Here in Texas, the seasons rarely shift in a smooth, gradual way. Our transition from summer to winter this year, for example, is more like a stuttering engine that can’t decide if it’s really shutting down or not. Just as a cold front blows in and we get accustom to cooler air, the temperature soars back up into the 80’s and 90’s. And then, like this week, plummets again to below freezing. (For anyone keeping score, we got light snow in Dallas yesterday, but it’s supposed to be in the 70’s again by this weekend.)
The same joke gets told here that gets told in countless other places: if you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait five minutes.
But that joke gets told all over the country because it’s true all over the country. Weather is, by nature (get it?), unpredictable. The science of meteorology has made impressive leaps in the last couple of decades, and still, our best guesses are just guesses, even if the weatherman is right more than wrong.
When it comes to commercial electricity, the weather presents buyers with a very real risk. Shifts in long-term weather patterns as well as short-term weather events can wreak all kinds of havoc on the the business electricity market. We might make jokes about the weather, but jokes about surprisingly high charges on your energy bill are never funny.
It wasn’t that long ago that north Texas commercial electricity customers were reminded of the impact weather can have in a fairly unpleasant way. In February of 2010, a cluster of ice storms tore across north Texas. We get ice storms from time to time, so that, in and of itself, wasn’t all that dramatic. But these storms were crippling. The ice, inches deep in places, stuck around for days. The city ground to a halt.
And business electricity prices spiked.
Truth be told, that’s an understatement. Due to the increased demand coupled with several power plants going offline in the midst of the storms, some business electricity customers paid ten times their normal rate for that week. Ouch.
Whether we’re talking about ice and snow, flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes or some other weather event, there really isn’t anything you can do to fully prepare for the unexpected, and certainly nothing you can do to stop it. However, you don’t have to be caught completely off-guard. Not where your commercial electricity is concerned.
A big part of what we do at Live Energy is help our clients mitigate risk. We work with clients all over the US, down near the coast where hurricanes are a factor all the way up to the north where blizzards are an annual reality. Wherever your offices are, we can help you build an energy strategy that takes into account the possible impact of weather. It’s bad enough being hit by a literal storm. You don’t want the follow-up headache of being hit by a financial storm because you failed to create a business electricity plan that would protect you from unexpected price jumps.
Let us help you prepare for the unexpected. Call the experts at Live Energy today at 888-341-9155. We can work with you to develop a commercial electricity strategy that provides you with some shelter from the storm.
