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Griddy Is Shutting Down

griddy.com

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Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#121

Post by toast0 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #92
nrmitchi wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customer debt from this can be sold off, but you might be lucky to get a penny-on-the-dollar for it.

Maybe, because it's going to (on average) be hard to collect. But the debt doesn't go away automatically or get reduced, it goes to whoever paid that penny... (Now, if that's John Oliver [0], maybe it also gets forgiven, but that's not the usual case...) [0] https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/john-oliver-buys-15...

There's a statute of limitations on collecting debt. Looks like in Texas, it's 4 years. A creditor (or its assignees) can certainly take debtors to court and get a judgement, which would reset the statute. But that's a lot of expense, and may not be recouped.

If Griddy is booted out of ERCOT, Griddy (or its assignees) probably can't prevent them from switching to other providers with a balance due, and probably can't have their electricity turned off for non-payment, so for customers that ended up with a balance due in the thousands, I expect they'll have to write off a lot of that.

(I'm not a lawyer, if I was a lawyer, I wouldn't be admitted in Texas, I didn't even read the law, just a web page that looked appropriate)

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#122

Post by abathur »

bpodgursky wrote: post #9
fastball wrote: post #3

Not a fan of this. People buying electricity at wholesale prices is on them.

The problem here as I understand it is that ERCOT stepped in and artificially set an absurdly high wholesale price, to try to stimulate production. And then Griddy was forced to pass this price straight down to their customers. The narrative about this being a "market failure" seems really wrong. Really seems like it should be on TX to make the customers whole here, given that they ordered Griddy to pass along huge a…

This.

Before PUCT pegged the prices, we were able to load-shift our showers, heat, and device charging to parts of the day where there actually was still sufficient supply to drive prices down under 50c/kWh.

Even if you aren't shifting your use around, there's a really big difference in the total damage done by power rates pegged at $9/kWh 24/7, and power that was occasionally hitting this rate but was otherwise ~averaging somewhere on the order of $2-3/kWh over a 24h period early on in the crisis.

The day before PUCT pegged the rate had a few hours of relatively tolerable prices. Thankfully we lost power for nearly a full day of the fixed $9/kWh rate.

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#123

Post by lxe »

freeone3000 wrote: post #56
lxe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how is this bad?

The usual wholesale price of electricity is around $0.11 per kWh. The retail price of electricity is around $0.16 per kWh. So you save about $0.05 per kWh used in an average month -- not bad! That's a free $20! Until a "100 year" storm comes along, and makes the wholesale price of electricity $9 per kWh. Now instead of saving $20, you owe $8,800 more than usual.

So the "tiered brokerage" middle men make it more expensive on average by cheaper when wholesale spikes?

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#124

Post by toast0 »

abathur wrote: post #115
toast0 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is Griddy needs to pay within a small number of days of Griddy customers receiving the power. But it looks like Griddy had set up customer billing on a prepaid system. You had to deposit $49 to start, and they'd debit your usage as you went. If your balance was low, they'd charge your credit card on file. I would bet at least some customers' hit their credit card limits and their Griddy accounts have…

AFAIK Griddy also made a point of not cutting anyone off for non-payment during the catastrophe, further exacerbating how large some of these bills could get.

From looking at their documents [1], that's part of the standard Public Utility Commission of Texas standard terms: "Your REP may not order the disconnection of your service for any of the following reasons: for non-payment during an extreme weather emergency"

So, it wasn't really Griddy's choice during the emergency. After the emergency, there's not much of a point to cut people off, as the normal usage is peanuts compared to what was incurred during the emergency.

[1] https://assets-global.website-files.com/5df01ca286f5a984f50c...

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#125

Post by great_tankard »

nickysielicki wrote: post #50

This fucking sucks. I'm angry. I have a pretty dark outlook when it comes to global warming, but when you're a griddy customer and you're watching your meter constantly, it just made sense . For a brief moment in time, a green future based on renewables felt realistic. For a brief moment in time, I felt like we might actually be able to meet carbon emission goals. When it cost a lot to make electricity, I used less.…

The only reasonable thing you said was that people generally aren't acutely aware of their energy usage. That has more to do with our society's attitude towards how we build things and how we get around than anything else. To condemn people to have to devote all their waking hours to monitoring their meters is an absurd solution to that problem.

Lack of regulation and poor politics have killed people, once again. Griddy was a stupid solution to the wrong problem.

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#126

Post by nickysielicki »

tedunangst wrote: post #87
nickysielicki wrote: post #50

This fucking sucks. I'm angry. I have a pretty dark outlook when it comes to global warming, but when you're a griddy customer and you're watching your meter constantly, it just made sense . For a brief moment in time, a green future based on renewables felt realistic. For a brief moment in time, I felt like we might actually be able to meet carbon emission goals. When it cost a lot to make electricity, I used less.…

A company getting blown up by counter party risk doesn't sound like regulation. That's the free market at work.

It's not exactly the free market when ERCOT fixes the price.

https://www.griddy.com/post/griddy-update-why-energy-prices-...

See the big image midway through the article.

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#127

Post by nickysielicki »

gizmo686 wrote: post #82
nickysielicki wrote: post #50

This fucking sucks. I'm angry. I have a pretty dark outlook when it comes to global warming, but when you're a griddy customer and you're watching your meter constantly, it just made sense . For a brief moment in time, a green future based on renewables felt realistic. For a brief moment in time, I felt like we might actually be able to meet carbon emission goals. When it cost a lot to make electricity, I used less.…

What regulation are you referring to.

> Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) cited its “complete authority over ERCOT” to direct that ERCOT set pricing at $9/kWh until the grid could manage the outage situation after being ravaged by the freezing winter storm.

from: https://www.griddy.com/post/griddy-update-why-energy-prices-...

Prices should have fallen and did not.

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#128

Post by gwbas1c »

bmarquez wrote: post #35

I wonder why there wasn't some sort of stop-loss pricing (disconnect service if price exceeds X) built into the user agreement. That would have prevented all the negative publicity. Griddy was a great idea, but it wasn't for everyone. Especially those who don't have backup solar or generators.

Doesn't have to be a full disconnect. It could simply be a smart thermostat that drops the heat to 50(F) and smart breakers that turn off dryers and dishwashers.

If all you use is LED lighting, low heat, and keep off your 'l33t gaming rig, you could make it through a high cost incident without losing power.

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#129

Post by clairity »

seventytwo wrote: post #88

But I was told the free market solves everything and that anything run by the government is impossibly inept and corrupt! To be clear, the emergent system that comes from a free-ish market is an amazing thing and works very well in most cases. ... Just not well for critical infrastructure.

to be clear, free markets are myths of yore. no one wants to participate in a true free market, as evidenced by griddy and its customers bowing out after having only gotten a taste of it. this term is typically used when an entity wants a particular regulation changed to suit their own advantage.

what we should all want are fair markets, where each participant is widely informed and not under coercion by other participants. regulations should only be used for the purpose of ensuring the fair market for all, including and especially individual consumers, not advantaging any particular entity as is often the case now.

Re: Griddy Is Shutting Down

#130

Post by [deleted] »

tschwimmer wrote: post #83
nickysielicki wrote: post #50

This fucking sucks. I'm angry. I have a pretty dark outlook when it comes to global warming, but when you're a griddy customer and you're watching your meter constantly, it just made sense . For a brief moment in time, a green future based on renewables felt realistic. For a brief moment in time, I felt like we might actually be able to meet carbon emission goals. When it cost a lot to make electricity, I used less.…

I have a differing opinion, which is that paying market rates for electricity is not an innovation. It's a differing business model, and it's arguably a regression in terms of convenience and usability. As a consumer who doesn't work in the power industry, I don't really want to follow the power costs. When I feel cold, I want to turn the heat on. When the dishwasher is full, I want to run it. Having to do an additio…

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