House Committee Amends Omnibus Texas Winter Weather Event Electricity Bill To Allow Residential Wholesale Index Plans To Continue, Subject To Price Cap & Notice Requirements

The Texas House Committee on State Affairs this week reported favorably a substitute version of SB 3, and the substitute would allow residential and small commercial wholesale index electricity plans to continue to be sold, subject to a price cap and various notice requirements

SB 3 is an omnibus bill addressing the Texas winter weather event and includes, among other things, weatherization requirements and emergency preparedness and alert provisions

As previously reported (see story here), the legislature has already sent to the governor HB 16, which would completely ban wholesale index electricity plans for residential and small commercial customers. In cases of conflicting statutes, the statute which is the latest in the date of enactment shall prevail.

Under the committee substitute for SB 3, "wholesale indexed product" means a retail electric product in which the price a customer pays for electricity includes a direct pass-through of real-time settlement point prices determined by the independent organization certified under Section 39.151 for the ERCOT power region

The committee substitute provides that a retail electric provider may enroll a residential or small commercial customer in a wholesale indexed product only if:

(1) the enrollment complies with any other applicable law or commission rule;

(2) the product caps the monthly average all-in price per kilowatt hour of electricity charged to the customer at a maximum of 200 percent more than the monthly average price of electricity in Texas during the same month for the prior year, as determined by monthly electric power industry reports required by the United States Energy Information Administration;

(3) the retail electric provider provides to each potential customer before enrollment notice of the highest monthly average price for the next six months for the product;

(4) the retail electric provider provides to each customer in each billing statement notice of the highest monthly average price for the next six months; and

(5) for service starting at the beginning of the next month, the retail electric provider allows the customer to switch without charge or penalty at the beginning of the next month to a fixed rate product offered by the provider to other residential and small commercial customers.

The committee substitute's wholesale index plan provisions would not apply to accounts of a customer on the same property or contiguous properties in which one or more of the accounts has a peak demand of at least 250 kilowatts