It's a free market system where the government doesn't dick with it too much. There are multiple power companies that feed into the grid system. You can buy power from who ever you choose to. There are also wholesale resellers. They buy up blocks generated power and resell their allotment to people.
The government in Texas largely just allows what happens to happen. As long as the contracts are legally sound and aren't predatory, they Don't get involved.
About 20 years ago, Texas decided to stop regulating who would provide your power to you. In regulated states, the company generating the power and providing the infrastructure sells their product directly to you and they negotiate the price with the state regulators rather than with the customers. Everyone pays the same price and everyone gets their power from the same place.
In Texas, that's not how it works. The power producers are now considered to be wholesalers and they sell the electricity they produce to distributors. Those distributors then sell that power to the consumer at whatever price they feel makes them enough of a profit to stay in business. Some of those providers charge higher prices because they offer better customer service. Others keep their prices low by offering essentially no customer service and by functioning as nothing more than a glorified billing service.
Private companies taking on those costs allows the actual producers to lower the costs they charge because the only thing they have to do now is generate and distribute the power. They no longer deal with individual customers, they just deal with the reps from the retail providers, so they are able to scrap entire divisions from their company and lower the price accordingly.
Most of the time, this means that consumers, who rarely need anything from their power company besides the power itself at a good price, get that better price because the power is cheaper from the utility and the utility itself doesn't enter into state regulated contracts for the price, contracts that the utility formerly had to look at and factor in the costs of dealing with customers when setting a retail price that would remain static for years. Now, they can change their price by the hour if they choose based on demand.
When a gigantic winter storm comes along and everyone out there wants power at the same time, more power than they can provide while the storm is still raging and infrastructure is failing, they raise the price to lower demand from the retail providers. The retail providers see that the cost is rising and make a decision to black out their customers because they can't afford to sell power to people at a contractual rate when the actual wholesale rate has just gone up to 100 times what it was. That leaves the power supply available to be routed to critical infrastructure and to customers whose providers charge them more for better service, one aspect of that better service being that in times like this they don't shut off the power because they have enough of a cash buffer to pay the inflated prices for a couple of days.
That's why the rolling blackouts affect different neighborhoods in what seems like a random pattern. It's really just certain providers saying "We can't afford this right now. We have to shut it down until the price drops again." Then when other providers hit their ceiling and shut down as well, the price comes back down because the demand is lower. Then the providers turn things back on for a while and the price goes up again, etc.
It's essentially just a free market demonstrating how supply and demand works, and outside of catastrophes, it works remarkably well.
This guy's problem is that the provider he uses doesn't ever stop providing power, no matter the cost, because the deal they make with their customers is that the customers pay $10 a month + the actual cost of the power they use as set by the utility. When the price is nice and low, those customers pay the absolute rock bottom rate for power.
When the price inflates in a winter storm, if those customers keep using power, they're going to pay the going rate, per their agreement with the provider.
I do that already when the power goes out. My 6.5Kw diesel is enough to power my well pump, septic pump, two fridges and a chest freezer. Combine that with my tankless LP water heater, wood stove and LP stove/oven with standing pilot and we are none the worse for wear.
About six years ago we had a huge storm that knocked out our power for two weeks. National Grid was in no rush to get us up and running since our zip code was E-I-E-I-O (if you know what I mean). That transfer switch was the best $1,300 I ever spent.
Honestly, you're better with a non-profit co-op for electricity. As a former person of Texas, the system was rigged to high heaven.
The retail providers would play stupid games with teaser rates, or only offer you a 12 or 18 month deal, then spike the price knowing you'd forget to go hunting for a new plan when it was up and they revert you to a "default" plan with prices 50% higher than before.
And multiple times I had the company I signed on with get acquired/bought out so then you're dealing with a company you didn't sign up with, they shuffled customers around like cards in a go fish tournament.
It was a pain in the ass and you'd end up dealing with these fly by night companies who had payment systems that looked like they belonged in the MySpace era of the web.
So what's the deal where you can switch power companies at will like some sort of electrical cotillion? Where I am, you're stuck with what you've got.
Texas has its own power grid and it's not regulated. It lowers costs 99% of the time, but catastrophes like this are the weak point.
It's a free market system where the government doesn't dick with it too much. There are multiple power companies that feed into the grid system. You can buy power from who ever you choose to. There are also wholesale resellers. They buy up blocks generated power and resell their allotment to people.
The government in Texas largely just allows what happens to happen. As long as the contracts are legally sound and aren't predatory, they Don't get involved.
It is regulated just less regulations overall. People make it sound like the Texas grid is like the wild west or something lol
About 20 years ago, Texas decided to stop regulating who would provide your power to you. In regulated states, the company generating the power and providing the infrastructure sells their product directly to you and they negotiate the price with the state regulators rather than with the customers. Everyone pays the same price and everyone gets their power from the same place.
In Texas, that's not how it works. The power producers are now considered to be wholesalers and they sell the electricity they produce to distributors. Those distributors then sell that power to the consumer at whatever price they feel makes them enough of a profit to stay in business. Some of those providers charge higher prices because they offer better customer service. Others keep their prices low by offering essentially no customer service and by functioning as nothing more than a glorified billing service.
Private companies taking on those costs allows the actual producers to lower the costs they charge because the only thing they have to do now is generate and distribute the power. They no longer deal with individual customers, they just deal with the reps from the retail providers, so they are able to scrap entire divisions from their company and lower the price accordingly.
Most of the time, this means that consumers, who rarely need anything from their power company besides the power itself at a good price, get that better price because the power is cheaper from the utility and the utility itself doesn't enter into state regulated contracts for the price, contracts that the utility formerly had to look at and factor in the costs of dealing with customers when setting a retail price that would remain static for years. Now, they can change their price by the hour if they choose based on demand.
When a gigantic winter storm comes along and everyone out there wants power at the same time, more power than they can provide while the storm is still raging and infrastructure is failing, they raise the price to lower demand from the retail providers. The retail providers see that the cost is rising and make a decision to black out their customers because they can't afford to sell power to people at a contractual rate when the actual wholesale rate has just gone up to 100 times what it was. That leaves the power supply available to be routed to critical infrastructure and to customers whose providers charge them more for better service, one aspect of that better service being that in times like this they don't shut off the power because they have enough of a cash buffer to pay the inflated prices for a couple of days.
That's why the rolling blackouts affect different neighborhoods in what seems like a random pattern. It's really just certain providers saying "We can't afford this right now. We have to shut it down until the price drops again." Then when other providers hit their ceiling and shut down as well, the price comes back down because the demand is lower. Then the providers turn things back on for a while and the price goes up again, etc.
It's essentially just a free market demonstrating how supply and demand works, and outside of catastrophes, it works remarkably well.
This guy's problem is that the provider he uses doesn't ever stop providing power, no matter the cost, because the deal they make with their customers is that the customers pay $10 a month + the actual cost of the power they use as set by the utility. When the price is nice and low, those customers pay the absolute rock bottom rate for power.
When the price inflates in a winter storm, if those customers keep using power, they're going to pay the going rate, per their agreement with the provider.
You can always buy your own generator and power it with your desired fuel.
I do that already when the power goes out. My 6.5Kw diesel is enough to power my well pump, septic pump, two fridges and a chest freezer. Combine that with my tankless LP water heater, wood stove and LP stove/oven with standing pilot and we are none the worse for wear.
About six years ago we had a huge storm that knocked out our power for two weeks. National Grid was in no rush to get us up and running since our zip code was E-I-E-I-O (if you know what I mean). That transfer switch was the best $1,300 I ever spent.
Honestly, you're better with a non-profit co-op for electricity. As a former person of Texas, the system was rigged to high heaven.
The retail providers would play stupid games with teaser rates, or only offer you a 12 or 18 month deal, then spike the price knowing you'd forget to go hunting for a new plan when it was up and they revert you to a "default" plan with prices 50% higher than before.
And multiple times I had the company I signed on with get acquired/bought out so then you're dealing with a company you didn't sign up with, they shuffled customers around like cards in a go fish tournament.
It was a pain in the ass and you'd end up dealing with these fly by night companies who had payment systems that looked like they belonged in the MySpace era of the web.