I hope that was the fake Bob2. Because it reads like Helen Keller trying to describe a mountaintop view
BOB2- Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Commenter Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Even my wimpy 11 panels on the roof produces a
> > surplus of over a MW-hr per year after powering
> my
> > all electric house.
> >
> > It helps to have a totally insulated house in
> > coastal California.
>
> My friend in Texas told me that so many folks in
> his part of Texas are so sick of the overpriced
> and unreliable Texas electric utilities, that many
> folks he knows are "going off of the grid". Part
> of this is that the state allowed Texas utilities
> to impose and "Enron" style peak pricing scheme,
> that sends consumer bills through the roof, when
> the utilities themselves turn off the power plants
> and reduce supply. Folks going "off of the grid"
> is such a threat, that the Texas monopoly
> utilities are trying to lobby the Texas State
> Legislature with campaign contributions (aka legal
> "bribes") to make "going off of the grid" in Texas
> illegal.
>
> Monopolies when threatened with competition, seem
> to love to have the "gubmint" protect their
> monopoly over consumers from actual free market
> capitalist competition.
>
> How would this impact trains?
>
> In theory, coal train movements to Texas would
> benefit from restricting free market competition,
> if Texas were to make it illegal to generate your
> own electricity and use it yourself, though.
>
> Meanwhile, speaking of trains in Texas... I had
> me wondering with these tariff shenanigans, I was
> watching this morning, if this was part of some
> sort of short selling scam that was targeting
> things like CPKC stock. Which went down like a
> rock and then shot back up like a roller coaster
> with the weird games this morning.
Texas has competition at the retail level. So many choices that the state set up a website for consumers to compare options. [
www.powertochoose.org]
Random zip code 77493 had 38 companies offering 127 fixed rate plans and 13 variable rate plans. You can pick what percent you want to come from renewables, up to 100%.
I've lived in 5 states and Texas didn't feel overpriced. Only major outage was the one unusual winter storm. Which like a major wreck was a confluence of many rare factors where too much went wrong at once. Some summer or winter warnings on extreme days asking to conserve but I never lost power in those. With so much population and industry growth that is not bad. The variable pricing is at the wholesale level. Meant to reduce teh chances of outages in high demand.
Of course many choose to try home solar. Like in every state. Biggest reason may be the federal goverment subsidies. Many companies sprung up offering reduced or no cost installation. Especially the poor and elderly. Including the shysters that did lousy install, took the govt checks, and disappeared.
What state doesn't have a large utility lobbying legislators for more favorable conditions and reduced competition? If that state has competition. Has any proposed bill that banned personal home solar actually made it into law? I've never heard of such.
Your friend sounds like a person with a political agenda.