Austin Energy

In the late 1800s, Austin's elite decided a dam was what was needed to attract more people and industry to the city. But dams weren't cheap. And to get taxpayers to foot the bill, it had to be built for the public good.

Rising gas price are fueling interest in electric vehicles while corporations and the government try to make it easier to get from point A to B without running out of juice.

To make sure the burden of any future outages are shared among more people for less time, the utility is looking to get big industrial or commercial customers to agree to voluntarily cut power to leave more for homes.

Austin utilities officials said almost 60 scam calls were reported this week. Four victims sent about $1,200 to the scammers, they said.

The utility says a map of its circuits, which determines who loses power and who keeps it during an emergency, is not something it can create.

In a phone call billed as a primer on “The Texas Two Step,” Public Utility Commission of Texas Chair Arthur D'Andrea talked about a lot more than repricing. He talked about natural gas, falling trees, Austin Energy and frog boils.

Power plants owned by Austin Energy mostly stayed online during the storm — at a time when half the city was blacked out. That meant the utility could sell the excess power to the rest of the state for a high price.

The power was out and grocery deliveries were canceled. Then one resident of the Northeast Austin senior living community decided to post on social media.

Variable-rate plans are typically cheap when things are going well, but can be astronomically expensive when things go sideways like they did last week.

Texans are reporting receiving exorbitant electric bills despite not having power during the storm. One Texan, according to The New York Times, received a $16,752 electric bill.