing we can do now. This is already a crazy thing and I don’t care about money when it comes to people’s health,” said Pierce, adding that if the coronavirus pandemic had not affected his work, “we I could have taken care of that. “
Ron Jenkins photo / Getty Images / Getty
Griddy told all his customers earlier this week that they should switch to another energy supplier, as electricity prices soared to $ 9,000 an megawatt hour on Monday.
“We made the unprecedented decision to tell our customers – that we work hard to get – that they will be better off in the short term with another supplier,” said Michael Fallquist, Griddy’s chief executive, in a statement.
“We want what’s right for our consumers, so we encourage them to leave,” continued Fallquist. “We believe that transparency and honesty will bring them back.”
Griddy’s customers are exposed to real-time fluctuations in the wholesale energy markets, as members pay a monthly fee of $ 9.99 and then pay the direct cost of electricity on the Texas power grid based on the time of day they used it.
Griddy’s business model generally saves money for its customers, but it has done the opposite in recent days, as the cost of energy on the Texas network has increased exponentially amid disruptions caused by severe weather conditions.
Before Texas was hit by extreme weather, causing massive power cuts across the state, electricity prices were less than $ 50 per megawatt-hour, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) .
Texas is experiencing widespread outages since 1:25 am CT on Monday, when ERCOT asked transmission companies to limit the availability of energy to residents in an effort to prevent a total blackout amid severe weather conditions.
The state has been experiencing an unprecedented amount of snow and record cold temperatures in the area since Sunday.
More than 425,000 Texans are out of power on Thursday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.
Newsweek he held out his hand to Griddy, but I had no news in time for publication.