Bay Area Houston

Here is a tidbit about electricity deregulation you might like while you are sweating at home, in the heat, without power or AC.

As part of electricity deregulation in 2003 the Public Utility Commission created the PowerToChoose.com website designed to help consumers compare electricity prices. At first it was easy to find a good rate by simply selecting one of the providers with a constant rate. I wrote about this back in 2016. At that time Discount power was offering a 24 month contract at 7.7 cents. No extra fees. No limits on use. Just 7.7 cents/kWh.

Shortly afterward the providers began with their gimmicks, fees, and “tricky little things”. From the Texas Tribune “Donna Nelson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, said Thursday at a public meeting. “They’ve [electricity resellers] got all these tricky little things in their prices, and whatever the fact sheets are called – the nutrition label – that makes it really difficult for customers.”

In response to this Nelson started Project 45730 and asked for public comments on how to improve the website. The PUC collected over 200 comments then did nothing. They have also removed Project 45730 from their website as well as all the comments.

Many consumers made the same suggestion as I did. The electricity providers have access to your usage in 15 minute increments. Each provider could use this information and calculate what their plan would cost you each month. Then consumers could actually intelligently compare and choose. That is power.

Instead they did nothing. Why? Because there are companies that will use this information to compare rates and charge you a fee to provide this information to you. And that is why they did nothing. They supported businesses as the expense of consumers.

No Place But Texas. Literally.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 12th, 2024 at 9:05 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.