ONG's monthly increase

[soonergolfer]

Why did he even have to do this? Why wasn't the infrastructure protected against this kind of situation? Did his company just decide to take the risk and hope a really deep freeze never happened, but if it did, he was assured of making ridiculous amounts of money?

I've spent days in a row working and neither me nor my company made millions during that period, we just kept the company going, it was part of our job. No, it wasn't outside in subzero weather, but companies should have the foresight so that people *don't* have to work outside in subzero weather for days.

If you want to sit there and play the blame game, why don't you point your finger at the government/state of Texas for not requiring the billions spent on wind turbines to be winterized? All of the wind turbines froze solid, several ended up breaking, and the solar panels were covered by snow.

Why aren't the solar and wind companies not liable for being unable to provide the energy it was depended on to produce?

[gopokes88]

Why did he even have to do this? Why wasn't the infrastructure protected against this kind of situation? Did his company just decide to take the risk and hope a really deep freeze never happened, but if it did, he was assured of making ridiculous amounts of money?

I've spent days in a row working and neither me nor my company made millions during that period, we just kept the company going, it was part of our job. No, it wasn't outside in subzero weather, but companies should have the foresight so that people *don't* have to work outside in subzero weather for days.

Because gas been at $2/mcf for a decade, then within a day they went from starving to kings.

[fortpatches]

Probably because there was about a 35GW outage, wind and solar were only 0-12GW (average of around 5GW-ish for that 6 day period) of that amount.

Slide 16, https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/202...rt_4.27.21.pdf

[liirogue]

Your oil company/operator was probably

A. hedged and didn't get the full benefit
B. Had a lot of production get knocked offline.

An O&G company's hedged price has absolutely no effect on the price paid to royalty owners, and they cannot pass on any portion of a hedging gain or loss.

[FighttheGoodFight]

Oklahoma Watch finally got the details on what companies got the big payout from the winter storm

https://oklahomawatch.org/2022/02/11...d-in%ef%bf%bc/

[bombermwc]

If you want to sit there and play the blame game, why don't you point your finger at the government/state of Texas for not requiring the billions spent on wind turbines to be winterized? All of the wind turbines froze solid, several ended up breaking, and the solar panels were covered by snow.

Why aren't the solar and wind companies not liable for being unable to provide the energy it was depended on to produce?

Actually, the heat IS on the TX lawmakers for their short-sighted vision, as with climate change being the way it is, we expect this to happen again. They do get ice/snow in TX so it wasn't beyond reason to plan for this. However, they wanted to save a dollar and do it cheaper. Then people that don't like the renewable market tried to say, "see, you can't rely on that stuff". But the proof came VERY quickly to show that it broke in TX because TX didn't pay for it to work properly. Compare to turbines in Alaska or northern Europe that run just fine in much worse conditions. Remember, the head of the energy board was immediately forced out, it also became obvious that the energy board didn't have anyone on it that lived in TX either. So you actually are seeing a lot of changes that will directly affect how TX deals with this in the future.

But here in OK, we're just supposed to sit back and accept that ONG effed us all over and not question it huh?

[TheTravellers]

Actually, the heat IS on the TX lawmakers for their short-sighted vision, as with climate change being the way it is, we expect this to happen again. They do get ice/snow in TX so it wasn't beyond reason to plan for this. However, they wanted to save a dollar and do it cheaper. Then people that don't like the renewable market tried to say, "see, you can't rely on that stuff". But the proof came VERY quickly to show that it broke in TX because TX didn't pay for it to work properly. Compare to turbines in Alaska or northern Europe that run just fine in much worse conditions. Remember, the head of the energy board was immediately forced out, it also became obvious that the energy board didn't have anyone on it that lived in TX either. So you actually are seeing a lot of changes that will directly affect how TX deals with this in the future.

But here in OK, we're just supposed to sit back and accept that ONG effed us all over and not question it huh?

I'm going to be writing my Rep and Sen asking what can be done to investigate this securitization scam. It's absolutely ridiculous that the OCC approved ONG's and OG&E's requests and now OK residents are just screwed for decades because of poor operating procedures (of upstream companies, to be clear, not ONG and OG&E, the problem lies with the providers that they use, but ONG and OG&E are the ones we interact with and (in a perfect world) have control over).

[Mott]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02...rbines-frozen/
It wasn’t renewable it was lack of gas and freezing of components of the Texas grid. Texas is a gas state, period.

[Bellaboo]

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02...rbines-frozen/
It wasn’t renewable it was lack of gas and freezing of components of the Texas grid. Texas is a gas state, period.

I read the first paragraph and it states that nearly half of the shutdown was Wind generation. The rest was gas, nuclear, etc.... Did you read it ? Or did I miss something ?

[Mott]

I read the first paragraph and it states that nearly half of the shutdown was Wind generation. The rest was gas, nuclear, etc.... Did you read it ? Or did I miss something ?

Read some more

Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the wind power was expected to make up only a fraction of what the state had planned for during the winter.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas projected that 80% of the grid's winter capacity, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power.

[baralheia]

Read some more

Frozen wind turbines in Texas caused some conservative state politicians to declare Tuesday that the state was relying too much on renewable energy. But in reality, the wind power was expected to make up only a fraction of what the state had planned for during the winter.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas projected that 80% of the grid's winter capacity, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power.

This is further supported by the ERCOT's Preliminary Report on Causes of Generator Outages and Derates During the February 2021 Extreme Cold Weather Event, linked above in Post #53.

[Midtowner]

I'm going to be writing my Rep and Sen asking what can be done to investigate this securitization scam. It's absolutely ridiculous that the OCC approved ONG's and OG&E's requests and now OK residents are just screwed for decades because of poor operating procedures (of upstream companies, to be clear, not ONG and OG&E, the problem lies with the providers that they use, but ONG and OG&E are the ones we interact with and (in a perfect world) have control over).

What is really most called for is regulation of energy providers to ensure that there is a continuity of operations in cold weather. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

[TheTravellers]

What is really most called for is regulation of energy providers to ensure that there is a continuity of operations in cold weather. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

It's absolutely insane that the spot market for natural gas can be so completely unregulated. Can you imagine if gasoline jumped up to $300/gal for a few days? That would *never* *ever* happen again, there'd be so much legislation and regulation put around that in about a week...

[Midtowner]

Did some looking into it...

https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/new...s-improvements

Seems the FERC is cooperating with providers and has determined it best to ask that generators pretty please winterize better and that the federal government should compensate them for it.

[TheTravellers]

Did some looking into it...

https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/new...s-improvements

Seems the FERC is cooperating with providers and has determined it best to ask that generators pretty please winterize better and that the federal government should compensate them for it.

So basically BAU, nothing will happen and the next deep freeze in a few years (which *will* happen) will wreak similar havoc and there'll be securitization, pt. 2 and customers will get screwed (and/or die) *again*.

[BoulderSooner]

So basically BAU, nothing will happen and the next deep freeze in a few years (which *will* happen) will wreak similar havoc and there'll be securitization, pt. 2 and customers will get screwed (and/or die) *again*.

lol yeah 100 year freezes happen all the time i'm sure it will be just another couple of year

[gopokes88]

What is really most called for is regulation of energy providers to ensure that there is a continuity of operations in cold weather. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

It's called heat tracing. It keeps the pipes warm during hard freezes.

A lot of companies spent a lot of money on it in 2021. I have friends here and 2021 was a massive year for them. https://www.neoinsulation.com/
Market is responding, for as upset as people are about getting stuck with a bill, a lot of companies are upset they missed the revenue.

[bombermwc]

lol yeah 100 year freezes happen all the time i'm sure it will be just another couple of year

"100 year" events actually are happening more regularly every year. Climate Change is a real thing and political affiliation doesn't change that fact. Severe Weather is something we can expect to have happen more regularly. Climate Change is not just "global warming". I'm not going to get in to a big debate on that here, but suffice to say that Oklahoma itself has had its own share of multiple "100 year" events within the last few years.

[TheTravellers]

https://www.southwestledger.news/new...ds-was-invalid

[bombermwc]

Well that's not going anywhere. That story id a shot in the dark using a formality to make a massive claim. I dont think that the Supreme Court is going to use a matter of meeting procedure to reverse this.

[shawnw]

Another increase coming I guess

[Bill Robertson]

Another increase coming I guess

I'm on the averaging plan and my bills have already gone up almost 35% in the last year. I thought that was to cover operating and infrastructure costs. I'm not going to scream about 2 bucks a month but damn.

[PaddyShack]

I don't like how they word these rate increases. ONG and OGE both use words like "[ourcompany] has invested $XX million into the system infrastructure for (whatever reasons...)" Is all that money they are investing from our monthly bills? Therefore why would they need to "recoup" their "investment" from what I would consider to be the stakeholders, all of the people depending on the utility service? I don't understand how our current setup with OGE/ONG having monopolies. Would it be better for the citizens if there were more companies to buy utilities from or if our municipalities would control the utilities? There is nothing I can do about OGE/ONG rates going up, I cannot choose a competitor, I cannot disconnect service.

[BoulderSooner]

I'm on the averaging plan and my bills have already gone up almost 35% in the last year. I thought that was to cover operating and infrastructure costs. I'm not going to scream about 2 bucks a month but damn.

the bill goings up in the past year has mostly had to do with the actually cost of nat gas ..

[TheTravellers]

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news...d/65373458007/