Texans say energy companies are on a power trip.
Electricity bills in the state of Lone Star skyrocketed to as much as $ 17,000 a month, after a historic storm and power outage generated high demand for heating, according to reports on Friday.
Dallas area resident Ty Williams was shocked when his monthly bill skyrocketed from $ 600 last month to nearly $ 17,000 this month, according to the local WFAA station.
“How can anyone pay for this? I mean, you get out of a few hundred dollars a month … there’s no way, it doesn’t make sense, ”Williams, who said he received the bill from the energy company Griddy.
The price of energy in Texas has skyrocketed from $ 50 to $ 9,000 per megawatt in some cases due to the supply and demand disaster, according to the season.
Customers with so-called “variable or indexed” electricity plans in Texas – the only state that manages its own autonomous power grid – are partly controlled by market demand.
This caused prices to rise, as Texans who did not lose energy increased heating amid extremely cold temperatures this week, an expert told NBC.
“The last thing that a lot of people need now is a higher electricity bill – and that, unfortunately, is something that a lot of people are going to be stuck in,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst.
Royce Pierce, who lives in the Dallas suburb of Willow Park, said his three-bedroom home’s electricity bill had skyrocketed to $ 10,000 in the past few days.
“We hope there will be relief,” said Royce. “This is something that we can ski and tackle over time, but how many people can’t? Much.”
Veronica Garcia, a client of Reliant Energy in Mansfield, Texas, said the electricity bill for her one-bedroom apartment almost doubled to $ 114 for her one-bedroom apartment.
“Hopefully, if they are decent, they will not charge people for it, because we had no control over the situation,” said Garcia, who is an administrative associate at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “I hope I can beat the charges and they do the right thing.”
A spokeswoman for Reliant Energy told NBC that it is offering flexible bill payment options to support customers affected by the storm.
Griddy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.