February 20, 2021 ☼ texas ☼ power-failure ☼ deregulation
Source: NBC News - Link
As the Texas power grid collapsed under a historic winter storm, Jose Del Rio of Haltom City, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, saw the electricity bill on a vacant two-bedroom home he is trying to sell slowly creep up over the past two weeks. Typically, the bill is around $125 to $150 a month, he said. But his account has already been charged about $630 this month — and he still owes another $2,600.
“If worse comes to worst, I have the ability to put it on a credit card or figure something out,” Del Rio said. ”There is no one living in that house. All the lights are off. But I have the air at 60 because I don’t want the pipes to freeze.”
A further bit of reading shows that this is not a universal problem with all of Texas consumer; just those with variable rate accounts. Many states have outlawed that practice, but not Texas.