Texas, electricity bill 10 million won ↑… Houston Mayor “The State Makes It”

-There is growing concern that after an unusual cold wave, people in Texas in the United States could be charged ridiculously high electricity bills. Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston, Texas’s largest city, demanded that the state pay huge electricity bills.

The extreme cold in recent days has caused massive power grid failures, causing power outages for millions of Texas households. The Texas Electric Power Reliability Commission (ERCOT), which oversees the Texas electricity grid, was unable to prepare for a situation where people increased heating in the event of an abnormal cold.

Currently, restoration has been carried out in most areas. However, due to the surge in power demand, electricity rates skyrocketed. Some households are in a position to pay an electricity bill of 10,000 dollars (about 11 million won).

On the 21st (local time), Democratic Mayor Turner said in an interview with CBS’Face the Nation’: “People have to pay to fix their homes and pay excessive electricity bills. They don’t have to take responsibility,” he said. “The cost is borne by the state of Texas,” and “it should not be borne by individual customers who have not caused the disaster this week.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (Republican) said “We have a responsibility to protect Texas from soaring energy bills due to severe winter weather and power outages.”

Texas has an independent power grid that is almost disconnected from other states in the United States. Unlike other regions that send and receive electricity as needed, Texas has built its own tariff system, avoiding federal regulations with its own grid.

According to CNBC, in such a market-driven system, the customer directly chooses the power company, but when demand increases, the price naturally increases.

For this reason, consumers who have used a variable rate plan that changes according to the power supply and demand situation, rather than a fixed rate plan, will be hit hard.

According to NBC News, in the case of the Texas power company’Greedy’, the wholesale price jumped from $50 per megawatt hour (MWh) to $9,000 (about 9.95 million won).

“Climate change is real and this big storm can happen again at any time,” said Mayor Turner. “We need to open the Texas grid.”

In Texas, more than 3 million households have suffered power outages at one time, but normalization is underway. As of 11:30 am that day, about 30,000 households are not receiving electricity.

[서울=뉴시스]