re: Why is Entergy my only choice for electricity? How is that not a monopoly?

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The power lines can still only take so much load which is heavily depending on the location of the generators and the load itself. And then you have the Nuclear equation where the plants MUST run at 100% at all times unless there's a SCRAM or refueling outage.

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Right, but the question was about billing and how many companies could sell electricity in an area. Power companies throw electricity onto an interconnected grid in the lower 47 (Texas has its own). Companies can buy and sell electricity off that grid without owning the infrastructure itself, just like REA Co-Ops buy power from Southern Company and then resell it to their own customers. The comparison to the phone companies was that at some point, at least in most of the southeastern US, regardless of what company you buy your service from, your call is going through an AT&T switch and router. T-Mobile, Verizon, or whoever else is paying to use that service, directly or indirectly. The same could be possible with electricity. I believe that some places in Texas are doing, or have in the past, done this.

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Is that why Entergy rarely updates theres?

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Reading the Entergy public filings on their investor relations page, Entergy has added 3 brand new power plants in the last year (Lake Charles, New Orleans, Washington Parish), and they sustained between $1.5 - $1.7 billion (!) in damages from recent hurricanes. Sounds like they'll be updating infrastructure for a while, on top of the new builds.

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The texas grid is all market based with the transmission/distribution line owner being "for sale" in a way. Whoever you purchase from as a distributer has to purchase power from some generator company. All of this is done on a market like the stock market. Companies constantly buy and sell power and in multiples ways... day ahead market, realtime market, reserve market, etc.

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So.. Texas adds an extra middle man to handle administrative and speculative overhead.

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But yeah, griddy was actually telling their customers to switch to a different provider because their cost would be outrageous. I can't imagine how much money normal companies are losing right now only charging their customers $0.12 or whatever per kw/h.

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If Griddy is telling people to switch plans or providers, then how can this system of providers actually survive as a business model.

Also, are your able to switch plans on a dime at any time? This sounds like a system that is rife for exploitation. Or a gigantic clusterfrick.

I thought companies would lock you in for a specific rate for a specific period of time.

Yesterday during one of Entergy’s rolling blackouts, someone commented on Facebook about asking Entergy for a discount on their light bill because the power was out.

I sarcastically remarked that you are getting a discount. Entergy is not charging you for the electricity that you use during the blackout.

Needless to say, no one picked up on the fact Entergy only charges you for electricity that you use, and when your lights are off, your meter doesn’t turn so you are not charged.

It is not like Cable or phone service where you pay a fixed rate.

Mississippi Power charges around 80cents a day just to be connected to the grid