Utilities company wants to bill Minnesotans for Texas' "deep freeze" disaster

[GP270watch]

What should happen instead? They just eat the cost?

Yes

They failed to weatherize on the presumption that dealing with a disaster once or twice a decade would be cheaper than proper preparation, and now they are asking everyone else to pay them (plus 8% interest) for it.

The interest part sounds more dodgy. But anyway, remember the customers benefitted from lower prices over the years because of that. If they can eat the cost I guess that would probably be better and then raise prices to get the whole system fixed for the future. Maybe they can't eat it though, I don't know. Most companies wouldn't, operating costs get passed along to the customer.

 Is this even true?


 Texas doesn't seem to have particular cheap energy bills. While Texans use a lot of energy on average, the state also has tremendous energy resources.

https://www.saveonenergy.com/learning-center/post/which-states-have-the-lowest-electricity-bills/

[emailking]

Is this even true?


 Texas doesn't seem to have particular cheap energy bills. While Texans use a lot of energy on average, the state also has tremendous energy resources.

https://www.saveonenergy.com/learning-center/post/which-states-have-the-lowest-electricity-bills/

You don't think they would have charged more if they had spent more to weatherize their infrastructure better?

[GP270watch]

Is this even true?


 Texas doesn't seem to have particular cheap energy bills. While Texans use a lot of energy on average, the state also has tremendous energy resources.

https://www.saveonenergy.com/learning-center/post/which-states-have-the-lowest-electricity-bills/

You don't think they would have charged more if they had spent more to weatherize their infrastructure better?

 If the utility companies actually passed those savings to customers maybe. If they used it to compensate executives or return money to investors than no. Normally public utilities are regulated to try and prevent this exact sort of thing but we're talking about Texas were they deregulated.

[emailking]

Ok yeah, I don't know for sure if it is true, and I guess is unknowable.

[GP270watch]

Ok yeah, I don't know for sure if it is true, and I guess is unknowable.

 I'm sure it's very knowable and I already heard Texas Democrats complaining about the governing agencies that are a mess but I don't follow the Texas energy grid with any expertise to say so either way.

[pbrower2a]

The total energy cost relates to the use of electricity, and the biggest variable factor in the use of electricity is air conditioning. Anyone who lives in the very hot, humid states of the American Southeast  pays a high price for summer use of energy, much of which goes to air conditioning.

Energy cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) ranges from $9.01 (Arkansas or Louisiana) to $34.43 (Hawaii). If you live in Arkansas, Louisiana ($9.01) or Oklahoma ($9.02), you may need that cheap energy to keep you from getting sick from the heat. Both Louisiana and Oklahoma are big energy-producing states.

Low rates (and anyone paying less  than $10 an hour is getting a bargain) include

LA   9.01
AR  9.01
OK  9.02
GA  9.29
WA  9.35
MO  9.54
NE  9.81
ID   9.82

This may reflect high local energy production, especially where there are huge hydroelectric plants. Toward the high end are

HI   34.43
RI   22.51
MA  22.99
AS  21.19
CT  20.84
NH  19.78
CA   19.44
VT   18.06
NY  17.34

Hawaiians have the highest energy bills in America even though they seem to be slight users. Energy costs of any kind will be high on volcanic islands far from the ocean that have no local sources of fossil fuels. Hawaiians practically have no heating costs.  Honolulu is warm in the summer, but it is a dry heat. 

I'm guessing that most of the high-rate states have high taxes on energy and fe3w local sources. It's easy to see that Rhode Island would be completely unsuited to hydroelectric plants, but such is the same in Delaware (12.27, much closer to the national average). California does have the dubious blessing of what the late columnist Herb Caen called "Purloiners, Grafters, and Extortionists" (Pacific Gas and Electricity), a supposedly regulated utility that dictates how the regulation goes. California does have huge hydro-power plants (and hydro-electric power is the cheapest power to produce), but if Pacific Gas & Electric has a monopoly on the distribution of that power and basically charges what the traffic will bear, you can see the effect. Add to that, California has preposterously-low property taxes that effectively subsidize the slumlords to the great cost of everyone else and from which tenants derive no benefit. California heavily taxes everything else to compensate, and electric rates in California are twice as high as those in Washington. Go figure. Practically anyone living in California is an asset of a slumlord and PG&E.

 Land may be cheap in Alaska, but construction isn't, and electric utilities must rely upon distant power sources for small populations.

[Del Tachi]

Texas doing it's usual thing where they don't want to contribute to the country but want everyone else to bail them out of whatever mess they end up in.

When else does this happen?  TX is a net contributor to the federal budget (they receive only 88 cents back for every $1 spent in federal taxes.)

[Del Tachi]

Also, what's the issue with Minnesotans paying for gas consumed in Minnesota?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also, what's the issue with Minnesotans paying for gas consumed in Minnesota?

Because that's not what this is. It's the addition of a flat surcharge due to something that Minnesota had nothing to do with.

[Frodo]

Hawaiians have the highest energy bills in America even though they seem to be slight users. Energy costs of any kind will be high on volcanic islands far from the ocean that have no local sources of fossil fuels. Hawaiians practically have no heating costs.  Honolulu is warm in the summer, but it is a dry heat. 

Which is puzzling, because I would think the Hawaiian islands would be ideal for generating power from geothermal energy. 

[Del Tachi]

Also, what's the issue with Minnesotans paying for gas consumed in Minnesota?

Because that's not what this is. It's the addition of a flat surcharge due to something that Minnesota had nothing to do with.

That's exactly what this is, lol.  CenterPoint's Minnesota-regulated subsidiary bought large amounts of natural gas on the spot market, thus leaving their rate-payers with a huge bill when Texas went off-line for a couple days.  The utility has to attach surcharges to recoup real costs incurred by Minnesota customers.   

[pbrower2a]

Hawaiians have the highest energy bills in America even though they seem to be slight users. Energy costs of any kind will be high on volcanic islands far from the ocean that have no local sources of fossil fuels. Hawaiians practically have no heating costs.  Honolulu is warm in the summer, but it is a dry heat. 

Which is puzzling, because I would think the Hawaiian islands would be ideal for generating power from geothermal energy.

The bulk of the population of Hawaii is in Oahu, and its volcanic activity is practically ended. The Big Island would seem excellent for geothermal development with heavy rainfall and volcanic activity.

The great difficulty with electrical power is not so much generating it as it is in distributing it. Transmitting electrical power from the Big Island to Oahu would be extremely difficult because electrical power lines are difficult to build, as well as unsafe and unreliable, over long stretches of open water. If you can't bridge a body of water, then you almost certainly can't build power lines over it.     

[jimrtex]

Also, what's the issue with Minnesotans paying for gas consumed in Minnesota?

Because that's not what this is. It's the addition of a flat surcharge due to something that Minnesota had nothing to do with.

That's exactly what this is, lol.  CenterPoint's Minnesota-regulated subsidiary bought large amounts of natural gas on the spot market, thus leaving their rate-payers with a huge bill when Texas went off-line for a couple days.  The utility has to attach surcharges to recoup real costs incurred by Minnesota customers.   

Minnesota should build pipelines from North Dakota and Alberta/Saskatchewan so they are not as dependent on a single source. Maybe they could have LNG delivered to Duluth or Churchhill. Or build coal plants or nuclear.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hawaiians have the highest energy bills in America even though they seem to be slight users. Energy costs of any kind will be high on volcanic islands far from the ocean that have no local sources of fossil fuels. Hawaiians practically have no heating costs.  Honolulu is warm in the summer, but it is a dry heat. 

Which is puzzling, because I would think the Hawaiian islands would be ideal for generating power from geothermal energy. 

California has the largest geothermal plant in the world, and lots of solar and wind, and yet we pay through the nose for electricity.