texas electricity deregulation > all the snakes are welcome here

[panZZer]

And some wonder why I hated W long before he became president.
http://www.insideautomotive.com/documents/ElectricityandTodaysPrices.pdf

TDSP Pole and Wires Charges, Have You Been Scammed? | Electricity Bid, Says It Like it Is

[davidmash]

Not sure where some of that info comes from but I have been in the DFW area since 1997. I do not recall the exact rates I paid back then but I know for a fact I never ever paid anything thing close to $.24 a kWh. The contract I had 2 years ago was $.87 kWh. Last years was at $.77 kWh. This one I just signed was at $.92 kWh @ 100% renewable (could have gone down to $.85 kWh but it was 0% renewable).

As far as I am concerned the deregulation has been a good thing.

[panZZer]

well -I guess im happy for you if there have been no issues.
there havent been major ones with me,-other that paying over twice (and not per kw) what the price was BEFORE deregulation- and since i found out about what the snake co I had -champion-has set up to do,
I switched to Ambit because .
. they are headquartered in Dallas and thats where th JP venue will be if I have to drag them there- not Houston.
. they are the only outfit left that clearly states the tdsp charges are fixed 'bundled" set and theres no double talk-- "oh its not us-its them, theres nothing WE can do about it"

Most all the others can claim they are selling a 12 mo contract thats"fixed" and lie thru their teeth --they dont have to tell you that half of the ~~~~product~~~~ they are selling you has a great big cobra in the basket, other words VARIABLE.

And if you dont know who Ed Wallace is --you DEFINATELY dont know where the sources are from.

[davidmash]

Going on the powertochoose site the electricity facts give all the details. Most of the ones I have been looking at (Reach and Frontier) shower that the TDU fees were included. Ibguessnits a matter of buyer beware and do little reading.

[Angel]

I didnt have time to read that whole PDF well (kids...)
a few things I didn't see addressed...

1) Clean air act/SO2 credits - this increase the cost of generation no matter where you live.

2) Ohio is a deregulated state - there is (on all my bills at least) a separation between the "transmission" charges (set by the state) and the "generation" charges (set by your provider and by some lousy proxy- the economy). Transmission costs are the same between all providers, and generation providers still have to lobby the Ohio PUCO and file a "Rate case" - the state must still approve the rate that they charge.

3) Wind power - a few months ago I was looking at the "cost to generate" of my employers' (OMG bias!) various generation sources. we own lots of coal, NG, a few nukes and wind farms in TX, WY and a few other places.
Cost to generate:
avg. coal plant - $40/MH-hr (thats $.04/kw-h if you do the math
avg combustion turbine site - $40-50/MW-hr
Texas wind farm - -$35/MH-r

yes, negative $35/MH-hr - someone/something is subsidizing the wind farms so much that our utility will **pay the market** to use the electricity it generates from wind farms.
Where does that money come from ?
(I honestly don't know...I'd be curious to find out...)

4) While it costs money to generate using coal, it also costs money (a LOT) to decommission a coal plant. I'm not sure how much of this is happening in TX, but if TX has any coal generation at all, then my estimate is that 15% of those coal stations are getting shut down just due to being old and inefficient. This would be ok if the cost to reclaim that land weren't so high.


I dont remember that PDF talking about how much it costs the utility to make electricity (I might have missed it)- should not not be (in some way) linked to what people are forced to pay ?

...I am pretty sure that those people paying $.06/kwh are not going to get that kinda deal for long (and are probably part of a municipal owned utility that can just raise other taxes to make money lost at their generation plant) El Paso has its own electric co-op IIRC.


-John

[Pooka]

The cost in most of Oklahoma is 7.8 cents per Kwh.

Here you just buy from the company that serves your area. Just like the good old days.

[Pooka]

Texas has at least two coal plants that I know of, but they own their own reserves and strip mine the surface to remove the coal. The coal in Texas is Lignite, but it is cheap if you own the mine and can strip it out by the bucketful.

Both of these plants are about thirty years old.

There is a coal fired plant down the road from me. About fifty miles down the road which is close around here. The plant is rather new and I don't know what they use for pollution controls but you never see any smoke or haze belching out of them. If you could not see the place from the road you would never know it was there.

[panZZer]

Originally Posted by davidmash

Going on the powertochoose site the electricity facts give all the details. Most of the ones I have been looking at (Reach and Frontier) shower that the TDU fees were included. Ibguessnits a matter of buyer beware and do little reading.

MmmmmK, read the SECOND article -n try and keep up.

The main issue is not the TDU charges,< and the TDSP charges are two different things.

PTC website does not tell the consumer anything about the main emerging SCAM.

[buffa98]

Originally Posted by Pooka

Texas has at least two coal plants that I know of, but they own their own reserves and strip mine the surface to remove the coal. The coal in Texas is Lignite, but it is cheap if you own the mine and can strip it out by the bucketful.

Both of these plants are about thirty years old.

There is a coal fired plant down the road from me. About fifty miles down the road which is close around here. The plant is rather new and I don't know what they use for pollution controls but you never see any smoke or haze belching out of them. If you could not see the place from the road you would never know it was there.

Luminant has built 2 1600 MW super critical units in Tx in the past 4 years that I know of. There is a lot of coal generation in east Texas, how ever go west of I 35 and it is mostly gas turbines.

[buffa98]

I think your numbers are a little high for the coal plants. One in Pa, that I know a lot of the people at, their break even price is $33 a MW.

CT seem about right, depending on gas prices.

[spdrun]

Originally Posted by davidmash

Not sure where some of that info comes from but I have been in the DFW area since 1997. I do not recall the exact rates I paid back then but I know for a fact I never ever paid anything thing close to $.24 a kWh. The contract I had 2 years ago was $.87 kWh. Last years was at $.77 kWh. This one I just signed was at $.92 kWh @ 100% renewable (could have gone down to $.85 kWh but it was 0% renewable).

As far as I am concerned the deregulation has been a good thing.

Are your prices off by a factor of 10? (!) Almost $1 per kWh is very expensive.

[spdrun]

Originally Posted by Pooka

There is a coal fired plant down the road from me. About fifty miles down the road which is close around here. The plant is rather new and I don't know what they use for pollution controls but you never see any smoke or haze belching out of them. If you could not see the place from the road you would never know it was there.

(a) CO2 is invisible
(b) Something has to still be done with the ash and waste that's scrubbed

Coal (and fossil fuel in general) industries need to be euthanized in the US. I'd much rather live half a mile from a nuke plant than a coal-burning plant.

[davidmash]

Originally Posted by spdrun

Are your prices off by a factor of 10? (!) Almost $1 per kWh is very expensive.

Oops. Yes sorry. Missed the '0' for all the prices.

[Angel]

Originally Posted by buffa98

I think your numbers are a little high for the coal plants. One in Pa, that I know a lot of the people at, their break even price is $33 a MW.

CT seem about right, depending on gas prices.

My numbers are high...but I'm not going to say by how much - in a nonreg market (which incl. PA ?) my impression is that legit numbers could be used for insider trading - ain't nobody got time for that.
...which, come to think of it - we just moved to PJM - which means that my old plant is kinda in competition with you guys...whoa
---I'm in NERC-CIP compliance now, so I have a cube downtown and visit the plants to help them file reports

Our combined cycle plants are running 24/7 and I'm sure come in at less than $30.

I do get our daily (PJM !) market email now - day ahead - on-peak was over $50 a few days ago - woohoo !

see what I did there ? wholesale electricity was $.05 kw-h before paying to keep the power lines up... I see prices at $.10-.13 and expect them to go up from there.

-John

[spdrun]

Hope they go up to $.20-.25 -- encourage conservation rather than drunken-sailor usage. What's wrong with drying your clothes outside or having lights on timers and motion-sensors?