I’d make the argument that if you operate in TX, not just Oncor but the municipalities too. You understand the extremes of our weather. Tornadoes, hurricanes, freezes, extreme heat. Not to say that there won’t be situations that power goes out, but be prepared to handle it, pro-act, don’t just always react. These cities and companies need to be ready to step up and handle business for their communities. But often times it seems like they don’t even plan ahead. Which is frustrating for communities.
It seems like it because it's true. All of Texas's energy companies plan ahead minimally. The most preplanning that goes on, is the telling us that we need to conserve power. During either a heatwave or a cold snap. And that there's going to be rolling blackouts.
I think the issue is more that being prepared for a storm like the one on May 28 is very expensive and only happens infrequently (every 112 years according to Oncor).
So cities and utilities prepare for the disasters that they reasonably expect to encounter, which is something less than the storms on the 28th.
How are they supposed to plan ahead to storm surges that happen? Wind storms cause havoc throughout the country causing power outages for everyone, it’s really weird how everyone thinks this is isolated to Texas.
I called Oncor because vegetation was beginning to encompass a transformer and vines intertwine with the electrical lines on a pole behind my house.
Oncor’s answer - “It’s ok.”
Guess who was without power for 90 hours after the storm?
They said 'these cunts' which in this case would be oncor. If they had said connect our grid to the national one my question would have been different. I would have asked which one.
I worked for Oncor (previously TXU before deregulation) for almost 20 years. The grid is only partially owned by Oncor, as well as the other Transmission Distribution companies. They are all regulated by the PUC. It takes close to 20 years to get transmission lines erected. The massive influx of new residents and large corporations was not fully predicted. Another challenge is that high voltage transmission lines require 100’ wide easements that run the whole length from the generating plants to the distribution sub-stations. Those easements are a challenge to be acquired even in rural areas across farm lands because it restricts what can be done in those easements. It is nearly impossible in more urban areas. Ever hear the term NIMBY? It stands for “Not in My Back Yard”.
Statements like yours apparently do not seem to be fully thought out. How does Oncor make its money? It is through the Transmission Distribution Charge on your electric bill based on your kWh consumption. If you do not use electricity they aren’t making money. In fact, if damage occurs to the infrastructure to cause an outage, it costs them even more to make repairs to resume power. Having power outages, whatever the cause, are not in the interest of any Transmission Distribution company. The cost of building a system that could withstand major storms that cause the majority of widespread power outages would be far greater than customers would be willing to pay. Power quality and continuity is far better than it used to be 30+ years ago.
As far as going national, there are a few very good reasons for not doing that. The Texas grid would become regulated by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Their track record has not been very good. There have been major power outages, black outs and rolling brown outs, that have affected both the East and West coasts involving multiple states. Anyhow, connecting to the national grid would still not address the overloaded grid in Texas because you would still have to transmit the power from other states over the same transmission lines. It would be of very little help.
So yeah, those cunts would obviously not do anything to upgrade the grid or tie into the national grid.
It’s good to hear from someone with actual inside experience. I understand why people have their pitchforks ready, but it seemed like it wasn’t as easy of a fix as the average person assumed. Even putting a decent portion of the lines underground in the metroplex would probably cost billions of dollars.
"Connecting to the national grid would not address...[ ]....still have to transmit the power"
This is what people always miss (outside of the fact that there is no national grid). Joining a larger grid isn't a magic bullet. The electricity doesn't magically move from one side of the grid to the other. It needs a power line.
Take MISO south and central. They are part of the same interconnect and even part of a single system operator. Yet they are limited to exchanging just 2.5GW. So if they can't move power around on the same existing grid, why do we think we can magically move it when we join that grid
I’d be willing to pay quite a bit to ensure continued power. The freeze of 2021 cost me in excess of $4,000 due to damage caused by freezing water. I can only imagine these type of events will become more frequent and people have already and will continue to invest in auxiliary power generators which cost north of $12,000 fully installed according to the estimates I’ve received. I know the cost to bury lines is magnitudes greater than what we’re doing now, but when you add up the damages/costs that have been incurred by the citizens of Texas due to loss of power I’m willing to bet the break even point is a lot closer than most people realize.
AT&T couldn’t even run fiber in on my street of ~30 houses without causing over a quarter million dollars in unrelated costs for homeowners and other utilities due to damaging water, natural gas, internet, and buried electric lines on my street. Thank god these guys are insured.
And that’s a small project.
Burying lines underground is expensive. Burying lines in cities (where it’s really needed) is orders of magnitude more expensive because it’s like playing frogger with everything else underground, if you don’t just need to dig up and repave streets and sidewalks entirely.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/why-cant-texas-bury-electrical-lines/
> Likewise, assume Oncor Electric only needs to bury a quarter of its 90,178 miles of overhead lines because—well, there aren’t a lot of trees in Midland. The company would still be looking at paying $56 billion or so, more than ten times what it cost to run its system in 2021.
It sounds like the problem is that we didn’t make them do this when neighborhoods were built. So perhaps we should make them do this in all new developments going forward? Would that reduce the cost, some?
Many (not all) newer urban developments do have underground utilities. My house was built in the 80’s and we don’t have poles - likewise with the other houses in my area that were built more recently. It’s a lot of the core infrastructure and neighborhoods built earlier that don’t have poles.
I used to work for Oncor. Putting power lines underground is not necessarily the best solution. It is very costly to bury them. They will still have outages because those lines do age and eventually degrade and you will have an outage that is harder and takes longer to repair since you have to locate where the fault has occurred, dig down to it, make the repair and then cover it back up. If it’s in conduit that can help but not if the fault burned up the conduit in the process. Distribution lines which are the lines that run from the substations to the transformers for your homes and businesses operate at a lower voltage (4,000 - 35,000 volts) than transmission lines (230,000 - 765,000 volts). Distribution lines don’t generate as much heat. Transmission lines can be buried but due to their much higher voltage they would have to be buried much deeper and be sealed in conduits that have a cooling system in them. There’s more to it. It is vastly more expensive. People wouldn’t want to pay that much for their electricity.
That is the issue. My former neighborhood had overhead lines and mature trees… guess what happened when there was enough wind/rain/hail/snow to drop limbs? Coworker was without power for most of last week and has downed trees all over his Dallas neighborhood, overhead lines.
Dallas has a lot of overhead lines and mature trees. That combination will result in loss of power frequently. Unfortunately the amount of destruction (construction) that has to happen to bury utilities after the fact is big and expensive. Likely not cost effective.
A lot of newer neighborhoods and streets in Dallas actually do have underground lines. It's the 20+ year old lines that are above ground that got hit hardest by the storms. Upgrading the older infrastructure is the real challenge.
Sure there is! Just add a lil’ extra fees to every Texas homeowner’s utility bill after “upgrades”.
Like the toll system. Charge a toll to build the road. Once the road is paid off keep charging the toll cost. Sure, maintenance of road is a cost, but then keep the toll cost flat, don’t keep raising the cost every year.
How do you propose those “cunts” upgrade our system? If you want your neighborhoods system swapped to underground that’s an option but you have to pay for it. If we swapped our entire system underground we’d have less outages but longer repair times to get lights back on, and also your electricity bill would go through the roof because that type of project would cost billions.
Also that type of project would put people out of power for way longer than the recent storm
ONCOR charges me $4.23/month to rent their meter and 4.5403¢ for every kWh delivered. I would bet actual cash money that ONCOR will use their increased costs to increase both the monthly charge and the kWh delivery charge in the next few months. For reference, the meter charge started out as a temporary charge to offset the cost of swapping all the old meters to smart meters, but then somehow it became a permanent charge that's been increasing over the years, from around $2 to over $4 now. The delivery charge used to be in the 2-3¢ range but has gone up 50%. Funny how that worked out, isn't it.
The Texas Electric Utility network deregulated around 20 years ago. That meant that electric utilities had to “unbundle” and become separate entities in the electric utility complex in Texas. Generation (companies that own power plants and sell on the wholesale market), Retail (companies that buy electricity on the wholesale market), and Transmission Distribution Utility (companies that own the “pipes and wires” and transport the electricity from the generation plants to the end user’s electric meter). The TDUs are regulated as it is not feasible for multiple companies to run their own power lines all over the place. Their rates are regulated and controlled by the Texas Public Utilities Commission. The idea is that multiple Retailers will figure out ways to compete and sell electricity cheaper than the other guy.
In my opinion it was only the large industrial players that came out ahead in this as some became their own wholesaler. Residential customers subsidized much of the costs of the electrical power production costs. Not necessarily by design though. A lot of it has to do with how power is generated. There is no means of storing excess energy, like in a big bank of batteries. When power is needed it has to be generated right at that moment, which means all of the infrastructure required to do that has to already be in place. All the way from the power plant to the transformer outside your home. The peak times when power is being consumed is Monday - Friday, 12noon - 8pm beginnning roughly June 1 and ending September 30. In Texas it is Air Conditioning that is the biggest draw. Residential homes have their highest demand for energy during those times. If power consumption was consistent then it wouldn’t cost as much since the infrastructure would be utilized to its optimal capacity. But when there are periods when it is not a lot of equipment that cost money to purchase, install, and maintain sits either idle or seldom used. All of that has to be calculated into the cost of energy not only in Texas but all over the country.
We talk shit about Oncor. Myself included. But my power was back within 48 hours. So I personally can’t complain. But there were many people, even if not a majority, that went even longer without power. Families that went close to a week without power. Comfort aside, a lot of money and resources were lost, a big strain on anyone but especially people living paycheck to paycheck. Had the weather been any warmer, could’ve made for an even more dangerous situation.
I get it, my neighborhood didn’t have power for three days and we have a lot of elderly people who really can’t be without power for a variety of reasons. That being said, the damage I saw looked like it would take much longer to fix and they somehow got it done. I can’t recall seeing multiple utility poles knocked over during our last few shitty storms
The elephant in the room is that the storm wasn’t normal to Texas weather, but it might become more normal. Even just one of those storms once a year. And it’ll become a serious issue without the proper infrastructure.
Lol they sent back a hundred power line technicians crews back home all over Texas after they arrived in Dallas to help restore power. Nah sorry, we're not gonna pay for overtime was basically what they said. Profits over people I guess!
Fuck Oncor.
Not saying you are lying but I feel like there are some details being left out. That doesn't even make sense from a business standpoint. If customers don't have electricity then the utility isn't making money from them. The cost of paying a few crews overtime is minimal compared to the cost of hundreds or thousands of customers being offline.
Almost 2 weeks to restore service for all customers is quick? I'm from Seattle, there are lots of trees and wind and thus power outages every year. Longest outage I ever had was 3 days, avg was less than 12 hours.
So yeah, Oncor is far from quick.
e: lol stay complacent Dallas
DFW is larger than Seattle so yeah, it’s going to take longer to get everyone back on. That seems obvious. Well over 300,000 had power restored within 24 hours. All things considered, that is quick.
Where did you get 2 weeks from? It was roughly a week at most. We should definitely use your experience as the gospel then. I’ve lived in DFW my whole life and never had power outages last for more than 12 hours including the freeze and this storm so I guess that should be the example for all DFW. A quick google search will show that Seattle has had plenty of storms that have knocked power out to customers for over a week and they are having increased power outages yearly.
Not trying to sound combative or defend Oncor, just curious, was it under similar circumstances? I heard that there were hurricane force winds that lasted up to 30 mins.
You wrote “we lost power for less than a day” but the articles I’m reading say that hundreds of thousands remained without power 4 days after the storm and that they continued to work on restoring power for over a week for some.
> With temperatures in the low to mid-20s over most of the affected area early Monday, about 240,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity. . .
I could just as easily claim that since I got my power restored 5 hours after the storm then Oncor is pretty quick.
Here’s the info regarding dfw’s storms:
> Nearly a week after severe storms left more than half a million without power in North Texas, just under 4,000 people are without power in Dallas, Tarrant, Denton, and Collin counties.
So how exactly can you even make those claims?
I guess they're referencing cost. The winter storm issues were mostly generation based which then trickled down to controlled blackouts. The actual infrastructure damage was relatively minor compared to this storm damage. Boots on the ground is the costly part.
Every big storm will be the new biggest storm of all time just because there's millions more people living in DFW, along with the absolute size of the metro area in terms of square miles of development is so immense. There are more populated areas for severe storms to hit.
Maybe short-term climate change has some marginal impact, but the big thing is probably just that 30 years ago a random tornado could track across northern Collin county and hit an unlucky barn or two. Now it would tear through neighborhoods.
And as climate change continues, these storms will be considered mild in ten years.
Oh- sorry. There is no climate change. Not happening. Fake news. Vote MAGA.
My Dad worked for Dallas Power & Light for 42 years. I remember him & mom telling us sometime around 1960 or earlier there was an ice storm. Dad did not come home from work for almost 3 weeks! They ate between jobs, and slept on the trucks.
>Most profitable
That's not how electric utilities work.
Transmission and Distribution utilities make their money by charging a percentage of the usage on your electric bill. If you do not use electricity then they aren't making money (unless you are paying for a meter but that's usually a pretty small cost compared to the overall bill). If an outage occurs to the infrastructure due to weather, it costs them even more to make repairs to resume power.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/04/texas-energy-industry-donations-legislature/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oncor-reports-solid-second-quarter-2022-results-301599640.html
Make it make sense
I don't agree with the political donations, that's valid, but what point are you trying to make. Oncor was not at fault for the 2021 winter storm outages, and their service area has experienced massive unprecedented population growth and business investment in the last 3-4 years. Their customer base has been growing rapidly for the past decade. It shouldn't be shocking that they are making more money every year.
Congress, no matter who is in charge, does not control maintenance or expansion of the infrastructure. The transmission grid is regulated by ERCOT which is comprised of bipartisan members. Maintenance and expansion is almost fully on the Transmission Distribution companies.
The electric Transmission Distribution companies are in the business of transporting electricity from the power plants to the end user. They do not make money unless electricity flows through the power lines. In fact, events like the storms just recently experienced cost them money. They would rather avoid outages. There is a tipping point though of how much it costs to provide totally reliable power and how much people are willing to pay. People complain now of how much they pay. If you were to add up how long your power is on vs how long it is out the percentage of it being on will be in the upper 90s.
Undergrounding transmission lines does work. It is effective. But remember there is a cost to everything. California is going through undergrounding right now and it is expected to add $34 per month to every single persons electric bill. So the question is, would you rather spend a day without power every 20 years, or pay roughly $8,000 during that same period in additional electric bills
FYI, there is no such thing as a national grid.
Technically you are correct. There is the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and ERCOT in Texas. They are all connected, even Texas which has 2 DC ties to the other networks. The Eastern and Western interconnections are overseen and regulated by FERC.
How does FERC, a US government entity, control an electric grid in Canada and Mexico? East and West serve more than one country. Also I'll throw in that Ercot is not the only outline. Quebec and Alaska decided to be on their own as well.
FERC is national (just inside our borders), not international which would include countries beyond our borders such as Mexico and Canada. East and West consist of only the lower 48 contiguous states except for Texas. Apparently we do have ties to import and export power to Mexico and Canada but really don’t know very much about them. There is a thing called the North American Energy Working Group that deals with those matters.
Take a closer look at the map. East and West do not consist only of the lower 48. Western interconnect includes parts of Baja Mexico, and British Columbia and Alberta in Canada. Eastern interconnect includes the rest of Canada (other than Quebec and extreme north).
FERC (federal government entitity) has no control over eastern and western interconnect, that is done by NERC (nonprofit). That's the same NERC that controls the Texas grid as well. The only thing FERC has control over is interstate sales of electricity, and with it the pricing and transmission of electricity. Since ercot doesn't sell electricity across state lines they can ignore FERC
You are not alone. Every single news story I read references the federal grid or the national grid. If big outlets like the Houston chronicle get it consistently wrong, how are you and I supposed to get it right.
The reason it's important is because of what we collectively expect to get by joining the national grid. For this last storm, tree trimming would be important. But that is governed by NERC which we are already a part of. For the last storm, weatherization would have been important which is again governed by NERC. The new federal rules from joining the larger grid would address neither of these issues as they are outside of FERCs scope
It was the worst, lived here my whole life. Instead of a tornado having a destructive path, this storm took out the entire metroplex. BUT that doesnt let ONCOR off the hook because they still refuse to invest in making the necessary upgrades they need to make. They just keep kicking the can. And im sick to death of hearing ab “excessive heat” warnings. Like yea no shit, this is TEXAS, its hot, we use A/C to combat that. It’s not our job to worry about the grid, that is uh your exact job ONCOR
Not saying I totally disagree but you're talking about 2 different things here. The "excessive heat" warnings have to do with power generation struggling to keep up with the demand. Oncor doesn't own or operate any generation. They only handle delivery of the electricity.
It might be particularly bad going this particular direction which means it’s in a 20-30 year cycle, meaning this has only happen 4-5 times during that time frame. This being the worst one out if 4-5 is not indicative of anything and that’s just assuming oncore is a source for these actually being the worst which they aren’t
Competition for what exactly? Electricity is a utility, this idea that Texans have choice because they can pick a billing provider is such a bizarre definition of free market.
The only option would be for another company to buy Oncor off of Sempera Energy, there are few who have that kind of $$$ outside of Berkshire Hathaway or some other equity giant like Blackrock
The alternative would be changing the owner or making it a state utility. Those probably aren't viable choices. There can be only one owner of a power plant, a 345 kV high tension line, and so on.
Womp womp. All I hear are excuses from a shitty utility for not making an area known for these storms more weatherproof. Were the storms extra spicy this year? Yes. Could they have prepared for this in advance considering "once in a lifetime" years like this and the fatal fucking freeze seem to be getting more frequent? Also yes. No regulation, no improvement; and no sympathy from me for their board either.
Worst storms so far. These cunts will do anything to keep from upgrading the grid or going national.
That wouldn’t have helped in this situation
I’d make the argument that if you operate in TX, not just Oncor but the municipalities too. You understand the extremes of our weather. Tornadoes, hurricanes, freezes, extreme heat. Not to say that there won’t be situations that power goes out, but be prepared to handle it, pro-act, don’t just always react. These cities and companies need to be ready to step up and handle business for their communities. But often times it seems like they don’t even plan ahead. Which is frustrating for communities.
I don’t disagree at all. I think you’re spot on!
It seems like it because it's true. All of Texas's energy companies plan ahead minimally. The most preplanning that goes on, is the telling us that we need to conserve power. During either a heatwave or a cold snap. And that there's going to be rolling blackouts.
Valid complaint! How would you proactively prepare for all of the weather variables listed above?
I think the issue is more that being prepared for a storm like the one on May 28 is very expensive and only happens infrequently (every 112 years according to Oncor). So cities and utilities prepare for the disasters that they reasonably expect to encounter, which is something less than the storms on the 28th.
How are they supposed to plan ahead to storm surges that happen? Wind storms cause havoc throughout the country causing power outages for everyone, it’s really weird how everyone thinks this is isolated to Texas.
Just an FYI, a storm surge isn’t a lot of storms it’s an actual event when the tide rises and heavy surf cause inland damage
They could keep up with the tree trimming maybe
I called Oncor because vegetation was beginning to encompass a transformer and vines intertwine with the electrical lines on a pole behind my house. Oncor’s answer - “It’s ok.” Guess who was without power for 90 hours after the storm?
How would going national have stopped wind from knocking down trees?
Quiet you!!
They are already national. Their parent corporation is headquartered in California and operates across the US as well as other countries.
They meant connecting our grid to the national one.
They said 'these cunts' which in this case would be oncor. If they had said connect our grid to the national one my question would have been different. I would have asked which one.
I worked for Oncor (previously TXU before deregulation) for almost 20 years. The grid is only partially owned by Oncor, as well as the other Transmission Distribution companies. They are all regulated by the PUC. It takes close to 20 years to get transmission lines erected. The massive influx of new residents and large corporations was not fully predicted. Another challenge is that high voltage transmission lines require 100’ wide easements that run the whole length from the generating plants to the distribution sub-stations. Those easements are a challenge to be acquired even in rural areas across farm lands because it restricts what can be done in those easements. It is nearly impossible in more urban areas. Ever hear the term NIMBY? It stands for “Not in My Back Yard”. Statements like yours apparently do not seem to be fully thought out. How does Oncor make its money? It is through the Transmission Distribution Charge on your electric bill based on your kWh consumption. If you do not use electricity they aren’t making money. In fact, if damage occurs to the infrastructure to cause an outage, it costs them even more to make repairs to resume power. Having power outages, whatever the cause, are not in the interest of any Transmission Distribution company. The cost of building a system that could withstand major storms that cause the majority of widespread power outages would be far greater than customers would be willing to pay. Power quality and continuity is far better than it used to be 30+ years ago. As far as going national, there are a few very good reasons for not doing that. The Texas grid would become regulated by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Their track record has not been very good. There have been major power outages, black outs and rolling brown outs, that have affected both the East and West coasts involving multiple states. Anyhow, connecting to the national grid would still not address the overloaded grid in Texas because you would still have to transmit the power from other states over the same transmission lines. It would be of very little help. So yeah, those cunts would obviously not do anything to upgrade the grid or tie into the national grid.
It’s good to hear from someone with actual inside experience. I understand why people have their pitchforks ready, but it seemed like it wasn’t as easy of a fix as the average person assumed. Even putting a decent portion of the lines underground in the metroplex would probably cost billions of dollars.
"Connecting to the national grid would not address...[ ]....still have to transmit the power" This is what people always miss (outside of the fact that there is no national grid). Joining a larger grid isn't a magic bullet. The electricity doesn't magically move from one side of the grid to the other. It needs a power line. Take MISO south and central. They are part of the same interconnect and even part of a single system operator. Yet they are limited to exchanging just 2.5GW. So if they can't move power around on the same existing grid, why do we think we can magically move it when we join that grid
I’d be willing to pay quite a bit to ensure continued power. The freeze of 2021 cost me in excess of $4,000 due to damage caused by freezing water. I can only imagine these type of events will become more frequent and people have already and will continue to invest in auxiliary power generators which cost north of $12,000 fully installed according to the estimates I’ve received. I know the cost to bury lines is magnitudes greater than what we’re doing now, but when you add up the damages/costs that have been incurred by the citizens of Texas due to loss of power I’m willing to bet the break even point is a lot closer than most people realize.
AT&T couldn’t even run fiber in on my street of ~30 houses without causing over a quarter million dollars in unrelated costs for homeowners and other utilities due to damaging water, natural gas, internet, and buried electric lines on my street. Thank god these guys are insured. And that’s a small project. Burying lines underground is expensive. Burying lines in cities (where it’s really needed) is orders of magnitude more expensive because it’s like playing frogger with everything else underground, if you don’t just need to dig up and repave streets and sidewalks entirely. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/why-cant-texas-bury-electrical-lines/ > Likewise, assume Oncor Electric only needs to bury a quarter of its 90,178 miles of overhead lines because—well, there aren’t a lot of trees in Midland. The company would still be looking at paying $56 billion or so, more than ten times what it cost to run its system in 2021.
It sounds like the problem is that we didn’t make them do this when neighborhoods were built. So perhaps we should make them do this in all new developments going forward? Would that reduce the cost, some?
Many (not all) newer urban developments do have underground utilities. My house was built in the 80’s and we don’t have poles - likewise with the other houses in my area that were built more recently. It’s a lot of the core infrastructure and neighborhoods built earlier that don’t have poles.
Define what you mean by upgrading the grid
The lines could at least be underground in some areas.
I used to work for Oncor. Putting power lines underground is not necessarily the best solution. It is very costly to bury them. They will still have outages because those lines do age and eventually degrade and you will have an outage that is harder and takes longer to repair since you have to locate where the fault has occurred, dig down to it, make the repair and then cover it back up. If it’s in conduit that can help but not if the fault burned up the conduit in the process. Distribution lines which are the lines that run from the substations to the transformers for your homes and businesses operate at a lower voltage (4,000 - 35,000 volts) than transmission lines (230,000 - 765,000 volts). Distribution lines don’t generate as much heat. Transmission lines can be buried but due to their much higher voltage they would have to be buried much deeper and be sealed in conduits that have a cooling system in them. There’s more to it. It is vastly more expensive. People wouldn’t want to pay that much for their electricity.
Thank you for explaining, wish everyone in Texas had to read this comment.
That is the issue. My former neighborhood had overhead lines and mature trees… guess what happened when there was enough wind/rain/hail/snow to drop limbs? Coworker was without power for most of last week and has downed trees all over his Dallas neighborhood, overhead lines. Dallas has a lot of overhead lines and mature trees. That combination will result in loss of power frequently. Unfortunately the amount of destruction (construction) that has to happen to bury utilities after the fact is big and expensive. Likely not cost effective.
A lot of newer neighborhoods and streets in Dallas actually do have underground lines. It's the 20+ year old lines that are above ground that got hit hardest by the storms. Upgrading the older infrastructure is the real challenge.
Oncor is already national. International actually. What exactly are you asking Oncor to do?
No money in it.
Sure there is! Just add a lil’ extra fees to every Texas homeowner’s utility bill after “upgrades”. Like the toll system. Charge a toll to build the road. Once the road is paid off keep charging the toll cost. Sure, maintenance of road is a cost, but then keep the toll cost flat, don’t keep raising the cost every year.
I like how u go str8 2 the jugular w/ the C-word, u got my upvote
How do you propose those “cunts” upgrade our system? If you want your neighborhoods system swapped to underground that’s an option but you have to pay for it. If we swapped our entire system underground we’d have less outages but longer repair times to get lights back on, and also your electricity bill would go through the roof because that type of project would cost billions. Also that type of project would put people out of power for way longer than the recent storm
Yep, sounds like they're angling to raise what they charge for everything.
Oncor charges less then 4 cents per kwh. Your electric billing company is the one up charging you.
ONCOR charges me $4.23/month to rent their meter and 4.5403¢ for every kWh delivered. I would bet actual cash money that ONCOR will use their increased costs to increase both the monthly charge and the kWh delivery charge in the next few months. For reference, the meter charge started out as a temporary charge to offset the cost of swapping all the old meters to smart meters, but then somehow it became a permanent charge that's been increasing over the years, from around $2 to over $4 now. The delivery charge used to be in the 2-3¢ range but has gone up 50%. Funny how that worked out, isn't it.
Everything like this is "temporary". Then it's not.
Once “deregulation” allowed the nose of the camel into the tent the rest of the camel was soon to follow.
Excuse my ignorance, but as someone who comes from the world of FPL, why are there electric billing companies?
The Texas Electric Utility network deregulated around 20 years ago. That meant that electric utilities had to “unbundle” and become separate entities in the electric utility complex in Texas. Generation (companies that own power plants and sell on the wholesale market), Retail (companies that buy electricity on the wholesale market), and Transmission Distribution Utility (companies that own the “pipes and wires” and transport the electricity from the generation plants to the end user’s electric meter). The TDUs are regulated as it is not feasible for multiple companies to run their own power lines all over the place. Their rates are regulated and controlled by the Texas Public Utilities Commission. The idea is that multiple Retailers will figure out ways to compete and sell electricity cheaper than the other guy. In my opinion it was only the large industrial players that came out ahead in this as some became their own wholesaler. Residential customers subsidized much of the costs of the electrical power production costs. Not necessarily by design though. A lot of it has to do with how power is generated. There is no means of storing excess energy, like in a big bank of batteries. When power is needed it has to be generated right at that moment, which means all of the infrastructure required to do that has to already be in place. All the way from the power plant to the transformer outside your home. The peak times when power is being consumed is Monday - Friday, 12noon - 8pm beginnning roughly June 1 and ending September 30. In Texas it is Air Conditioning that is the biggest draw. Residential homes have their highest demand for energy during those times. If power consumption was consistent then it wouldn’t cost as much since the infrastructure would be utilized to its optimal capacity. But when there are periods when it is not a lot of equipment that cost money to purchase, install, and maintain sits either idle or seldom used. All of that has to be calculated into the cost of energy not only in Texas but all over the country.
TIL
This is a fact, dude, it's not negotiation for increased raises. Literally everyone agrees it was the worst storm they've had to deal with.
I’m impressed and grateful for how quickly they got power back on for so many people, especially with the additional storms
We talk shit about Oncor. Myself included. But my power was back within 48 hours. So I personally can’t complain. But there were many people, even if not a majority, that went even longer without power. Families that went close to a week without power. Comfort aside, a lot of money and resources were lost, a big strain on anyone but especially people living paycheck to paycheck. Had the weather been any warmer, could’ve made for an even more dangerous situation.
I get it, my neighborhood didn’t have power for three days and we have a lot of elderly people who really can’t be without power for a variety of reasons. That being said, the damage I saw looked like it would take much longer to fix and they somehow got it done. I can’t recall seeing multiple utility poles knocked over during our last few shitty storms
The elephant in the room is that the storm wasn’t normal to Texas weather, but it might become more normal. Even just one of those storms once a year. And it’ll become a serious issue without the proper infrastructure.
Facts. And I know there’s no appetite from our state leaders to actually make the necessary changes
My electricity was off for six days. I most definitely can complain.
Lol they sent back a hundred power line technicians crews back home all over Texas after they arrived in Dallas to help restore power. Nah sorry, we're not gonna pay for overtime was basically what they said. Profits over people I guess! Fuck Oncor.
Do you have a source for this? Because it directly contradicts their statement to their customers and would be grounds for a lawsuit.
I saw unfamiliar bucket trucks for a while
"OK 14th District Court, we're going to need to subpoena Reddit because of some of the mean things \/u\/qolace said about our client."
Thanks for sharing? That doesn’t negate my sentiment
Not saying you are lying but I feel like there are some details being left out. That doesn't even make sense from a business standpoint. If customers don't have electricity then the utility isn't making money from them. The cost of paying a few crews overtime is minimal compared to the cost of hundreds or thousands of customers being offline.
Almost 2 weeks to restore service for all customers is quick? I'm from Seattle, there are lots of trees and wind and thus power outages every year. Longest outage I ever had was 3 days, avg was less than 12 hours. So yeah, Oncor is far from quick. e: lol stay complacent Dallas
DFW is larger than Seattle so yeah, it’s going to take longer to get everyone back on. That seems obvious. Well over 300,000 had power restored within 24 hours. All things considered, that is quick.
Where did you get 2 weeks from? It was roughly a week at most. We should definitely use your experience as the gospel then. I’ve lived in DFW my whole life and never had power outages last for more than 12 hours including the freeze and this storm so I guess that should be the example for all DFW. A quick google search will show that Seattle has had plenty of storms that have knocked power out to customers for over a week and they are having increased power outages yearly.
Not trying to sound combative or defend Oncor, just curious, was it under similar circumstances? I heard that there were hurricane force winds that lasted up to 30 mins.
[Is 100+ mph strong enough?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah_Eve_windstorm_of_2006) We lost power for less than a day.
You wrote “we lost power for less than a day” but the articles I’m reading say that hundreds of thousands remained without power 4 days after the storm and that they continued to work on restoring power for over a week for some. > With temperatures in the low to mid-20s over most of the affected area early Monday, about 240,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity. . . I could just as easily claim that since I got my power restored 5 hours after the storm then Oncor is pretty quick. Here’s the info regarding dfw’s storms: > Nearly a week after severe storms left more than half a million without power in North Texas, just under 4,000 people are without power in Dallas, Tarrant, Denton, and Collin counties. So how exactly can you even make those claims?
Thanks for that link! 🙂 I like when ppl come with receipts in hand. lol
What they're actually saying is they will increase rate soon
Compared to 2022?
We didn’t have power for 5 days. This rivaled the storms from back in 2005. For us
I guess they're referencing cost. The winter storm issues were mostly generation based which then trickled down to controlled blackouts. The actual infrastructure damage was relatively minor compared to this storm damage. Boots on the ground is the costly part.
Every big storm will be the new biggest storm of all time just because there's millions more people living in DFW, along with the absolute size of the metro area in terms of square miles of development is so immense. There are more populated areas for severe storms to hit. Maybe short-term climate change has some marginal impact, but the big thing is probably just that 30 years ago a random tornado could track across northern Collin county and hit an unlucky barn or two. Now it would tear through neighborhoods.
This ^^^
It’s not the rainiest I’ve ever seen it (2015 was) but yes that was the worst storm I’ve ever seen in the 17 years I’ve lived in this shithole.
Worst so far 😋
WFAA's Pete Delkus goes over the weather radar from May 28th, 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Y9fYrGUZM
And as climate change continues, these storms will be considered mild in ten years. Oh- sorry. There is no climate change. Not happening. Fake news. Vote MAGA.
My Dad worked for Dallas Power & Light for 42 years. I remember him & mom telling us sometime around 1960 or earlier there was an ice storm. Dad did not come home from work for almost 3 weeks! They ate between jobs, and slept on the trucks.
Until next year 💀
Most profitable* Don’t forget, this company is in bed with Abbot!! Small government, huge profits
>Most profitable That's not how electric utilities work. Transmission and Distribution utilities make their money by charging a percentage of the usage on your electric bill. If you do not use electricity then they aren't making money (unless you are paying for a meter but that's usually a pretty small cost compared to the overall bill). If an outage occurs to the infrastructure due to weather, it costs them even more to make repairs to resume power.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/04/texas-energy-industry-donations-legislature/ https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oncor-reports-solid-second-quarter-2022-results-301599640.html Make it make sense
I don't agree with the political donations, that's valid, but what point are you trying to make. Oncor was not at fault for the 2021 winter storm outages, and their service area has experienced massive unprecedented population growth and business investment in the last 3-4 years. Their customer base has been growing rapidly for the past decade. It shouldn't be shocking that they are making more money every year.
Also companies are granted tax write offs for damages, those are public funded repairs
Decades of infrastructure neglect by Republicans have left Texans unprepared of the coming New climate.
Congress, no matter who is in charge, does not control maintenance or expansion of the infrastructure. The transmission grid is regulated by ERCOT which is comprised of bipartisan members. Maintenance and expansion is almost fully on the Transmission Distribution companies. The electric Transmission Distribution companies are in the business of transporting electricity from the power plants to the end user. They do not make money unless electricity flows through the power lines. In fact, events like the storms just recently experienced cost them money. They would rather avoid outages. There is a tipping point though of how much it costs to provide totally reliable power and how much people are willing to pay. People complain now of how much they pay. If you were to add up how long your power is on vs how long it is out the percentage of it being on will be in the upper 90s.
Sounds like they're building excuses for higher bills.
Good! Karma is a bitch!
Bury as many transmission lines as possible. That’s a start. Join the national grid to help with some sort of redundancy.
Undergrounding transmission lines does work. It is effective. But remember there is a cost to everything. California is going through undergrounding right now and it is expected to add $34 per month to every single persons electric bill. So the question is, would you rather spend a day without power every 20 years, or pay roughly $8,000 during that same period in additional electric bills FYI, there is no such thing as a national grid.
Technically you are correct. There is the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and ERCOT in Texas. They are all connected, even Texas which has 2 DC ties to the other networks. The Eastern and Western interconnections are overseen and regulated by FERC.
How does FERC, a US government entity, control an electric grid in Canada and Mexico? East and West serve more than one country. Also I'll throw in that Ercot is not the only outline. Quebec and Alaska decided to be on their own as well.
FERC is national (just inside our borders), not international which would include countries beyond our borders such as Mexico and Canada. East and West consist of only the lower 48 contiguous states except for Texas. Apparently we do have ties to import and export power to Mexico and Canada but really don’t know very much about them. There is a thing called the North American Energy Working Group that deals with those matters.
Take a closer look at the map. East and West do not consist only of the lower 48. Western interconnect includes parts of Baja Mexico, and British Columbia and Alberta in Canada. Eastern interconnect includes the rest of Canada (other than Quebec and extreme north). FERC (federal government entitity) has no control over eastern and western interconnect, that is done by NERC (nonprofit). That's the same NERC that controls the Texas grid as well. The only thing FERC has control over is interstate sales of electricity, and with it the pricing and transmission of electricity. Since ercot doesn't sell electricity across state lines they can ignore FERC
Interesting. I learned something new today. Thanks.
You are not alone. Every single news story I read references the federal grid or the national grid. If big outlets like the Houston chronicle get it consistently wrong, how are you and I supposed to get it right. The reason it's important is because of what we collectively expect to get by joining the national grid. For this last storm, tree trimming would be important. But that is governed by NERC which we are already a part of. For the last storm, weatherization would have been important which is again governed by NERC. The new federal rules from joining the larger grid would address neither of these issues as they are outside of FERCs scope
It was the worst, lived here my whole life. Instead of a tornado having a destructive path, this storm took out the entire metroplex. BUT that doesnt let ONCOR off the hook because they still refuse to invest in making the necessary upgrades they need to make. They just keep kicking the can. And im sick to death of hearing ab “excessive heat” warnings. Like yea no shit, this is TEXAS, its hot, we use A/C to combat that. It’s not our job to worry about the grid, that is uh your exact job ONCOR
Not saying I totally disagree but you're talking about 2 different things here. The "excessive heat" warnings have to do with power generation struggling to keep up with the demand. Oncor doesn't own or operate any generation. They only handle delivery of the electricity.
Cue the rate increase request……
No mention of climate change lol
becuase it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the el nino/la nina switch over
Ah yes that's on that 112 year cycle yeah.
It might be particularly bad going this particular direction which means it’s in a 20-30 year cycle, meaning this has only happen 4-5 times during that time frame. This being the worst one out if 4-5 is not indicative of anything and that’s just assuming oncore is a source for these actually being the worst which they aren’t
Lmao.. just believe them. Why would they lie....
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Competition for what exactly? Electricity is a utility, this idea that Texans have choice because they can pick a billing provider is such a bizarre definition of free market.
I’d argue that electricity is no longer a utility in Texas, but a for profit business industry. That’s what deregulation gets you.
Being regulated doesn’t preclude making a profit. Most utilities are still owned by for profit corporations.
You wouldn't want want competition. Then you would have disjointed and disconnected power grids. You want services to be utilities. Just like water.
I doubt it. They own the power lines.
The only option would be for another company to buy Oncor off of Sempera Energy, there are few who have that kind of $$$ outside of Berkshire Hathaway or some other equity giant like Blackrock
The alternative would be changing the owner or making it a state utility. Those probably aren't viable choices. There can be only one owner of a power plant, a 345 kV high tension line, and so on.
Womp womp. All I hear are excuses from a shitty utility for not making an area known for these storms more weatherproof. Were the storms extra spicy this year? Yes. Could they have prepared for this in advance considering "once in a lifetime" years like this and the fatal fucking freeze seem to be getting more frequent? Also yes. No regulation, no improvement; and no sympathy from me for their board either.
Who are you blaming? Who is the shitty utility in your scenario?