Electricity

Electricity is Irresistable to Politicians

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This interview appeared on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal. The interview rambles along but there is much truth in the opening sentence.

A Life in Energy and (Therefore) Politics
The CEO of America’s third-largest utility on competing in an electricity market built on political fads and lobbyists.
By JOSEPH RAGO

‘Prostitution, horse racing, gambling and electricity are irresistible to politicians,” says John Rowe, the CEO of the Chicago-based utility Exelon.

He’ll give you an example of what he means: In 2009, Exelon began work on an urban solar-power project on a blighted field in Chicago’s West Pullman neighborhood, in part at the request of then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “Whatever it is, it’s not a scandal,” says Mr. Rowe, who explains that his company was promised (and applied for) an Energy Department loan guarantee that it ultimately did not receive. …

Electricity

Texas’ Stranded Costs Raise Rates

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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.

The ReChargeTexas.com report:

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…