Utility Bill Shock?

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Mad Professor

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I don't know if you are all electric or not. My electric will be higher, but my gas will likely be quite a bit higher, too, and water will be up a little bit (negligible) from running the taps to keep pipes clear.

I'd anticipate a 50-70% increase for the month for total utilities. (For my house, personally).

I have has on the two units in the house. The upstair never comes on in the winter. I set the fan to cycle and keep the thermostat at 60 as a fail safe. Hot water heater is gas.
The garage is a 2 ton mini-spit with heat pump. It was struggling during the coldest part.
 

1shott

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If you used more gas or electric then yes your bill will be higher.

Did the gas or electric supplier have to pay more for the end product you used more of then yes your bill will be higher,

We are in a regulated state, everyone take a breath ok...
 

SlugSlinger

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For ONG the cost of gas is a pass through amount. If the stuff I’ve seen and have been posted here, some of the spot prices were north of thousands per mmbtu. I hope what you folks are seeing on your pre-bills is calculated with the correct price per btu and not based on old or not up to date price.

I keep hearing no-one knows the what the bills will look like.
 

Okie4570

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Texas seems to be in a world of hurt...starting with some very high gas and electric bills.....by comparison we are blessed.

Texas isn't regulated iirc, it's going to be rough for them I'm afraid. We're total electric, left the heater on 68⁰ like normal but we ran the pellet stove all night so the house heater didn't run constantly. 2200sq ft house but we have 12' ceilings so lots of useless space to heat.
 

dennishoddy

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Texas isn't regulated iirc, it's going to be rough for them I'm afraid. We're total electric, left the heater on 68⁰ like normal but we ran the pellet stove all night so the house heater didn't run constantly. 2200sq ft house but we have 12' ceilings so lots of useless space to heat.
Texas has options. The homeowner can opt to be in the fixed rate or the variable rate like home interest rates used to be back in the day.
The variable rate is not regulated. That is where the $10,000 electric bills are coming from for a few days of power. The folks on the regulated power system will get normal bills.
You can thank your Okla Corporation Commission for looking into the future when the commifornika rolling blackouts were happening in the late 90's I think it was in their unregulated system that relied on mostly wind and solar.
The Ok Legislature elected to remain under a regulated system. Merchant power plants were being built around OK in anticipation of going unregulated. The CC required OG&E to absorb them although they were only natural gas peaking plants, not base load and had no redundancy. Base load power plants carry dual redundancy so they can stay online with full power if a motor/pump, etc fails. The plant just keeps going while control systems switch over to the backup.
OG&E as well as ONG are regulated for most of their power outputs around the state but there are exceptions for gas delivery. Heard on KRMG radio today that Jet Ok and maybe Nash were under unregulated gas so their bills could be high but Gov Stitt said they would look into it. Electric won't be affected for users around the state. OG&E uses excess power that is generated in the Southwest Power Pool to make a profit. The profit margin allowed by the Corporation commission we pay for our electric won't pay the bills to keep the company alive so the sale of unregulated electricity is where they make their profit.
What happened in Tx was that the fossil plants and the wind/solar plants were not set up for freezing weather. Worst weather in 49 years.
When I spent 16 years at OG&E Sooner Power Plant one of my jobs during maintenance shutdowns was to built heated instrument cabinets that were freeze proof so critical data that kept the plant online would not be interrupted by sub zero weather. Every winter when the temps got well below freezing it was all hands on deck at our plant with propane torches and spare bottles to keep the older instruments from freezing up in cabinets that had not been upgraded to freeze proof.
None of the Tx power plants/wind farms/ solar farms were freeze proof. Solar panels have to follow the sun across the horizon. Covered in Snow and frozen, they couldn't do that. Wind towers were covered in ice and snow with the instruments frozen. How do they become frozen? Humidity in the air is brought into the instrumentation and freezes the diaphragms/gears/whatever is needed to monitor pressures, heat, environmental monitoring and so on. It's a very detailed monitoring by instrumentation to keep a power plant alive and running.
Thousands of those data points are being monitored. In some cases only one can trip a 1100 megawatt power plant offline if they fall below the threshold.
The EPA would not allow the Tx fossil fuel power plants to exceed their environmental government requirements so they could ramp up and cover part of the load that was building. They froze up their instrumentation and were forced to shut down.
I saw a program today that gave the Tx Nukes an A rating for keeping the power coming. Fossil fuel plants a C rating, and "green energy" an F rating. The green energy totally failed.
 

Dale00

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It’s quite a drama. Lots of officials scrambling to deflect the blame or obscure the shortcomings of their planning. When the news reports cite the ridiculous prices paid for energy during the scramble to keep the Texas grid functioning, I could not help but recall Enron and the fact that it was a Texas company.

I’m reading speculation that the Left might somehow have set Texas up for this fall. It seems half way plausible: dangle money in front of powerful individuals to invest in the wrong sorts of power systems that would inevitably fail when a strong enough cold snap occurred. More likely it was just short term thinking and greed for quick profits.
 

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