The Electric Bill

Some of you may think I’m whining incessantly about the charges from our line provider but I feel vindicated. 

A friend asked me recently if I had seen the article about our line provider in the current Texas Monthly. Even with that yummy burger on the front, I had not opened it but promptly found the article.

It’s an article about our line company and talks about how their rates are the highest in Texas and some of the highest in the nation. I’m hoping this article in one of Texas’ most popular magazines gets results in some scrutiny for this company. This company has only 55,000 customers and if every single customer called the PUC, the Governor, their representatives and anyone else who would listen, it just doesn’t seem to make a difference. 55,000 people in Texas . . a drop in the bucket and no one seems to listen or care. 

I’m thankful (1) that we could afford to put up solar panels and (2) we live in a small, energy efficient house. There are people, some of whom were mentioned in the article, who live in mobile homes with no shade and they are paying $600/month, even without using their electric heat for half the month last January with night temps in the teens. Sad!

Also, even had we known the rates here were outrageous, we would still have bought this place! The worst of all of it is that we live 4 miles from the dividing line where another company provides more reasonable rates. Too bad!

This got me to thinking how often there’s a cause and I can see a problem but it doesn’t affect me so I say nothing. Anyone not stuck with this electric company isn’t going to stick their neck out and complain to anyone so that leaves a handful of us to try to get the attention of someone who can and will work to make a change.

I see reasons why their rates are high. They have no commercial customers to bring in more revenue. Their areas are small, mostly rural with lots of area between customers. It seems someone at PUC (they are supposed to be the experts, right?) should have intervened with our company was buying up smaller companies and they should have realized customers were going to get squeezed pretty thin with the setup they’ve allowed.

Thank you, Texas Monthly, for reporting on this and hopefully you can get a fire going under someone, where our customer complaints haven’t done much.

Now . . I’m going to go figure out how far I am from one of those 50 Best Burgers in Texas!