Texas

What the Fpl 2009 3q Earnings Call Transcript Says About the Texas Retail Market

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson Seeking Alpha has begun publishing transcripts of quarterly corporate earnings calls. Typically these calls are discussions presented by the CEO and other corporate officers followed by Q&A with financial analysts.  The calls offer a more “inside look” at company operations than you get from reading newspaper or magazine stories or even trade press.  …

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The (soon to Be Revised) History of Electric Competition in Lubbock

2 Comments / Economic history, Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson The city of Lubbock Texas has had two competing electric power companies since 1917.  If a just announced deal goes through, competition will be eliminated. The new “official story” is that competition produced inefficiency, but this view is in stark contrast to old “official story” as told in the “The History of Lubbock …

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Breaking News: Retail Power Competition To End In Lubbock After More Than 90 Years

2 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson This morning, November 4, municipal utility Lubbock Power & Light and local regulated utility Xcel/Southwestern Public Service announced that the city utility will buy out the Xcel distribution system within the city and LP&L would become the monopoly retail power provider. The press conference hosted by the city emphasized the costliness of maintaining …

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External Costs of Energy Production, Auditing the Energy Star Program, and More

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson NewsWatch:Energy puts together a pretty good list of energy links, today noting the National Research Council’s new “Hidden costs of energy: Unpriced consequences of energy production and use.” (Surprise: coal looks bad. But note that much of the harm arises from a small number of coal-fueled generators.  The rest of the coal-burners are …

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Consumer Protection in the Texas Retail Power Market, Part 2

2 Comments / Electricity, Politics / By

Michael Giberson The Dallas Morning News is back with the second half of its investigative report into consumer protection problems in the Texas retail power market.  In this article the DMN focuses on the owner of Freedom Power, one company serving the prepaid power segment of the Texas retail market. (Yesterday I commented on part …

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Is Consumer Protection Lacking in Texas Retail Electric Power Market?

4 Comments / Electricity, Energy markets, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson The Dallas Morning News has published an in-depth story detailing the apparent lack of effort put into consumer protection issues in the restructured retail power market in Texas. The story focuses on the prepaid end of the business, which mostly services customers lacking established credit and unable to post a deposit.  Rates tend …

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“Gas Station Owners Were Surprisingly Altruistic During That Time of Crisis”

1 Comment / Economics, Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson The post title was extracted from the conclusion of Henry Neilson’s article, “Price gouging versus price reduction in retail gasoline markets during Hurricane Rita” (Economic Letters, October 2009), but I’m not sure the evidence supports the conclusion of altruism. Neilson collected gasoline price data in the Byran-College Station, Texas, area for several weeks …

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Volatile Prices Decrease Consumer Satisfaction with Texas Competitive Retail Suppliers

Electricity, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson From a press release by J.D. Power and Associates: Wide fluctuations in electricity prices during the past year have led to a decrease in overall customer satisfaction with residential retail electric providers in Texas, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Texas Residential Retail Electric Provider Customer Satisfaction Study released today. The study, …

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On Integrating Wind Power to the Texas Grid

Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson Nik Rod at Life in Energy discusses the integration of wind power to the ERCOT-managed grid, drawing on a new paper by Ramteen Sioshansi and David Hurlbut titled,“Market Protocols in ERCOT and Their Effect on Wind Generation”: How do you integrate intermittent wind generating resources in a market with set protocols and rules that are perfectly …

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