By Mark Curriden – The Texas Lawbook
This story is available as part of a content partnership with The Texas Lawbook. For the latest legal services news, visit TexasLawbook.net.
The Texas Public Utility Commission’s February 2021 emergency rules allowing an increase in electric rates to $9,000 per megawatt hour in response to Winter Storm Uri were “invalid and ineffective” and “wreaked havoc” on the state’s power system, lawyers representing several large energy companies told a Texas appeals court Wednesday.
Lawyers for Dallas-based Luminant Energy asked a three-judge panel of the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin to declare that the PUC illegally adopted two pricing rules during the historic storm that allowed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to increase the emergency price of electricity 650 percent for five days.
In response, the PUC argued that the energy companies suing the agency are …