Bay Area Houston

Many years ago we were in line to get a hot dog at a summer event when someone told a dad that his son had forgotten to get the hot dog to go with his bun. The dad looked at his son and said “What are you? Stupid?”. It was a pretty shitty thing to say to your own son or to anyone for that matter but it is a question I have since asked many times. Today might be an appropriate time.

Back in 1996 California was the first state to deregulate their electricity grid supported by the lobbying efforts of Ken Lay and Enron. A few years later under the republican controlled Legislature with the same guidance from Kenny, Texas followed California’s stupidity and deregulated most of Texas. East Texas stopped deregulation in their area after years of promises of deregulation to lower rates. East Texas did not lose power in the Feb 2021 freeze but everyone else did.

Besides letting the free market create complicated plans that resulted in costing more money instead of less, the Legislature has now allowed companies to tax us in order to pay for the electricity grid upgrades that should have been paid for as part of deregulation. Looking at the PowerToChoose website the results of deregulation and republican rule is pretty clear. The lowest price is 14.5 cents/kWh. Prior to deregulation Houstonians were paying just under 8 cents. They had long term contracts. They had the option to average billing, paying one price every month. They had reliable energy. Texas was #4 in electricity deregulation. We are now #32.

So look at us now. Rates now range from 14.5 cents to 26.4 cents/kWh. Couple that with exploding home prices, home insurance out the roof, and higher property taxes, and Greg Abbott has accomplished the Californication of Texas. So I need to ask the question:

What are you?

#NoPlaceButTexas. Literally.

According to the Texas Tribune:

Lawmakers are close to passing bills that would allow companies to seek billions of dollars in state-approved bonds backed by charges on customers’ bills to stabilize the state’s distressed energy market.

So, let’s recap. In 1999 Texas deregulated our electricity market with the promise of lower rates for consumers. 20 years later Texans froze for 3 days without electricity and water. Over 200 Texans died because the free market wanted to save money and refused to pay to upgrade and protect the grid and production.

And now the Texas legislature is about to pass a bill that would require this free market to fix their mistake and….wait for it….the very same Texans who lost loved ones in the freeze and those who had no drinking water or electricity for days are going to pay for it. Yep. We are paying for it!

I’m not sure who are the bigger idiots. Is it the elected officials who passed this bill, or is it the Texans who froze for three days and will continue to vote for these elected officials who passed the buck?

Well, Texas is right about one thing. We do things bigger in Texas. Bigger mosquitos. Bigger guns. And bigger idiots.

Yeah. You read that right. 40 cents/kWh.

Ken Lay’s great electricity deregulation in Texas has been a total flop. Before screwing his employees and stock holders Lay laid it to the consumers in Texas by lobbying for deregulation. It worked but the promises of lower rates or even stable rates was nothing but that. Promises.

In order to “help” the consumer the Public Utility Commission has created the Power to Choose website, also known as the Power to Lose. The site is complicated, deceiving, full of misleading information and extremely hard to understand. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. PowerToChoose.org. Try to find an affordable fixed rate plan for 12-60 months. Good luck. You will need it. Just for grins, I performed the search and looked for the highest priced plan available. Spark Energy was listed at 10-20-40 cents per kWh. You can try to figure out this rate by downloading the Electricity Facts Label.

Consumers are not a picky bunch. They want to know how much will they pay and how many features will be available. Before regulation consumers knew exactly how much they would pay. Here in Houston under Houston Light & Power (HL&P) it was just under 8 cents a kWh. You received a paper bill each month. You mailed a check or paid at the grocery store. No one seemed to care about monitoring their electricity use, or waiting for the weekend to turn on their AC unit to reap the benefits of their free weekends gimmick.

Texans are a gullible bunch of people. They actually think they are getting a good deal paying 12 cents/kWh.

My suggestion is to find a new electricity reseller immediately. From KPRC:

HOUSTON – After nearly 20 years in business in the state of Texas, it’s lights out for Breeze Energy.The Electric Reliability Council of Texas pulled the plug on the power provider Wednesday after it learned the company was not meeting mandated financial requirements to remain feasible.But that also meant the process to immediately shift nearly 10,000 customers to other providers was initiated without the rates those customers had negotiated with Breeze. Those new providers are referred to as “providers of last resort” or “POLR.”

The Commission has designated Providers of Last Resort (POLR) as a back-up electric service provider in each area of Texas open to competition. POLR service is relatively high-priced, due to the costs associated with planning and the risk of serving an uncertain number of customers with uncertain electricity loads. POLR service is a safety net for customers whose chosen REP is unable to continue service. This service is intended to be temporary and used only under rare circumstances when a REP is unable to provide service, or when a customer requests POLR service.

The Houston Chronicle summed up the Public Utility Commission’s PowerToChoose website perfectly:

Darla Jackson of Coppell, north of Dallas, wanted to change to her retail electricity company, but couldn’t face the prospect of using the state’s comparison shopping site, Powertochoose.org. Like many Texans, she felt overwhelmed by the number of companies, variety of plans and mind-numbing terms and conditions which, even after hours of study, left her confused, overwhelmed and uncertain of the best deal.

Last year the Commissioner, Donna Nelson, realized how incredibly deceptive their website can be and took action to update and improve it so consumers could actually compare prices when selecting an electricity billing company. According to the Texas Tribune:

Donna Nelson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, said Thursday at a public meeting. “They’ve 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.”

Nelson started Project 45730 to receive comments from interested individuals on how to improve the website. After months of collecting information from 193 parties, the PUC responded with absolutely no changes to the website. In fact the gimmicks have become worse.

It is nearly impossible to make an informed decision based upon the information provided by the PowerToChoose.org. There are just too many gimmicks, fine print, and “gotchas” for the average consumer to wade through. The PUC knows this and yet have taken no action besides calling for suggestions and input from the community and then ignoring them. It was clearly a complete waste of time and resources. 

Especially mine. When it is time to select a new billing company, just remember who lobbied for deregulation on your behalf, Key Lay and Enron.

Enjoy.

A quick break from politics.

A few months ago the Public Utility Commission (PUC) requested comments from consumers on how to improve their website the PowerToChoose.com. The Chairman of the PUC stated in the Texas Tribune article:

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.”

Today the tricky little things continue. For example, look at the rate for Volt Electricity Provider (Volt EP)

Volt EP advertises a plan that charges a fixed rate of 7.7 cents per kWh across the board but the details of the plan is something different. According to the Fact Sheet the rate is a type of “average” I have never seen before. For instance if a homeowner uses 500 kWh the bill is $38.50 (7.7 cents per kWh). But if that same homeowner uses only 250 kWh the bill is the same $38.50. (15.4 cents per kWh) Here is a pic from their fact sheet:

So the true cost of Volt EP really isn’t as easy as kWh X 7.7 cents because it depends upon your real usage for the month. Based upon my usage over the last year my real average would be 9.9 cents per kWh about 30% higher than what is advertised.

Welcome to the Texas deregulation market.

Thanks to Dave Fehling of Houston Public Media for this story on the Texas Public Utility Commission Power to Choose website. After 13 years the promise of lower electricity rates due to deregulation has never materialized for Texas consumers. The Power to Choose website was designed to allow consumers the ability to “Shop, Compare, and Choose” but has failed to do so.

The PUC has been collecting comments on how to improve their deceptive Power to Choose website. As many of the 100 comments have stated, the website does not truly compare the hundreds of plans available that are complicated with fees, gimmicks, rebates, and hidden charges. Even the Chairman of the PUC stated in the Texas Tribune article:

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.”

I was pleased to see that other individuals and organizations, including AARP Texas, has joined me in recommending true comparison of the plans available taking into consideration their historic kWh usage of their home coupled with the various plans, fees, and gimmicks. The PUC has access to consumer’s historical usage. They can easily take this information and perform the calculations for every plan and show how much each plan would truly cost. This would be a true and fairly accurate comparison based upon your specific usage. Currently the website does nothing more than displays the cost per kWh and some of the gimmicks for each company. This is not comparing.

“Give real comparisons of how much you will be paying each company,” said Cobarruvius. A PUC spokesperson told us that the commission is continuing to take consumer comments and will consider changes by sometime late this summer.

With historic lows in natural gas and the magic of deregulation championed by Ken Lay and Enron, it is about time the Public Utility Commission make good on their promises of lower electricity rates for consumers.

If you are interested, comments can be viewed and submitted here.