Mary Ann Estrella sat on a rented couch last November and ate, by candlelight, her Thanksgiving Dinner: a bologna sandwich.She was four months behind on her electricity bill, owing $450. With little money left over from her income - a combined $2,000 among Social Security, medical, and disability benefits - the 65-year-old veteran had to choose between paying for groceries and the electric bill.
"It's not a surprise," said Doug Hairgrove, director of energy programs at the Community Action Corporation of South Texas, an organization providing social, health, and financial services to 8,000 households across 16 counties in South Texas, including Hidalgo, Cameron, Nueces, and Starr counties. On average, the partnership helps 1,000 people a year with their electric bills. Households on average have owed $1,400, Hairgrove said.
The first is overseeing the grid, which manages 90% of the state's electricity and serves about 26 million Texans. The grid obtains power from many sources, including oil and natural gas, coal, wind, and solar. Recently, the grid has also introducedERCOT also buys that power from producers and resells it to companies that then sell it as a utility to consumers.
A spokesperson for ERCOT said it is not responsible for how much electric retailers charge their customers. When the demand on the grid outweighs the amount of electricity the sources of power can generate, "the wholesale cost of energy could increase as more expensive generation would be required" to keep up, they said.Hirs said the existing generators cannot produce enough electricity to match the state's growing population and keep costs low.
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