A number of residents of the US state of Texas are facing sky-high energy bills due to the extreme winter weather. Some Texans were sent a bill for $ 5,000 ($ 4,100). The highlight was a resident who received a bill of more than $ 16,000 for his consumption in the past week alone.
The high prices are the result of an extremely deregulated energy market in the state. This allows providers to adjust their rates at any time because the price is directly linked to the demand for energy. Due to harsh winter conditions, energy demand has exploded over the past week.
An energy company that sent its customers high bills apologized for the course of events and called on people to find another provider to avoid the extreme tariffs, the paper wrote Dallas Morning News Sunday.
The unusually low temperatures left 4 million households without energy and sometimes water at its peak last week. According to Governor Greg Abbott, that number has dropped to 30,000 households on Sunday.
Help for affected residents
Abott called on politicians in the state to take action against exorbitant energy prices. The mayor of the city of Houston thinks the state of Texas should compensate the affected residents. His colleague in Fort Worth called on the federal government to assist. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for Texas on Saturday. This frees up federal emergency aid for the state.
Ted Cruz, one of two Texas senators in Washington called for reform of the energy market in his state. “This is wrong,” he wrote on Twitter. Cruz angered many Texans last week when he and his family left home and hearth during the harsh cold for a short vacation in warm Mexico.
There is no longer any question of winter weather. In most places in Texas, midday temperatures rose above 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday.
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