Search found 9 matches

by MaduroBU
Thu Mar 04, 2021 6:59 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

The REPs getting hammered by ERCOT need to sue the generators who caused the mess by breaking the grid.
by MaduroBU
Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:36 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

Someone is selling me electricity right now, but I have no idea whom.
by MaduroBU
Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:03 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

03Lightningrocks wrote: Thu Feb 25, 2021 4:52 pm I am not understanding how this whole thing works. It sounds completely off the walls. Maybe that is a good reason I never got involved in such a crazy situation.

You mentioned making up the loss. Maybe your bill did not jump as much as some but I see no way to make up for a bill even as high as 1000 dollars. My average bill for the whole year is only 120 a month. I would have to get free electricity for almost a year to break even.

Are you telling me you get 0 dollar bills on occasion?
Power extremely cheap 99.9% of the time. Power is extremely expensive 0.1%. In a standard plan, you overpay a little 99.9% of the time to avoid the potentially brutal costs from the 0.1% of the time. In a market rate plan, you pay much less 99.9% of the time but are at the mercy of the market for the 0.1% of the time. The critical question is: can you mitigate the effects of the 0.1%? If you can, either with generation, drastically reduced usage, or a company that actively hedges (sort of a hybrid model), then you'll come out way ahead on a market rate plan. If you cannot mitigate the effects of those price spikes, then you're drastically better off with a fixed rate plan. As of today, Griddy has saved me about $500 over 2 years (was ~$650 on 2/1 and cost me about $150 extra for the month) because I can adapt my usage to the variable rates. YMMV.
by MaduroBU
Thu Feb 25, 2021 4:39 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

philip964 wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:17 pm
03Lightningrocks wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:30 pm
philip964 wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:04 pm I was told by someone who went to the ERCOT site that Houston and Dallas had the most percentage of customers with outages.

Where as San Antonio or Austin for example had a much lower percentage of customers who went without power. So it may be Centerpoint and who ever it is in Dallas, said "hey we will take the fall for this, shut us off"

Or maybe if your trying to reduce big useage in a hurry its easier to flip a big switch than lots of small switches.

Governor is holding up bills for customers. I think a lot of small cheap electricity providers went bankrupt part way through all this (because they couldn't pass on the $9 rates to their customers or could not borrow money until their customers paid them), when they went out of business, their customers were thrown to the wolves. Their customers may not know at this point. In addition did any one read the fine print of the contracts they signed. It may be during an emergency you may not get the 12 or 15 cent electricity prices that were quoted. They may get to bump you to $9 like the Griddy customers did.

On Friday after the PUC order was removed electricity prices at about 10 am went from the artificial $9 a kwh to 2 cents a KWh because that was market at the time. Saturday I used 39.8 KWh and paid a total of 17 cents for power. Sunday I used 38.4 KWh and got paid 19 cents for using it.

The about 5 days last week cost me more than double my total yearly bill in 2020.

If I get any back, its going into a generator.
I live in Plano, just north of Dallas. My daughter is on a TXU plan and I am on Sparkenergy, out of Houston for my provider. Thank god we are both on fixed rate plans. We were both out for the majority of time on Monday and Tuesday. My son is in Pearland out near Houston and they were down two days. It makes sense that they would just kill the areas with highest number of users. Many areas out away from the suburbs had power the entire time.

I could never pay a 17K bill, even with a "payment plan", LOL... so your payment would be 500 a month for three years? They have to help these people. Yeah, they gambled some with variable rates but nobody expected it to be that kind of gamble. Maybe a nickle a KWh or something...but my gosh! Even a two thousand dollar bill would be crazy in a house.
Just understand, I gambled and agreed to a market rate and I am certainly willing pay that. However the PUC mandated a $9 rate for conservation purposes. I never agreed to pay an artificial mandated rate that the government set. As far as I am concerned I was given an illegal tax.
100% agree. If the market clearing rate is $1200/MWH, then that's what the price is. Setting a price "floor" (hard to call it a floor when the it's literally pegged to the ceiling) doesn't repair an artificial decrease in energy demand due to negative externalities. If they're saying that there are still rolling blackouts so demand is not yet reflected in the price, then it makes sense to fix the rolling blackouts. The PUC doesn't get to add $0.01 to the clearing price on ERCOT when a tree branch falls on a power line in West Texas and kills the electricity demand from Jim Bob's deer lease.
by MaduroBU
Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:00 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

I think that one's situation matters a lot. Let's take two folks: Person A rents a poorly insulated house in Wichita and has a heat pump/AC and an electric water heater. and has a young child. Persona B owns a house with a solar array, amazing insulation, and a natural gas generator. FWIW, Person is made up but probably pretty realistic and Person B is real. Person B won't notice if electricity stays at $9/kwh for a week. Person A will either stay with friends, freeze, or get a $17k electric bill.

I rent a 1950's ranch house in SW Houston. I spent a lot of time with my landlord, who lives next door, stuffing extra pink stuff in the attic and put insulation on all of the windows that don't face the street. I have a gas heater. I am required to be in the hospital during disasters. My situation is not ideal on its face, but I wound up with an extra $120 out of pocket from the storm and am still FAR ahead on griddy (ERCOT has been paying me to use electricity about 30% of the time since Saturday).
by MaduroBU
Wed Feb 17, 2021 7:37 am
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

I'm actually doing okay on Griddy; this month is rough, currently $0.486/kwh for $130 on 267 kwh, of which $10 is a credit card fee (they don't have ACH payments, which is my one real gripe with them). I've been stuck in a hospital since Saturday, so I basically turned everything off. My plan is to get out of dodge and return once things have calmed down here. Even with this, it has been a pretty impressive net win and I'm not going back to getting raked over the coals by other REPs.
by MaduroBU
Fri Aug 16, 2019 9:46 am
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

My month to date rate is $0.115/kWh on 750 kWh used for August. I'll try to post my end of month figures in early september. I really wish I had a 10-20 kw solar array selling into this market. You could pay it off in one month.
by MaduroBU
Tue Aug 13, 2019 2:02 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

I'm on Griddy and my current August tally is $0.086/kWh all in for August. I live in a 1950s era rental house in Houston where my landlord chopped down 4 100+ year old oaks in the front and back leaving literally zero shade. I put 6 bags of AtticCat in the ceiling and hooked up a smart thermostat which has helped a ton.

I kill the power between noon and 5pm, which means that even in the dog days of summer I'm buying wholesale at $0.03/kWh or less. I cite my example as a sort of worst case due to 1) awful construction 2) lack of control over a variety of important factors, wherein a few relatively cheap interventions have made a huge difference.

One day I'm going to build a house that will make me $50 per day during times like these, but I'm not there yet.
by MaduroBU
Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:27 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Electricity Providers
Replies: 107
Views: 24696

Re: Electricity Providers

I love griddy. You are never paying $0.015/kwh, and TDU delivery charges will be 50% or more of your cost per kwh. My rate last month was 11.5/kWh (credit card processing fee added a lot), this month to date is 9.5. I use 300-450 kwh/month in the winter with gas heat and 1000-1300/month from June to September. My year all in with TXU was 0.13/kwh because the cost during my low usage months was near 0.25/kwh.

With griddy, I'm paying $120 a year for the privilege and wholesale+TDU+tax beyond that. I project saving $2-300 per year, but that's with judicious use of power. I'm willing to alter usage to off peak times, which essentially requires a smart thermostat in Texas (your AC compressor is a huge load). If you don't want that hassle, then a regular plan may be better for you.

I don't plan to be with griddy after I build a house. My brother in law is a principal for a competitor without griddy's simple interface but with a lot more in the way of hedging and distributed generation integration (e.g. you have a solar array on your roof connected to a 5-20 kwh battery bank and they use that to push your total average cost per per kwh as low as possible. It's more than I need right now, but it is the way that things are moving.

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