Barry Smitherman has an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News, “How Texas used a free market to reduce electricity prices and pollution.” Smitherman is former chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission and before that of the Texas Public Utilities Commission. He highlights price reductions available to consumers as compared to prices immediately before the retail …
As had been announced in June of this year, the Energy and Power subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives is devoting some time to a deep look into the Federal Power Act (FPA). At the time of the June announcement the committee sent a letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) saying: As you know, the …
Last week the commissioners of the Texas Public Utility Commission once again complained about retail power suppliers who gamed the ranking system on the state’s retail electric power shopping website www.powertochoose.org. This post summarizes the problem and then offers a simple solution. From the Houston Chronicle: Texas’ utility commissioners complained Thursday about confusing or misleading …
At the Dallas Morning News James Osborne reports on the controversy over minimum use fees in the competitive retail power market that includes most Texas households. As discussed here at Knowledge Problem last week, retail suppliers sometimes design contract offers to be especially cheap for consumers using 1000 kWh per month. The state’s powertochoose.org website …
Dallas Morning News on Competitive Retail Power Market Fees and Rate Designs in Texas Read More »
To help provide consumer information on competitive retail offers in the Texas electric power market, the Public Utility Commission of Texas maintains a website at www.powertochoose.org. Enter your zip code, click a button, and it will display the top ten (out of nearly 300) offers. Because the table shows the lowest priced offers first, with the average …
Gaming the Rankings on the Texas Power to Choose Website Read More »
Jay Zarnikau, C.K. Woo, and Ross Baldick have examined whether the shift from a zonal to nodal market design in the ERCOT power market had a noticeable effect on electric energy prices. The resulting article, published in the Journal of Regulatory Economics, and this post may be a bit geekier than we usually get around here. …
Did Ercot’s Shift from Zonal to Nodal Market Design Reduce Electric Power Prices? Read More »
From SNL Energy, “Texas utility regulators expect to open investigation on wind ‘cost apportionment’“: Having seen record wind output of more than 10,000 MW in March, ERCOT in the report also noted that Texas has gone well beyond its 10,000-MW capacity goal and far earlier than the 2025 target established in the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Act. …
Texas Wind Power, the Ercot Power Market, the Public Utility Commission Read More »
Michael Giberson CenterPoint Energy, the Houston-area electric distribution company, has launched MyTrueCost.com to help area retail electric customers shop for electric power. Help may be needed: currently 43 companies offer a total of 239 different service options in the CenterPoint service territory according to data from Powertochoose.org, the Texas PUC’s retail power website. The basic …
Smart Shopping for Electric Power Just Got Easier in Houston Read More »
Michael Giberson Recently the Brattle Group submitted a study of resource adequacy issues within the ERCOT power system and the policy options available to ERCOT and the PUC of Texas, the regulatory authority overseeing the ERCOT system. As the Brattle report points out, ERCOT has so far stuck with a so-called “energy-only” market design while …
Hayek’s Knowledge Problem As an Issue in Electric Power Market Design Read More »
Michael Giberson The question troubling some folks in Texas’s competitive power market: Will Texas consumers want to consume more electric power than suppliers are able to supply? A resource adequacy review by ERCOT, the power system and market operator for most of the state, suggests that consumer demand may outstrip resources available as early as 2014. …
Competitive Power Market in Texas Faces Supply Concerns. Now What? Read More »
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