Griddy Energy

ChooseEnergy.com® is not affiliated with Griddy Energy.

Griddy Energy is a wholesale electricity supplier that first entered the Texas deregulated energy market in 2017. It announced March 15, 2021, that it was filing for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The company blamed the filing on “financial devastation related to the actions of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) during and after” the February 2021 winter storm that caused millions of Texans to lose power.

As part of the filing, Griddy sought to release customers from $29 million in unpaid electricity bills. No action had been taken by late March 2021.

During its heyday, Griddy worked differently than traditional retail electric providers (REPs) by providing its customers with direct access to wholesale electricity prices. Customers paid $9.99 per month to join Griddy. They then were given access to wholesale electricity rates with no markup. Bills did include transmission and delivery utility fees and some other Texas grid charges.

While this may sound like a good thing, it carried risk. Wholesale electricity prices change every five minutes. It is the responsibility of the customer to monitor these changes. Griddy Energy customers benefitted from market lows but may also experienced extreme highs during periods of peak demand.

Because wholesale prices are extremely volatile, Griddy Energy customers do not have contracts and can switch providers at any time with no termination fees. With Griddy, a customer’s electric rate is entirely dependent on the spot price of electricity at that given time.

The first indication of trouble occurred during August 2019, when high energy demand pressured wholesale prices to rise briefly to the $9,000 per megawatt hour cap. Prices normally range between $35 and $50 per megawatt hour. Customers reported sharply higher bills.

But prices later settled down. Until February 2021. Again, demand for electricity outpaced generation. Some plants didn’t operate properly because of the freezing weather. ERCOT institute rolling outages to control demand, but wholesale prices still soared to the $9,000 cap and stayed there for days. Griddy advised customers to leave the company for other providers, but many weren’t accepting new enrollments at that point.

Bottom line: Wholesale electricity is mainly for those who want to constantly monitor the market and have the flexibility to turn off big energy users as soon as prices spike (which can happen as often as every five minutes).

Many Griddy customers in Texas have been transition to what the state calls “Providers of Last Resort” or POLR. Customers who find themselves tied to providers they never signed up for and may not know much about.

The good news: These customers aren’t required to stay with POLR companies. There’s no early termination fee. For more stability, enter your ZIP code above to shop for fixed-rate alternatives in the Choose Energy marketplace. Fixed-rate plans keep the same electricity-supply rates for the full term of the plan, regardless of what happens in the wholesale energy market.

While wholesale pricing is not inherently bad, it can be unpredictable, and this is something to keep in mind when considering Griddy. For customers who want any kind of stability in their monthly energy bill, we recommend a more traditional retail electric provider and a fixed-rate plan.

To see Griddy Energy reviews, please see recent ratings from the Better Business Bureau. It also isn’t difficult to find reviews on the company online from customers who feel misused by Griddy in Texas. To see reviews of some of the top energy providers in Texas, click here.

 

• Email support@griddy.com.

• Call 1-800-993-6207.

 

 

updated 4/2/2021