But price going through the stratosphere during an emergence based on “free” market is perfectly legal. There is just something wrong with this. I feel for those griddy customers and even those companies that will go bankrupted because of this. During an emergency, price should be contained to a reasonable level. Some type of emergency “safety” cap that still rewards well run companies but doesn’t risk bankruptcies to massive number of companies and increase costs to everyone. https://www.npr.org/sections/live-u...-harsh-storms-send-natural-gas-prices-surging
Being a good father, I let my daughter sit next to me when I was typing this. She pulled on my arm causing me to type an "a" instead of "o". She's only 2 years old, so please forgive her.
just like Cruz, throwing your kid under the bus! EDIT: Oops, with apologies to @DonnyMost -- didn't mean to repeat the joke.
I'm not too hip to Electric and natural gas billing. I believe I have a contracted price for my electricity but I don't know if I do with Center Point for gas. Anybody know what I can expect? Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla * TEXAS GOVERNOR'S CALL FOR LEGISLATURE TO ADDRESS GENERATOR WINTERIZATION A 'GOOD IDEA' -ERCOT
I've interviewed for a few roles with choice-based power or electricity providers, every time I do advance research and prep there's at least one or two news stories about being investigated by the local or state regulators due to overpricing or service reliability, and a separate focus on lower-income customers with the implication that they are more susceptible to choosing these providers. Anyone who either reviews costs for institutional energy users or spends any time on the supply or generation side for a legit utility knows the complexities and risks tied to costs and delivery, I don't believe would get within a mile of some of these retail providers. I don't feel for Griddy customers at all, this **** always blows up in everyone's face during the next demand shock, although part of my disdain is that damn app store brand name.
At least in HOU... Electricity can be fixed rate or variable (some kind of indexed mkt?? rate) and there is griddy (raw real time mkt rate). Fixed rate customers have nothing to worry about in their next bill. Those customers that chooses variable mkt rate (i think none of them do this, they are PUT into this bucket when their contract expired and they don't realize it might be in for a shock). Griddy customers are going to be in for a heart attack level shock. For natural gas, no idea. It's regional single provider as far as I know. You don't choose a provider so you are put into whatever plan they provide. My guess is since it's a single provicer, there is some regulation on pricing.
I understand that Natural Gas spot prices were up as much as 33,000% for Electric Generation. I would assume they would all be hedged with futures contracts but maybe their hedged suppliers could not meet the demand and they had to turn to the spot market. I would hope that Centerpoint would be hedged to the max for residential service, but did they have to go to the spot market to supply the millions of homes they serve? And if they did is there a mechanism to pass them on to customers? Or would they cut their dividend to make up the difference (ha). Henry Hub prices only rose 7% this week. This from their website: The cost of natural gas – The wholesale cost of natural gas that CenterPoint Energy pays is passed on directly to customers. As wholesale prices rise, the charge on your bill increases to allow CenterPoint Energy to recover the cost of the gas. And as wholesale natural gas prices decrease, CenterPoint Energy passes on the price decreases as well.
