Pedernales Electric Cooperative is the largest distribution electric co-op in the USA and serves millions of Texans. Yesterday, they announced that they were dropping the storm surcharge that had previously been implemented earlier on in the year due to bad storms in the area.

This damaged power supplies which is why the bill got passed on to the customer. Although PEC announced that this would be dropped, they simultaneously added that they would be raising the rate as well. The rate is set to rise from October which means that it will be more expensive compared to the past three consecutive years and closer to 2019 in costs.

This was announced in a leaflet that can be seen above. Here, it shows the electric prices in Austin over the past 10 years. It should be noted that PEC is also a nonprofit co-operative and purchases its energy from generators.

In other words, this genuinely isn’t PEC being greedy but still shows the overall price of energy rising this year. Sadly for Texans, this is a good example of hearing some good news which is instantly replied to with bad news. At the same time, it could always be worse if the storm surcharge remained in place with the rate increase on top of this.