Electricity Texas Now

DALLAS — More than 1 million Texas consumers can now check online to find out how much electricity they’re using.

The Public Utility Commission announced Tuesday a new Web site that allows customers to manage residential and business bills by figuring out how much energy they used in 15-minute periods. The Web site is available to more than 1 million customers of Oncor Electric Delivery and CenterPoint Energy. Once American Electric Power begins installing smart meters later this year, the PUC says more than 6.3 million Texas customers will be able to manage electricity use through SmartMeterTexas.com. The Web site is designed for customers in competitive retail electric markets.

From Click2Houston.com.

The Public Utility Commission on Thursday instructed Oncor to offer customers a free test of their smart meters, rather than charging the usual $25 fee to send a worker to test an installed meter.

Regulations already allow each customer to get one free meter test every four years. Commissioner Ken Anderson suggested the clock reset when a customer gets a new meter, even if the customer has already had his old meter tested in the past few years. The other two commissioners agreed. Oncor charges customers $25 for subsequent meter tests.

So if someone has already been billed for a smart meter test , “there needs to be a refund of that or a credit back,” Anderson told executives with Oncor and its Houston counterpart, Centerpoint, during a PUC meeting.

Jim Greer, head of Oncor’s smart meter program, said it had conducted about 2,300 smart meter tests so far at customers’ request, and Oncor has billed about half of those customers. He agreed to refund those customers.

Of course, the tests aren’t actually free. The cost for the once-every-four-years test is part of the rate every customer pays to Oncor. PUC spokesman Terry Hadley said the rate has already been set. So if Oncor ends up doing far more free meter tests than expected, the company would have to ask the PUC to recoup those costs by hiking the rate later.

Commissioner Anderson also asked the utility executives how they are sorting out complaints that the old meters were misread during the meter switch.

Oncor’s Greer said, for about 0.86 percent of customers who have new meters, the worker who changed the meter read the old meter incorrectly. An incorrect reading leads to an incorrect bill.

Greer said each meter is read at the home and again at Oncor’s central service location. Now, Oncor is matching those readings to find any errors. He said the company has also begun photographing the old meter for a record of the final tally.

“While as a percentage of the total deployment, it’s not a huge percentage, the problem is in raw numbers it does sound like a big problem,” Anderson said. Oncor has found about 7,000 customers whose old meters were misread.

“It only matters if you’re the one that gets the misread,” said commissioner Donna Nelson.

The PUC also said Thursday it has hired a company to independently test smart meters. That company, Navigant Consulting, is working on a method to do the testing quickly.

From Texas Energy and Environment Blog.

Last week the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas imposed a total of $3.7 million in penalties on two retail electric providers related to their default in 2008, which left thousands of customers “stranded” and forced to pay a very high energy price.  The penalties are a reminder of the dangers of going it alone when looking for a lower electric rate, as history has shown that not all electric companies are equally dependable and stable.

The PUC’s fines date back to the high prices experienced by Texas customers in the spring and summer of 2008, and the failure of two energy providers: National Power Co. Inc. and Pre-Buy Electric LLC.  Both suppliers, prior to running into trouble, had some of the lowest electric rates in the market, enticing customers to sign up with these firms.  However, both companies lacked proper internal controls and risk management processes to serve customers reliably.  When wholesale electric prices soared, these companies had not hedged their purchases in advance, and could not cover the exorbitant costs of serving their customers.  The end result was that thousands of these companies’ customers, who had been promised some of the lowest electric rates in the state, were shifted to the emergency “back-up” electric company, known at the Provider of Last Resort.  In some cases, the rates customers ended up paying for the emergency Provider of Last Resort service was more than double the rate they were promised from their original electric company.

Read the entire article at SaveOnEnergy.com.

The CAPP blog (Cities Aggregation Power Project) reports today on the Public Utility Commission approving new electricity consumer protection rules today.

Among the issues addressed: printing contract expiration dates on bills so customers know when they might lose a particular rate. Some retail electric providers didn’t want to put the actual date while the PUC staff and consumer groups argued that the law that led to the new rules mandated the exact termination date. Using anything else would add to customer confusion.

Read the entire article at NewsWatch: Energy.

Texas Public Utility Commission staffers are considering new energy efficiency rules that would more than double the requirement of utilities to invest in energy efficiency.

Luke Metzger with Environment Texas says the “strawman” proposal (see below) is similar to the efficiency bill that was almost passed by the Texas Legislature last session:

“According to a PUC analysis of that bill, utilities would offset the need for 535 megawatts of electricity in the year 2016 at a cost of $220 million, but with a savings of $411 million. In addition, the rule says utilities “may” (but not shall) invest 10% of efficiency funds to promote solar power.”

Read the entire article at NewsWatch: Energy.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) is moving to a Dynamic Electric Database and away from using only static excel spreadsheets, to help consumers find and interact with important Texas electricity information more easily. The new format will allow for utility searches by simply entering a name in the search box and selecting the electricity company from a list. Prior to the change, a simple site search generally garnered a mixture of Excel docs, PDFs, etc., making it increasingly difficult to find specific information.

Read the entire post at Bounce Energy’s Blog.

On October 8 2009 the PUCT filed a report detailing the fees and violations that National Power Company were assessed for several violations against the Texas state government and Texas retail electric customers. Below is a list of some of the PUCT rules the state has said National broke during their short lived time as one of the lowest priced electricity companies in Texas last summer.

Notice of violation concerning the assessment of administrative penalties and other related relief against National Power Company Inc. (National) for violations in the State of Texas of the following Public Utility Commission of Texas Substantive Rules Applicable to Electric Service Providers: P.U.C. Subst. R. 25.107(f)(2), related to Financial Standards Required for Customer Protection; P.U.C. Subst. R. 25.107(i)(8), related to Requirements for Reporting and for Changing Terms of a REP Certificate; P.U.C. Subst. R. 25.478(j)(2), related to Refunding Deposits and Voiding Letters of Guarantee; and P.U.C. Subst. R. 25.43(n)(7), related to Transition of Customer to POLR Service.

Read the entire article at ElectricityBid.com.

Customer benefits in Texas’ competitive electric market continue to grow, the state’s Public Utility Commission said last week, drawing attention to lower prices available and additional discounts for qualified low-income customers.

“I urge Texans to take advantage of every opportunity to reduce their electricity bill this summer,” said Barry Smitherman, Chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC). “Customers need to be aware of these programs at a time when we’re using more electricity than ever.”

A reduction in energy prices over the past year is reflected in current price offers by retail electric providers, the PUC noted.  Most of the competitive areas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, have several offers below 10 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh).  That’s less than $100 a month for customers using 1,000 kWh, a benchmark for monthly residential usage.

Read the entire article on SaveOnEnergy.com.