Frustrated CPS Energy Customers Slam Utilities’ Handling of Winter Energy Crisis

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Saint Anthony – Dozens of angry CPS Energy customers gave top utility executives peace of mind at the first CPS board meeting since last week’s controlled blackouts.

At the peak of the utility’s controlled outage strategy, there were approximately 372,000 customers without power. Administrators heard the stories behind the stats for nearly two and a half hours of public commentary on Monday afternoon.

Although 108 people pre-registered to speak, not all of them did, as they were called up individually during the conference call.

Those who spoke spoke to the council about their struggles with spoiled food, walks outside to warm up from the cold of an unheated home, and being forced to store valuable insulin in it. the snow. Among other complaints, they also criticized the forced outages of the utility which left some people without electricity for several days.

“Confidence is gone, and saying ‘you’re sorry’ is empty,” a caller said. “People First” is not something you should say anymore. “

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Many objected to the idea of customers bearing the cost of the event as well – even if it was in the long run. Some have suggested that the bills be canceled for the storm period.

The amount CPS pays for fuel is typically added to customer bills over a 45-60 day period. However, given the massive surge in natural gas prices – up to 16,000% – CEO Paula Gold-Williams said CPS is considering extending the cost over 10 years or more rather than letting the cost fall on one. only invoice.

However, the CPS is still figuring out how much more it spent during the winter event and what it could do to reduce that amount before passing the cost on to taxpayers.

“I fully understand how customers don’t want to pay for anything storm related, ”Gold-Williams said at the meeting. “We will do our best to reduce these prices, working with national and local authorities so that we can seek out all the resources we can to help.”

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Some speakers said the CPS should be placed under the control of city council rather than the control of appointed administrators – an issue that surfaced in the failed “CPS Recall” petition. According to the San Antonio report, the petition failed to get enough signatures to get into the May 1 ballot, and the public service went to court to try and cut the legs underneath.