Texas Homeowners Hit With Electric Bill As High As $17K For One Month

Texas historic winter storm and power outages weren’t the only blow residents received. According to the New York Post, some Texans are receiving electricity bills in the thousands.

Ty Williams, a Dallas-area resident, typically gets a bill for $600, but amid the recent winter storm and the need for heat, his monthly bill skyrocketed to $17,000.

“How in the world can anyone pay that? I mean you go from a couple hundred dollars a month…there’s absolutely no way‚ it makes no sense,” Williams said after getting the bill from the energy company Griddy.

Apparently, the price for power in the Lone Star State went from $50 to $9,000 per Megawatt in some cases due to the supply and high demand during the disaster, local station WFAA reported.

Some Texans have “variable or indexed” electricity plans offered within the state, which runs its own unique stand-alone electricity grid partially regulated by market demand.

Texans who didn’t lose power turned up their heat to battle the brutally cold weather, not considering the prices would outrageously surge.

“The last thing an awful lot of people need right now is a higher electric bill — and that’s unfortunately something a lot of people will get stuck with,” said Matt Schulz, a chief industry analyst.

Royce Pierce also lives in the Dallas-area and received a $10,000 bill for his three-bedroom home.

“We are hoping there will be relief,” Royce said. “This is something maybe we can skate by and tackle as time goes on but how many people can’t? A lot.”

Veronica Garcia, a Reliant Energy customer in Mansfield, Texas, said her one-bedroom apartment’s electricity bill nearly doubled to $114.

“Hopefully if they’re decent, they won’t charge people for this, because we had no control over the situation,” said Garcia, who is an administrative associate at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “Hopefully I can beat the charges and they do the right thing.”

Griddy did not immediately respond to comment on the matter. But a Reliant Energy representative told NBC that it’s offering flexible bill payments to help customers who were impacted by the storm.

Crystal Gross

Crystal joined BallerAlert in 2020 to renew her passion for writing. She is a Kentucky native who now lives in the heart of Atlanta. She enjoys reading, politics, traveling, and of course writing.

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