Texas will not correct overcharging during snowstorms

New York. The state of Texas will not correct the $ 16 billion in electricity it overcharged consumers across the state during the recent snowstorm and frost, because it is too complicated to recalculate prices, the Public Energy Commission said Friday Electric.

“This egg is too stirred,” said the chairman of this state commission, Arthur D’Andrea.

That response comes after an independent agency calculated that the state kept prices excessively high for 33 more hours of the account in the midst of a cold and snowstorm in Texas last month, which cost consumers $ 16 billion.

In the midst of a snowstorm and in the face of supply problems and high demand during the storm, which left millions of homes without electricity, the state governor, Republican Greg Abbott, ordered a rise in wholesale prices to reach a peak of $ 9,000 per megawatt hour, above the $ 22 of a normal day.

According to D’Andrea, correcting bill mismatches now can lead to unexpected and difficult-to-predict imbalances.

According to the independent panel that reviewed the rises, the increase in the price of energy should have stopped when they began to impose selective power cuts and not when the energy emergency ended for almost two days. after.

A large number of consumers reported electricity bills in amounts of more than $ 15,000, while some companies that generate sustainable energy and are forced to purchase electricity at market price have had to declare bankruptcy.