RechargeTexas.com has a report showing the cost to consumers to deregulate Texas electricity is $6.5 billion in stranded costs. My contention is this cost never really existed except in the minds of the utilities. Since deregulation the generation plants have been flipped at least once and sometimes more for values in excess of what the utilities claimed they would lose under deregulation. The ratepayers are the ones who were stranded.
Consumers can expect to pay higher electric bills over the next decade largely because of decisions this year by the Texas Supreme Court. Two major utilities — CenterPoint Energy, which serves the Greater Houston area, and American Electric Power Texas Central Company in South Texas — earlier had called upon the state’s high court to overturn regulatory rulings relating to the companies’ requests for “stranded costs” reimbursements. The Texas Public Utility Commission had approved more than $3.5 billion of these…