Workers repair a power line in Austin, Texas, USA, on Wednesday, February 18, 2021.
Thomas Ryan Allison | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Sunday called on the state of Texas to pay for the massive electricity bills that dozens of Texans reported after harsh winter weather cut the power and energy prices soared.
Cold conditions last week caused major grid outages and sky-high demand, leaving millions of people without heat and electricity. With power resuming in most of Texas, some households are facing utility bills as high as $ 10,000.
“For people who get these exorbitant electricity bills and pay to fix their homes, they don’t have to bear the responsibility,” Turner said during an interview on CBS ‘Face the Nation. “Those exorbitant costs should be borne by the state of Texas and not the individual customers who did not cause this disaster this week.”
The high utility bills in Texas are due to the state’s unregulated power grid that is almost cut off from the rest of the country. In the market-driven system, customers choose their own energy suppliers. In many cases, when demand increases, prices also go up.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages power for about 90% of the state, was unprepared for the cold conditions and rising power demands when people tried to heat their homes.
“Everything that happened in the past week was foreseeable and preventable. Our Texas system is designed for summer heat and not necessarily a winter event,” Turner said.
“Climate change is real and these big storms can happen at any time,” he added. “These systems have to be weathered … we have to open the net in Texas.”
The exorbitant bills prompted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to hold an emergency meeting with lawmakers to discuss how the state can reduce the burden on consumers.
Read more:
Biden declares a major disaster in Texas, more than 15 million people have to boil water
Blackouts in Texas show how vulnerable the power grid is to climate change
The failure of the Texas network sparks a feud over Republican power sector control
“We have a responsibility to protect Texans from spikes in their utility bills resulting from severe winter weather and power outages,” Abbott said in a statement after the meeting.
“We are moving quickly to alleviate this problem and will continue to work together this week on solutions to help families in Texas and ensure they don’t get stuck with skyrocketing utility bills,” Abbott added.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., Said during an interview on CNN on Sunday that the state will use the federal government’s disaster relief funding to support customers with high utility services.
After more than 3 million people in Texas lost power last week, ERCOT said it has returned to normal conditions and restored power to millions of customers. According to recent data from PowerOutage.us, more than 30,000 people in Texas were still without power as of 11:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
More than 1,300 public water systems were disrupted by the extreme weather, and more than 15 million people were ordered to boil their water as of Saturday, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
President Joe Biden on Saturday approved a major disaster statement for 77 Texas counties, releasing federal aid for Texans, grants for temporary housing and home repairs, and cheap loans to cover uninsured property losses. The state’s goal is to eventually have all 254 counties under the declaration.