[Oil Price.com] The electricity shortage in Texas amid the cold snap has sent spot electricity prices soaring so much that the surge in power prices equals a cost of $900 for charging a Tesla.The typical full charge of a Tesla costs around $18 using a Level 1 or Level 2 charger at home, according to estimates from The Drive. This estimate is based on an average price of $0.14 per kWh of power.
However, the extreme winter weather this week has sent Texas spot electricity prices soaring, as the wind turbines froze in the ice storms and reduced the wind power generating capacity in the Lone Star State by half.
Spot electricity prices at the West hub have soared above the grid’s $9,000 per megawatt-hour cap, compared to a ’normal’ price of $25 per megawatt-hour, FOX Business notes.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) called early on Monday for rotating outages across the state as extreme winter weather forced wind power generating units offline, while electricity demand set a new winter peak record.
At the same time, freezing cold and ice storms cut offline almost half of the wind power capacity in Texas.
"We are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units," ERCOT said.