Texas residents are dreading walking to their mailbox. They don’t want to see how big their energy bills are following the brutal winter storm that led to widespread power outages and blackouts all over the sate.
There literally are people finding five figure electric bills have been delivered to them, and of course most shocked citizens would have no way of paying for a utility bill that high.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said relief is coming, and he is addressing what he called the “skyrocketing energy bills that resulted from a temporary spike in the energy market.”
Abbott will meet with his state legislature this week and assured residents they will not be financially responsible for those outrageous bills.
During the interim, Abbott told the Public Utility Commission to temporarily restrict energy providers from sending out bills. He also halted any scheduled disconnections that were the result of nonpayment.
“Texans who have suffered through days of freezing cold without power should not be subjected to skyrocketing energy bills,” Abbott said at a press conference Sunday.
Here’s how the bills got so large for some people. Texas was blasted with a historic cold streak that forced a number of residents to crank up their heaters. Many of the heating units in the state are inefficient electric models. It resulted in a spike in energy use that is comparable to the hottest days in summer when AC units are blaring across the state.
This extra demand caused a burden on the power grids, so Texas and other states in the south had to impose rolling blackouts.
Abbott is annoyed at ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), which operates the state’s power grid. He said they misled the public by saying the power grid was prepared to handle the historic storm.
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