{"id":14110,"date":"2012-06-28T11:16:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T16:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=14110"},"modified":"2012-06-29T07:44:34","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T12:44:34","slug":"p-u-c-approves-higher-prices-for-wholesale-electricity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/28\/p-u-c-approves-higher-prices-for-wholesale-electricity\/","title":{"rendered":"PUC Approves Higher Prices for Wholesale Electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13625\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 148px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/27\/rolling-blackouts-a-black-eye-for-texas\/donna-nelson-pic-3\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13625\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13625\" title=\"Donna Nelson \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/06\/Donna-Nelson-pic1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"148\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy PUC<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">PUC&#39;s Donna Nelson<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This morning Public Utility Commission Chair Donna Nelson and Commissioner Rolando Pablos voted to approve an increase in the price cap for wholesale electricity in Texas.\u00a0Commissioner\u00a0 Kenneth Anderson, Jr. abstained.<\/p>\n<p>Before today&#8217;s vote, the wholesale price of electricity had been capped at $3,000 per megawatt hour. Under the new rule that will rise to $4,500.\u00a0 It\u2019s meant to make the business of selling power in Texas more profitable. Supporters say that\u2019s necessary to encourage investment in new power plants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t require the building of generation in Texas. We set up the market forces so that generators want to come to Texas,&#8221; PUC Chair Donna Nelson told StateImpact Texas after the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Anderson, the one abstaining vote, had long been skeptical of raising the cap this year. Before the vote he argued again that the price hike would not impact power plant construction by the end of the summer.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/27\/how-to-grow-a-power-plant-texas-struggles-with-looming-energy-crunch\/\">How to Grow a Power Plant: Texas Struggles With Looming Energy Crunch<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/26\/ercot-expects-threat-to-grid-to-lessen\/\">ERCOT Expects Threat to Grid to Lessen<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/27\/rolling-blackouts-a-black-eye-for-texas\/\">Rolling Blackouts: a Black Eye For\u00a0Texas?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/08\/Meter-4-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/public-utility-commission-of-texas\/\">What Is The Public Utility Commission of\u00a0Texas?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\u201cI\u2019m just not convinced, as I wasn\u2019t back in April, that it was necessary to do it for this summer. My preference was, and in the end remains that market participants, particularly load serving entities, need more time to adjust to this change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In April, Anderson<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/05\/21\/keeping-the-lights-on-in-texas-will-big-profits-spur-new-power-plants\/\"> had said<\/a> power companies would be \u201ccarting money away not in wheel barrows, but in Mack trucks,\u201d if the vote was approved this summer.<\/p>\n<p>The move is part of an effort to get companies to build more power plants at a time when officials worry the Texas may <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/22\/with-extreme-weather-coming-ercot-says-theyre-ready\/\">not have enough electricity<\/a> to avoid rolling blackouts in long term. But some groups worry that the price hike could mean higher electric rates for consumers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one knows how much this will cost Texas,\u201d said\u00a0Texas Coalition for Affordable Power Board President Jay Doegey, \u201cor even whether it will result in more generation coming online. But one outcome seems likely: Texas consumers will end up paying more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right now, there is no comprehensive analysis of consumer impact, and the estimates that exist have varied widely\u2013 from a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-energy\/energy\/texas-blackout-avoidance-measures-could-cost-billi\/\">two percent hike per household<\/a> to an increase amounting to $200 for every person in Texas.<\/p>\n<p><em>This post has been updated with added reaction. StateImpact Texas intern Robb Jacobson contributed reporting to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under the new rule the wholesale price of a megawatt of electricity will rise to $4,500. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":13625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[14,41],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14168,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions\/14168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}