Davis brings electricity debate to governor's raceDec 6 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Laylan Copelin Austin American-StatesmanCiting the prospect of higher electricity bills, Sen. Wendy Davis, the likely Democratic nominee for governor, on Thursday urged the Public Utility Commission to refrain from reworking how Texans buy and sell wholesale electricity. "I trust that you will agree with me that Texans should not have to tolerate an outcome from your Commission's decision-making that would raise their utility rates while simultaneously failing to ensure a better guaranty that our lights will come on when we flip the switch," Davis wrote in a letter to utility commission Chair Donna Nelson. With her letter, Davis thrust the issue into the gubernatorial spotlight, but it is hardly a partisan debate over whether the utility commission should keep the existing system that pays power plant owners only when they sell electricity or perhaps give them extra capacity payments. Last month, several state senators, led by Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, questioned the commission's legal authority to change the wholesale electricity market and raised the specter that Texans could be paying higher electricity bills without any assurance that additional power generation would be built. The state's largest generators are lobbying for capacity payments to encourage the construction of new power plants while many of the state's largest business customers oppose the move. Low wholesale electricity prices for several years has slowed the construction of new electricity sources. The issue has split the utility commission. Nelson and Commissioner Brandy Marty have said they favor mandating a level of power reserves _ widely interpreted as the first step to changing the existing wholesale electricity market _ while Commissioner Ken Anderson Jr. opposes that step. All three are appointees of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican. The campaign for Attorney General Gregg Abbott, the likely GOP nominee for governor, did not respond for a request for comment. Nelson, through a spokesman, declined to comment except to say she would respond to Davis' letter. "The PUC must not make any changes to the electricity market that would burden hardworking families and the businesses that employ them with billions of dollars in additional costs that such a shift might cause," Davis wrote. In her news release, Davis noted that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is reworking its forecasts for future electricity needs because past predictions have sometimes been inaccurate. "How can the PUC possibly propose what essentially amounts to a tax on residential and industrial electricity customers without first determining whether ERCOT's forecasts regarding demand and capacity are accurate?" Davis said in the release. Nelson was a defender of the existing wholesale market until the summer of 2011 tested the limits of ERCOT's grid with historic temperatures and a drought. Since then, Nelson has argued that the current system might not provide the electricity reserves the state needs to deal with a repeat of the 2011 conditions. Marty has said that her support of mandating electricity reserves _ as opposed to relying on the private sector to respond to a target _ isn't necessarily a first step to the capacity market that generators envision. Anderson has said that the current energy-only market has given consumers low prices and adequate reserves in the past. He opposes changing the wholesale market to address the possibility of shortages during a few hours on summer afternoons. http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=30865680& |