In GA we are deregulated on the gas side only I always get a 2 year contract which was renewed end of March of last year which was the covid discount as natural gas croaked we get charged per therm here so I renewed for 2 years at .37 a therm my last bill January and February will be more as we got down to the low 20's. $137 bucks and that was for a 3500 square foot house.We have a deregulated power system. There are pros and cons. The weird parts is you have to go through thousands of providers and plans to choose from. You need a degree to understand what all of them mean. You can even buy power wholesale. I'm on a 2 year plan so this shouldn't effect me. I don't know about my gas bill. If you buy wholesale you are absolutely screwed.
I knew better than to do that because the company I work for got a bill for 5k one month. Our comptroller forgot to renew our electric contract so it went month to month. There was some market manipulation shenanigans that went on at that time that caused prices to briefly skyrocket. It didn't effect most people so it didn't get much press. It basically amounted to legal robbery.
I will bet anyone cause Texans are pissed that they are going to winterize the stuff they should have done before and they certainly since they have their own grid are going to require nat gas storage since they can't borrow from other grids. Forget this was a once in a lifetime event TX had problems in 2011 and 1989 and who would say this could not happen next year the reality is nobody knows.
I am pulling for TX we were fortunate in GA got down to the low 20's never lost power but many years ago we got to 7 coldest temp since I have lived here except for the the older downtown cities which still have overhead power lines we never lost power all the suburbs are underground.
Interesting comments here about the power grid. I sell products into the power industry and here's what I can share;
(1) I worry about long term reliability of our grid with a lot of wind power. Wind mills have moving parts that are subject to wear and failure. Also with wind, I worry about how we store the energy that isn't used, and the intermittent nature of wind in some parts of the country. I also HATE looking at windmills when I drive across the country
(2) I like the idea of natural gas burning power plants because they can come on line quickly when the wind dies down, but this does come with a lot of wear and tear....
(3) I like the idea of reducing coal as an energy source. We can burn coal cleanly if we want too, but it costs a lot of money to do it. Everyone wants reliable power, but no one wants to pay more money for it.
(4) I like the idea of more nuclear power, but I'm in the minority. Practically every ship in the US Navy runs on nuclear power, and I've never heard of an accident on a US Navy ship. Why are we as a country so scared of Nuclear power?
(5) Energy storage/giant batteries scare me because of what it takes to produce them (nasty chemicals) and what happens to the batteries at the end of their life.
(6) I'm curious about why there is so much focus on "green energy" production while we seem to be losing some focus on energy conservation. I'm not "great" at energy conservation, but it seems like building codes and other standards really should be stepped up a notch or to. Someone in the forum mentioned insulation - YES, more insulation would be better in all parts of our country, from TX to MN with regards to heating and cooling power use. Why is it even possible to still buy incandescent bulbs when LED's use far less energy? We can't buy a new car that doesn't meet current emission standards now can we?