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Category: Electricity Prices

Texas Needs to Do Everything to Address High Electricity/Energy Prices

Though Texas is a leading producer of electricity, it must be sold and moved to accommodate a growing state… so Texas needs to advance its transmission capabilities. Because transmission congestion, the lowest-priced electricity can’t reach customers during high-demand times or power outages. Congestion is an expensive problem and a hidden cost that consumers absorb in high electricity bills.

Congestion costs exceeded $2,000,000,000 in 2021. This year, congestion costs have already hit $800,000,000.

GET THE BEST ELECTRICTY RATE

We love to hustle in order to lower your electric bill and save you money…

…so you make your business better without worrying about overhead!

CONTACT US TODAY

CALL US: 713-396-0090

We’re already mentioned that Texas surpasses every state in energy -> electricity production. In 2021, Texas produced 43% of all crude oil and 25% of all natural gas in the U.S., and produced 26% of its wind power. But unpredictable global economics, predictable population growth, and times of extreme weather can instigate sky-high electricity demand and strain the electrical grid. In some scenarios, unplanned outages can affect the entire integrated infrastructure, which depends heavily on electricity to operate: drinking water and internet or communications (i.e. medical devices) that depend on electricity.

The current situation suggests we continue to build out energy resources to respond to inflation or other global crisis. Politicians and policymakers have to embrace an “everything is on the table” approach to developing and dispersing the state’s resources. This means Texas must cut the red tape preventing the state from fully harnessing renewables like wind or extracting tried-and-true commodities like Permian Basin oil and gas. This also means embracing generation that uses less water, emphasizing the addition of battery storage to dispatch electricity on demand, and incenting businesses to choose Texas to develop new energy technologies.

Right now the state should not pit renewables against traditional fossil fuels or seek to replace one with the other. To generate electricity for residential, commercial, and industrial users, Texas should use natural resources plus renewable power generation to be successful. Some economic modeling has shown that fixing Texass power grid issues would result in massive economic, energy, and environmental benefits that include $11,000,000,000 in tax revenue and 25,300+ jobs.

Inadequate Electricity Transmission Will Make The Grid Less Reliable and Jack Up Electric Bills

The Texas economy will be in peril too. Providing affordable, lower-priced electricity and reliable power for homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals across the state must be an urgent priority. We an’t repeat this enough, it is crucial that legislators develop all energy resources synchronously while building out infrastructure (the grid!).

How to Get The Best Electricity Rates in Sugar Land, TX

June 21, 2022
Concerned About Electricity Prices? Here’s an Annual Electric Rate Comparison

If you are not sure if electricity prices have been going up, have a look at this!

The data has been compiled by the PUCT (Public Utility Commission of Texas) from REPs (Retail Electric Providers) and PUC approved price to beat rates using representative usage levels. The rates are calculated using the Commission Approved Residential Load Profile for each service area. This is not intended to make any kind of a recommendation for our clients to utilize a particular electricity provider.

Although the Public Utility Commission of Texas works hard to make sure the prices are accurate, Wizard Energy Savings and the PUC makes no warranty that the prices in these archives are currently being offered.

The average prices shown in these documents represent average annual prices per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Because Some REPs charge rates that vary by season or usage level, the actual average price listed on a your bill for any given month will probably differ from that listed here.

Electricity Prices in 2019

March 2019

June 2019

September 2019

December 2019

Electricity Prices in 2020

March 2020

June 2020

September 2020

December 2020

Electricity Prices in 2021

March 2021

June 2021

September 2021

December 2021

GET THE BEST ELECTRICTY RATE

We love to hustle in order to lower your electric bill and save you money…

…so you make your business better without worrying about overhead!

CONTACT US TODAY

CALL US: 713-396-0090

If you want to go back further, the archive goes all the way back to 2002… click here.

How to Get The Best Electricity Rates in Sugar Land, TX

June 15, 2022
How to Get The Best Electricity Rates in Sugar Land, TX
You’re current electricity contract is coming up and you recently checked on rates for electricity.

SHOCK!

Electricity prices are crazy high in Texas right now and are expected to trend higher. What can you do… whether you are searching for your business or home, should you use an independent broker to get the best electric rates in Sugar Land?

Answer: Absolutely… and it costs you nothing!

Wizard energy is an independent electricity/energy broker that forces big energy companies to compete for your business. To best electric rates in Sugar Land, we make the electricity providers bid with their best possible rate. When they bid for one of our clilents, they know that Wizard Energy gives them the opportunity to bid on dozens of other customers every year. Collectively, this drives your price down!

GET THE BEST ELECTRICTY RATE

We love to hustle in order to lower your electric bill and save you money…

…so you make your business better without worrying about overhead!

CONTACT US TODAY

CALL US: 713-396-0090

We get you the best possible electric rate no matter what. People are also asking:

Who has the lowest rate for electricity?
Who has the cheapest electricity rates in Texas?
What hours is electricity the cheapest?
Who has the highest electric rates in Texas?
How do I reduce my electric bill?
How many kWh per day is normal?
How can I get cheap electricity in Texas?
What is the best electric plan in Texas?
What is the average electric bill in Texas?
How do I choose a Texas electric provider?

These are things that we are more than happy to explain to you, but you don’t have to bother with.

In addition to making electricity companies compete for your business, another reason we get better pricing is because the electricity companies know we help many clients. When a single business owner goes directly to an energy company, you’re offering them one (1) contract. Compare this to Wizard Energy giving them the opportunity to bid on dozens of customers every year… who do you think is more likely to get a better price?

Do you have time to scour companies and plans for the best electricity rates in Sugar Land?

Wizard Energy has the experience and know-how to request bids from all the electricity companies, review the terms and small print (we know what to look for), and select the best rate based on the market condition and constantly changing prices.

Wizard Energy Handles The Time-Consuming Business to Get The Best Rate
- Review of your electricity usage and load profile
- Request bids from electricity providers
- Analyze electricity contracts and review fine print
- Review electric bills and rates to make sure of your rate
More Reasons Why We Get You The Best electricity Rate in Sugar Land

We offer our clients independent, personal service. We are impartial and not tied to any electricity provider, big or small. We compare more than 20 suppliers to help find the right deal for each individual business.

Electricity can be one of the greatest operating expenses a company faces, so we’ll make sure you’re getting the best energy rate possible by making big electricity companies compete for your business.

Wizard Energy does all the legwork for you. We analyze your energy usage, speak to suppliers, and gather all the options so that all you need to do is select the deal that suits you. It’s pretty obvious… LOWEST PRICE!

Electricity Prices Are Going Up – Here Are Other Ways to Save
June 2, 2022
Electricity Prices Are Only Going to Go Up – Here’s How to Save

Demand for power this summer is expected to shatter previous records, ERCOT revealed in a What can you do about a high electricity bill? If your monthly energy costs in your Texas home are becoming an unpleasant surprise for you, relief can be found in your electricity usage.

Ways to Reduce Your Electricity Bill

1. Lower Electricity Bill: Do laundry in cold water and reduce the number of loads

Did you know that 90% of the energy the washing machine uses goes towards heating water? Save energy by saving your laundry until you can do a single large load instead of multiple small loads in cold water.

2. Lower Electricity Bill: Shorter showers

Less time heating water means less energy usage (electricity or natural gas). Sustainable showering can help reduce your carbon footprint, save water, and save on your electricity bill.

3. Lower Electricity Bill: Seals your windows and doors tight

Proper insulation goes a long way in keeping your nice cold air INSIDE the house where it belongs, especially during hot Texas summers. In winter, those seals keep the cold weather out and the heat in.

4. Lower Electricity Bill: Turn the Air Conditioner up when away from home… duh!

Don’t run the AC if no one will be at one to enjoy it! Save on your electricity bill by manually or automatically changing the temperature during peak times when no one is home.

Maybe use a dehumidifier in areas with high humidity. Dehumidifiers are a great tool to reduce the moisture in your home, which in turn reduces how hard your AC has to work and extends the life of your unit.

5. Lower Electricity Bill: Buy energy-efficient appliances

ENERGY STAR® is a government-backed symbol for evaluating if an appliance is energy efficient. When buying a new appliance, see if it is certified. Those appliances can reduce your overall kilowatt usage compared to non-certified appliances.

6. Lower Electric Costs: Monitor your AC air filters

Most of our electricity usage is through the AC. Remember to check air filters regularly to see if they need to be replaced in order to promote airflow and allow your HVAC to function properly.

7. Lower Electric Costs: Start using LED bulbs

Residential LED bulbs use at least 75% less energy and last up to 5 times longer than incandescent lighting. This is an easy win!

8. Lower Electric Costs: Use dimmer switches on your lights

Dimmer switches save electricity by reducing the flow of energy into the bulb itself. It allows lights to operate with lower outputs and allows full control over the luminescence.

9. Lower Electric Costs: Don’t be lazy… Turn off lights and unplug appliances when not in use

Appliances and devices like the television, desk lamps, overhead lighting, and consoles should be powered down when not in use. Appliances still generate a small amount of heat when plugged in, so you can save even more by unplugging them from the socket.

10. Lower Electric Costs: Have an energy audit done at your home

Check for air leaks, check insulation, inspect your equipment, review your lighting and appliance usage, and making a plan with the household to set goals for saving energy.

More Ways to Reduce Your Energy Cost & Electric Bill

11. Lower Electric Bill: Stay in one room

If you’re working from home, the key is to create a home office—and stay there. Concentrating your workday in one room lets you limit your electricity usage to that space: you’ll only need one fan, one lamp, and so on. If you’re working on a laptop computer, try not to keep it plugged in at all times. Instead, let the battery life carry you through the day until you need to charge again.

12. Lower Electric Bill: Isolate Heat

Turn off your oven and any unnecessary electronics that produce heat, like lamps with incandescent bulbs. This will help you use less power while also avoiding the warmth they can add to your living space. If you have a grill or cooking fire pit outside, use it, but if you must turn on the oven or stove, isolate its ambient heat by closing your kitchen off from the rest of your home. This can be as simple as closing some doors, setting up a privacy screen, or hanging a heavy blanket over any open areas. If you go for that last option, we recommend nailing the cloth up like you’re hanging a painting (the wood that forms the side of any opening should continue straight up to the ceiling)—tape can strip the paint off your walls.

13. Lower Electric Bill: Empty your outlets

Unplug anything you aren’t using. Even empty phone and laptop chargers draw a small amount of electricity from the outlets they’re plugged into—and the same goes for your toaster, kettle, video game console, and more. It adds up!

14. Lower Electric Bill: Dry your clothes outdoors

Clothes dryers use a huge amount of electricity. In fact, they can consume as much power as a fridge, a washing machine, and a dishwasher combined. Summer is the perfect time to forego your clothes dryer and hang your laundry outdoors to dry instead. Let the hot sun and fresh air do their thing, and save money while you’re at it.

May 24, 2022
ERCOT Says Summer Demand Will Break Records & Hike Electric Prices

Demand for power this summer is expected to shatter previous records, ERCOT revealed in a report released Monday. But officials with the state’s grid operator say they anticipate having enough generation to meet the soaring need. Still, Texans have been asked recently to make a few sacrifices amid unseasonably hot weather.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) made the request Friday after rising temperatures caused a drastic spike in power demand. The organization said the demand was so high that it caused six power facilities to go offline unexpectedly. According to CNN, the plant failures resulted in a loss of about 2,900 megawatts of generation—enough electricity to power roughly 580,000 homes.

May is a shoulder month (when generation facilities intentionally go offline to perform maintenance before summer), but ERCOT asked companies to delay maintenance to ensure demand will not outstrip supply rightnow. The request comes more than a year after a winter storm caused statewide power outages.

Higher Electricity Pries Expected This Summer

The Summer Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy (SARA) report said Texans could use as much as 77,317 megawatts during a day at the season’s peak, well above the previous record of about 74,800 megawatts set in August 2019. One megawatt is enough to power about 200 homes on a hot summer day. Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, however, said that as much as 91,392 megawatts will be available.

The report comes the same day ERCOT extended its warning of potential emergency conditions through the end of the week. That will be 17 straight days that the grid operator has told power generators to defer maintenance and produce power so there is enough to meet increased demand due to hot weather that has blanketed most of Texas this month.

On Friday, conditions on the grid became so tight that ERCOT asked Texans to conserve power through the weekend. To keep up with the demand, ERCOT ordered that all power generators that were able to work to come online to help. The conservation notice ended on Sunday and was not extended into this week as of Monday afternoon.

Though ERCOT does not expect blackouts this coming week, they have called on consumers to reduce their power usage during peak hours: 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Texas residents are asked to avoid uses large appliances, such as washers and dryers, during the time period, and set their thermostats to 78 degrees or above.

Last weekend, temperatures in Texas reached the 90s on Saturday and low 100s Sunday, roughly 10 to 15 degrees above than average.

May 16, 2022
Legal Arguments on $9,000 Electricity Rates in Texas

The Texas Public Utility Commission’s February 2021 emergency rules allowing an increase in electric rates to $9,000 per megawatt hour in response to Winter Storm were invalid and screwed up the state’s power system.

Dallas-based Luminant Energy asked a 3-judge panel in the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin to declare that the PUC illegally adopted two pricing rules during the historic storm that allowed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to increase the emergency price of electricity 650% for five days.

The PUC contended that the energy companies are simply upset because they lost money during Winter Storm and extreme weather conditions.

Many argue that the PUC decision to set rates at $9,000 for the five days during the winter storm forced many electric providers to pay billions to provide power to their residential and commercial customers, while other electric companies profited by selling power at high rates.

Impact on Providers & Electric Rates

The decision by the Austin Court of Appeals will dramatically impact the efforts by more than a dozen electric providers challenging their ERCOT invoices.

The winter storm that hit Texas on Feb. 14, 2021, caused the electricity to go out in large portions of the state, especially in the Houston area. Power demand surged in other metro areas, and at the same time, many electric generators went off-line because natural gas providers were unable to supply product to electric generators.

Sneaky Electricity Price Manipulation

In a six-minute meeting Feb. 15, the PUC decided to address the gap between supply and demand by issuing an emergency reset of the maximum price to $9,000 per megawatt hour, which is way up from $1,200. It also made the $9,000 price retroactive to Feb. 14. The next day, however, the PUC met again and rescinded the retroactive part of its order.

Electricity Price Competition

The high-stakes litigation pits the energy companies against each other… Houston-based Pattern Energy, Exelon Generation and Constellation NewEnergy are supporting Luminant in the litigation. All are fighting multibillion-dollar charges as a result of the $9,000 price. Lawyers argued that both emergency pricing rules were invalid for multiple reasons, including the fact that the PUC never filed the rule change with the Secretary of State’s office. This is a case where the agency disregarded legal procedures. It did not follow the law. The PUC has staked out extreme and unprecedented positions.

Houston-based Calpine Corporation, Talen Energy and TexGen Power support the PUC position. Spring, Texas-based DGP2 and Distributed Solutions argue that the first PUC rule is valid but the second-day rule rescinding retroactivity was illegal. Companies like Luminant are just using the litigation to try to shift their market losses to other parties.

Texas Assistant Solicitor General, Lisa Bennett (representing the PUC), told the judges that the PUC did not violate Texas law because the agency’s actions were a direction to ERCOT, not rulemaking. She argued that the law provides wide discretion for the PUC to make such decisions because the PUC’s actions were taken during an extreme emergency and because there was a flaw in the system – there were negative reserves, but the price was not going up.

Hindsight

When the emergency passed, market participants assessed the financial outcomes of the complex actions they and others had taken in the market during the storm, and some suffered staggering losses. In hindsight, some market participants now want to blame the PUC for their losses and argue that the orders were illegal all along.

May 3, 2022
Energy Crisis: Russia Cuts Gas Flow to Poland & Bulgaria

Oil is going up again after Russia cut natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, escalating the energy crisis.

West Texas Intermediate traded above $102 a barrel after going up another 3.2% Tuesday. Add to that, European gas prices surged as much as 24% Wednesday after Russia halted flows to Poland and Bulgaria. Putin made good on a threat to stop supply to countries that refuse his demand to pay for the fuel in rubles, not Euro or U.S. Dollars.

Adding fuel to the fire of energy and electricity energy prices going up, Germany said a full embargo on Russian oil would be manageable, potentially laying the groundwork for a continent-wide ban that may upend global crude trade. The U.S. and U.K. have already pledged to ban imports from the OPEC+ producer too.

Electricity Prices Will Go Up

The renewed geopolitical risk to electricity prices has come as the tightest corner of the oil sector flared up again. U.S. diesel futures settled at a record Tuesday, while profits from making the fuel in Europe are the highest since 2011. Russia is Europe’s largest external supplier of the middle distillate. Russia’s latest actions provide an alarming glimpse of things to come for other EU members and has put energy security concerns front and center of the political agenda.

In Asia, there are some signs emerging from China that Shanghai may ease lockdown measures as infections dropped to the lowest in three weeks while case numbers in Beijing stabilized. President Xi Jinping also made a commitment to boost infrastructure construction to bolster the economy.

The API (American Petroleum Institute) reported that U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 4.78 million barrels last week. This may help ease some of the pain on electricity prices, but it may end up being negligible in the long run if Russia continues to antagonize the world.

April 27, 2022
Revival Of Nuclear Energy May Help Lower Electric Rates Eventually

War in Ukraine is causing an energy reset. Western governments are rethinking dependence on Russian oil and gas, and it is a big opportunity for nuclear power to grow and help to lower electricity prices in Texas as well as the rest of the country and the world. Last week Britain announced it will begin developing small scale, modular nuclear power plants. The new energy path is a big win for uranium assets and electricity consumers.

The emergence of nuclear as a clean energy source seemed unlikely. Nuclear power has been derided for four decades. The number of plants globally peaked in 1996 when 17.5% of all electric power was generated in those facilities. Since then public has opinion soured and the political will to keep plants open waned.

Nuclear Energy Downfall

Electricity Prices Goes Up

Environmental movements gained global traction in the 1970s and nuclear energy was the perfect fall guy. Radiation poisoning was invisible and lethal. This was exploited in 1979 by The China Syndrome, a big budget Hollywood film that mirrored a partial meltdown earlier that year at Three Mile Island, a Pennsylvania nuclear facility. Although epidemiological studies later showed no increase in cancers in the area, fears of living near nuclear facilities grew exponentially.

A complete meltdown in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor led to the depopulation of 68,000 people across 1,000 square miles in northern Ukraine. And 154,400 Japanese were evacuated in 2011 when a nuclear plant in Fukushima was damaged following an earthquake and tsunami.

Nuclear power plants all over the world began to close. Today these facilities generate only 10.3% of the world’s electricity. It is a contributing factor to electricitiy rates continuing to go higher and higher. The oddity is nuclear power is clean, green, sustainable and statistically much safer than most other forms of power generation, according to research compiled by Our World in Data.

Nuclear Power Can Be Green and Cheaper for Electricity

Nuclear facilities are essentially extremely large tea kettles. The power-generation process begins when a uranium atom is split in half to create fission. This releases a tremendous amount of energy. Rods of the fissionable material are cooled in water, creating steam that spins a turbine and creates electricity.

Most coal or natural gas power plants generate electricity the same way. The difference is uranium is a far more efficient source of energy. A single set of rods the size of a fireplace log holds enough energy to power 100 homes for a year. Uranium is also cleaner. Using it to create electricity does not release carbon into the atmosphere. This is especially as the world races toward zero emissions.

The Future of Nuclear Energy

The United Kingdom had 15 nuclear facilities operating in 1997, generating 27% of the country’s electricity. By 2024 only two plants will remain. With the help of Rolls Royce, Prime Minister Johnson wants to reverse the trend. The goal is to build smaller power generation facilities based on Rolls’ nuclear-powered submarine engines.

It might be the perfect solution for an economy shying away from carbon emissions, and the perils of dependence on Russia oil and gas. The Netherlands, Czechia, Poland, Estonia, Slovenia and Serbia are now studying their nuclear options. Also, the European Union has labelled nuclear power as a climate-friendly investment.

April 11, 2022
Electricity Will Be Much More Expensive Next Winter

Prepare now and lock in your electric rates!

Electric rates are expected to spike next winter, reaching their highest point in at least two decades on the back of higher energy demand and market turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine. The electric rate could reach 15.6 cents a kilowatt hour, according to estimates.

If that happens, the rate for many would be nearly double what was just approved by state regulators for the summer. As a result, the monthly bill for a typical residential customer, after delivery and other fees are factored in, would jump from about $111 to more than $150. The prospects aren’t looking good for ratepayers.

“These are the highest futures prices that I recall in my 10-plus years doing this,”
James Ruebenacker, manager of wholesale electric supply for National Grid in New England

Electric Prices Rising Nationwide

Electric rates across the nation were already going up coming into this year as the economy started recovering from the COVID pandemic. The average electric price nationwide last year rose at its fastest pace since 2008, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The surge came as the price of natural gas, a major fuel for electric generation, more than doubled. The trend is expected to continue this year.

Wholesale electric prices this past January hit their highest point in eight years while real-time and day-ahead power prices more than tripled compared to January 2021. The effects are already being felt by consumers… rates climbed 20-25% in January.

Next winter the country will feel more of the effects of the overheated energy market.

Electric Rates Tied to Price of Natural Gas

The last time electric rates approached what’s being projected was in the winter of 2015. Before that, consumers would have to go back to 2008 to find a similar spike in the price of power. Amid a global surge in oil and natural gas prices, the winter rate hit 12.4 cents a kilowatt hour.

Both previous price hikes came in large part from an increasing reliance on natural gas for power generation. With more power generators depending on the fuel source to create electricity, power suppliers have been thrown into competition with the heating market to get gas. The result has been a pattern of peaks and valleys in electric prices, with increases in the winter when gas needs are high and decreases in the summer when demand ebbs. The pattern has only grown more dramatic in recent years.

War in Ukraine also pushing up energy prices

The war in Ukraine is only adding to the upward pressure. European countries are looking for alternatives to Russia for sources of natural gas, meaning that already-high prices to ship liquefied supplies of the fuel are climbing even more.

Within the next few years, offshore wind is expected to help fill that load, but some regions continue to get as much as 20% of power from oil-burning plants. The electricity from those plants is expensive and is expected to become more costly with global oil prices nearly double what they were a year ago.

When compared to data going back to 2000, the projected rates will be the highest on record. Even in an apples-to-apples comparison of winter rates only, it still stands out, at nearly 50% higher than other recent peaks.

Regulators urge Consumers to Prepare for Rate Increases

Understanding why price increases happen is helpful for many but it doesn’t help pay the bills. Customers are encouraged to reduce usage through energy efficiency programs. By next winter, the price is projected to reach 14.5 cents pre kWh… It is a reflection of global energy markets.

April 5, 2022
Texas Can Phase Out Coal with Wind & Solar

Texas has enough wind and solar power to phase out coal entirely to reduce Electric Rates, but there’s a catch!

According to a study by researchers at Houston’s Rice University, it would take just 1/3 of the solar and wind energy projects that have been proposed to phase out coal in Texas.

The caveat is that the state’s energy grid is a mess, and it is standing in the way of a faster transition in Texas away from coal and toward renewables.

“Transmission lines are the leading bottleneck that is slowing down the growth of wind and solar,”
Daniel Cohan, Rice University

Texas is Energy-rich so why are Electric Rates still high?

As the top U.S. producer of crude oil and natural gas, Texas is easily one of the most energy-rich states in the country. It also leads the nation in wind power generation, which accounts for around 20% of Texas’s energy usage, while the state’s solar power industry is also growing fast. The potential for renewable energy in the state is massive! Unfortunately, Texas is also the country’s largest coal consumer.

Dirty Energy & Electricity

As the nation’s largest coal consumer, and biggest electricity consumer in general, how coal is phased out and replaced with clean energy in Texas would be crucial to meeting any nationwide climate agenda and to lead other states in the inevitable energy transition.

Since June 2020, dozens of the new renewable energy projects have been approved, and the number of new proposals for solar and wind farms has doubled. But there’s still the huge problem…

Texas Electrical Grid is Embarrassing

Different parts of the state can generate more energy at different times. Winds are strongest at night in west Texas, for instance, but tend to pick up during the afternoon in coastal southern regions of the state. You need a power grid to connect all those areas. Simply put, it’s not always windy and not always sunny, but it’s almost always windy or sunny somewhere in Texas. But without an extensive and up-to-date network of transmission lines to connect the electricity generated at these farms to cities, Texas’s energy transition will have to wait.

In February 2021, Texas was hit by a historic deep freeze that led to prolonged power outages across the state. Although lawmakers blamed wind power and renewable energy for failing during the storm, the major culprit was the electrical grid’s dated infrastructure and aging transmission lines. After the storm, ERCOT, the private company that manages Texas’s electrical grid, came under fire for reportedly cutting corners and loosening regulations, leading to outdated and ill-equipped infrastructure.

Progress Will Help Electric Rates

Nationwide, aging electrical transmission infrastructure could soon be updated. In the recently approved infrastructure bill, the federal government laid out a financing plan worth over $15 billion to construct thousands of miles of new lines and upgrade existing ones.

While Texas’s ERCOT has historically remained inflexible with regard to integrating with the national grids, it is beginning to intertwine itself more with neighboring power systems, such as through the ongoing $2 billion Southern Cross Transmission project.

Researcher Daniel Cohan at Rice University believes that even though the infrastructure bill is a good start. More attention and investment is needed to sufficiently update the country’s power system. It’s nowhere near the scale of what’s needed nationwide to expand our transmission infrastructure.

March 29, 2022