Thread by @douglewinenergy

Tonight, at 5:30 with very little notice, the Texas Public Utility Commission met. Those interested can listen here at the link below. Pay special attention to the exchange with a concerned Texan

They did a few things I'll explain here #txlege #txenergy
texasadmin.com/tx/puct/open_m…

They gave until Monday at 3pm for Retail Electric Providers (REPs) to ask to be a "Provider of Last Resort" (POLR). This is the backstop for when other REPs go out of business, as many will, their customer get transferred to larger REPs like @reliantenergy and @txuenergy

Customers don't get to choose their POLR and Reliant and TXU are pushing hard to be the POLR. Customers can switch later. There's a problem: there will be far less REPs to switch to after likely dozens of companies fail. @apoorv_bh89 called this:

https://twitter.com/apoorv_bh89/status/1360772228535648257?s=20

Already according to the @HoustonChron, 2 companies (Vistra and NRG) own 75% of the Tx retail market. Now that will be higher, possibly much higher. How competitive is a market where two companies hold >75% market share? houstonchronicle.com/business/energ…

They also opened up a docket to investigate what just happened. @TPRNews @_DominicAnthony covered this here. They don't think they have enough money to do this. They are massively under-resourced as I said in the article. tpr.org/2021-02-19/pub…

Then, @Robogeek started asking great questions. Not sure how/why this happened. Starts at 43:37 of the stream (linked on 1st tweet of this thread), he asked the @PUCTX about the @NBCNews story that said some Tx customers would have $10,000 electric bills. nbcnews.com/business/busin…

Chair Walker told him this was a public comment period not for press. And @robogeek clarified he's a member of the public. Chair Walker said they would address price gouging if there is any. Commissioner D'Andrea then jumped in to address his concerns

He said (shortened for twitter): "The way the market is designed, these high prices do not get passed on to customers... Customers are not exposed to $9000MWh wholesale prices. They should not have $10,000/month bills and if they do it's fraud."

There are some niche players (he means @griddy) who pass the rate directly to customers "I think that's going to be, those customers will have really suffered and it's something we'll have to look at that." These customers signed up, voluntarily, to pay wholesale costs

Cmsr D'Andrea cont'd: "Public power is something we're going to have to look at. Bc there are co-ops and munis who took a big hit because they have generation that didn't show up and they have customers that might get exposed. We're going to work very hard to protect the people."

As a @PedernalesCoop customer, this is very concerning. There are board elections coming up and member-owners will have lots of questions for their incumbent board members if the coal-heavy utility was exposed. This is the first I've heard of particular co-op/muni exposure.

Sidebar: many customers have variable rate plans. Not the same but those customers almost certainly, barring some legislative or regulatory action, will see their costs go up. Lots of discussion of this on the interesting thread started by @JudgeClayJ

https://twitter.com/JudgeClayJ/status/1362951456572194817?s=20

Finally, @robogeek thanked Commissioner D'Andrea and cont'd: "I think a lot of people would like to hear the PUC state definitively that Texas residential power customers will not be charged more than normal and penalized for the mistakes that have been made during the disaster.

Commissioner D'Andrea said, outside of @griddy customers, your average REP customer... the spot prices eventually translate into forward prices and I can't tell you that people's rates won't go up by a cent per KWh bc these events get pushed into rates, but not $10,000 bills

He concluded: "I hope that answers your question."

"It doesn't," Paul aka @robogeek said, but please assure Texas consumers that they will not be price gouged to add insult to injury."

Commissioner D'Andrea said "The promise of the market is that private capital bears the risks not the ratepayers as opposed to regulated areas. We as regulators have to make sure that the market fulfills that promise and that it is private capital that bears the risk...

"And that we shield as best we can ratepayers from the fallout and I promise you we will do that."

On Feb 25, the same day Texas House and Senate committees will grill @ERCOT_ISO and the @PUCTX, @NRG will hold their quarterly earnings call. @VistraCorp Feb 26.

We'll see.

End.