{"id":38898,"date":"2014-10-17T09:45:27","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T14:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=38898"},"modified":"2014-10-17T09:45:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-17T14:45:27","slug":"how-much-excess-revenue-did-centerpoint-energy-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/10\/17\/how-much-excess-revenue-did-centerpoint-energy-make\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much &#8216;Excess Revenue&#8217; Did CenterPoint Energy Make?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_38901\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38901\" alt=\"CenterPoint's power station in downtown Houston. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/10\/CenterPoint-power-station-downtown-Houston800px-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/10\/CenterPoint-power-station-downtown-Houston800px-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/10\/CenterPoint-power-station-downtown-Houston800px-620x465.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/10\/CenterPoint-power-station-downtown-Houston800px.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Dave Fehling<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">CenterPoint&#39;s power station in downtown Houston.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Texas Public Utility Commission meets Friday and will\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/interchange.puc.state.tx.us\/WebApp\/Interchange\/Documents\/42290_75_816466.PDF\" target=\"_blank\">consider a report<\/a>\u00a0that says the Houston utility company, CenterPoint Energy, made almost $47 million in \u201cexcess revenue\u201d last year. According to one utility watch-dog group, that\u2019s too much.<\/p>\n<p>CenterPoint Energy doesn\u2019t sell electricity. It delivers it through thousands of miles of power lines. A charge is added to electric bills to pay CenterPoint.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/172430689&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a regulated monopoly. They do not face competition,\u201d said Thomas Brocato, a lawyer who works with the group\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tcaptx.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Coalition for Affordable Power<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Brocato is an expert on utility regulation and is a watchdog on utility companies. He said CenterPoint is, in essence, being allowed to make too much money.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe result of that has been that customers in the Greater Houston area have paid more for electricity than they should have,\u201d said Brocato.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Public Utility Commission sets a limit on much profit CenterPoint can earn for its investors. The report prepared by the commission\u2019s staff found that last year, CenterPoint exceeded that \u201cauthorized return on equity\u201d by almost $47 million.<\/p>\n<p>The watchdog group suspects the amount might be even greater and cites CenterPoint\u2019s own executives. The group points to<a href=\"http:\/\/investors.centerpointenergy.com\/events.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">comments made by CenterPoint Executive Vice President Tracy Bridge<\/a>\u00a0to investors in New York earlier June 30th.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first thing I want to tell you is we\u2019ve been consistently earning at or above our authorized return on equity, which is currently at 10 percent. For the last three years, we\u2019ve been earning well in excess of that 10 percent authorized return,\u201d Bridge told the investors.<\/p>\n<p>Brocato, with the watchdog group, said Bridge\u2019s comments were frustrating because he believes the Public Utility Commission will take no action to reduce those excess revenues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat frustration is exacerbated when you take into account the company\u2019s plan to actually seek a rate increase in 2015,\u201d said Brocato.<\/p>\n<p>CenterPoint confirms that it is planning to ask for a rate increase next year. But how can it justify an increase if returns were \u201cwell in excess\u201d of the authorized amount as the CenterPoint executive put it while talking to investors?<\/p>\n<p>News 88.7 asked another CenterPoint Vice President, Paul Gastineau.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCertainly our investors would like for us to earn our allowed return and beyond and that was the audience to which he (Bridge) was speaking,\u201d said Gastineau.<\/p>\n<p>Gastineau said that in recent years, earnings did increase but he said partly due to changes in tax laws.<\/p>\n<p>But this year, he said that\u2019s all changed. Gastineau said earnings are down. He said the Public Utility Commission will likely say to CenterPoint: There\u2019s no reason for you to lower your rates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we (the PUC) called you (CenterPoint) in for 2014 based on where you are now, we\u2019d probably have to raise your rates not decrease them,\u201d said Gastineau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Texas Public Utility Commission meets Friday and will\u00a0consider a report\u00a0that says the Houston utility company, CenterPoint Energy, made almost $47 million in \u201cexcess revenue\u201d last year. According to one utility watch-dog group, that\u2019s too much. CenterPoint Energy doesn\u2019t sell electricity. It delivers it through thousands of miles of power lines. A charge is added [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38898"}],"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\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38898"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38904,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38898\/revisions\/38904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}