Texans facing $10,000-plus electricity bills after storm are desperate for relief

FORT WORTH, Texas — The offer seemed almost too good to be true: Sign up for a low Costco-like membership fee, pay market prices for electricity and potentially save big on utility bills. That’s what drove Roland Whitaker, a Decatur rancher and oil worker, to enroll with electricity provider Griddy after hearing an advertisement on radio station WBAP.

For Whitaker, who cares for about 175 head of cattle along with horses and goats, the savings were significant: at least a few thousand dollars per year. He didn’t quite understand how it all worked, but his family was thrilled to have the extra money to invest in the ranch.

“I’m not the only person — I can promise you that — who had never even thought about it,” Whitaker said. “We’re all just thinking: We’re saving all this money, let’s just go with it.”

The winter storm and the near-collapse of the Texas power grid changed that calculation for thousands of Texans, particularly Griddy’s 29,000 customers vulnerable to the accompanying spike in wholesale, or real-time market, electricity prices. They are a small fraction of energy consumers, since most residents are signed up for fixed rates through retail electric providers, electric cooperatives or municipal utilities.

With freezing temperatures blanketing Texas, power generators went down, leading to a scarcity of electricity amid an unprecedented statewide demand for heat. On Feb. 15, this reality led the Public Utility Commission of Texas to order wholesale prices raised to the cap of $9 per kilowatt-hour — a more than 10,000% increase from the week before. The commission oversees the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit charged with managing the electrical grid.

Wholesale prices lingered around $9 for days, a phenomenon that previously lasted for only a few hours per year, typically during summer heat waves or when several generators went down at once.

“I didn’t know it could shoot up that fast or that high or for that long,” said Krystle LeMay, a Bedford resident whose 586 squarefoot apartment cost her more than $1,000 with Griddy — despite her not being at home during the crisis. “I had no idea that that was even possible, and if I did, I really would not have ever joined.”

As millions of residents suffered through power outages and bursting pipes, Griddy customers scrambled to find other electricity providers, most of which refused to transfer accounts until after the electricity crisis subsided. The company originally urged customers to switch to another provider on Feb. 13.

Jim Lukehart, a pilot who lives in Whitewright near Sherman, was able to switch to another provider late last week. Despite his best efforts to conserve energy, the bill for Lukehart’s “energy vampire” home was already up to nearly $10,000, and he expected it to rise to at least $12,000.

“We were trapped, we couldn’t get out,” Lukehart said. “Some people were told by other electric providers that they have to be in good standing with their power company to switch so they still can’t get out of this.”

In the aftermath of the crisis, more than a dozen North Texans have contacted the Fort Worth StarTelegram to detail the toll that massive electricity bills have taken on their finances, families and mental health. Whitaker, who took in his best friend’s family during the storm, was among them.

By Friday, Whitaker was on the hook for nearly $15,000 in combined charges for his home and barn. He also agreed to a deferred payment plan offered by Griddy that requires him to pay off his balance in increments across five months, and stay with the company during that time.