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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1473849)	7/30/2024 1:43:24 PM
From: Wharf Rat	5 Recommendations Recommended By dj55 Doren Eric pocotrader rdkflorida2 Respond to of 1572612

Texas Utility Would Raise Rates for Beryl “Restoration” – This is Not Cool (thinc.blog) CenterPoint intends to increase their rates to recoup the cost of recovering from Hurricane Beryl, passing the cost on to the customer. That dog won’t hunt. pic.twitter.com/QpTrJK9BkF — Carol Alvarado (@CarolforTexas) July 30, 2024 Pretty brazen. Hard to blame wind turbines for the extended Houston blackouts following Cat 1 Hurricane Beryl’s pass over the city. The local utility, Centerpoint, has been defending itself against charges that it pays more attention to building new generators, for which it is well rewarded in the rate base, vs maintaining existing transmission and distribution lines that failed miserably in the storm. Houston Chronicle’s Chris Tomlinson explains (paywall): Texas Republicans and Democrats rarely agree on anything, but CenterPoint’s grid failure during Hurricane Beryl united 13 senators Monday to rage against the utility and demand every electricity transmission and distribution company to better prepare for future disasters. However, the truth that emerged from the Texas Senate hearing is that state leaders have not adequately overseen the electric business for decades. Winter Storm Uri in 2021 demonstrated that our generation system was decrepit; Beryl proved the electric lines and poles were, too. – Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, focused on the perverse incentives of how Texas rewards utilities. The state grants a company, city or cooperative a monopoly to maintain transmission and distribution wires in a particular area. In return, customers pay for the service on their electricity bills. The funds are paid to maintain existing lines and manage vegetation near power lines. However, the company does not earn a profit on operations and maintenance. Utilities only collect their guaranteed 9.5% profit from big capital expenditures on new equipment or power lines. Bettencourt called that “bassackwards.” He accused CenterPoint of directing spending where the PUC allows it to collect a profit, such as $800 million allocated for backup generators, instead of trimming trees and vines. CenterPoint budgeted only $3.9 million to trim vegetation from 3,500 miles of power lines in 2023 on a grid with 29,000 miles of cables, committee members reported. The company has since promised to expand that to 7,000 miles, but only after at least 30 people died from lack of power. — Oh, about those backup generators…. Houston Chronicle editorial: What’s worse than CenterPoint forcing consumers to pay $800 million for generators that mostly sat idle after Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions? Defrauding consumers by charging us way too much for the generators — around 50% more — than we could have paid through another vendor. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt raised the specterof fraud in CenterPoint’s selection of a small, little known company to provide the generators rather than a well-established company with a much cheaper bid. Bettencourt, R-Houston, condemned what he portrayed as the overcharging of ratepayers in fiery comments Monday morning in the first meeting of the Texas Senate’s Special Committee on Hurricane and Tropical Storm Preparedness, Recovery and Electricity. Throughout the meeting, senators recited names of some of the 36 people throughout the Houston region known to have died during the storm — 19 from the heat — before pivoting back to their anger over the extended power outages. “Bass-ackwards,” is how Bettencourt said his friend Mattress Mack might put it, describing CenterPoint’s apparent decision to forgo important spending on vegetation management while wasting ratepayers’ money on massive generators the company acquired at a profit margin approaching 10%. “If I was an inspector general, I’d be looking at this contract for fraud,” Bettencourt told senators and a packed hearing room in Austin. “It is fraudulent for the taxpayers of this state, through ratepayers, which is effectively the same thing, to pay for generators that have markups over a bid of 44 to 60% more than their competitors.” CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells acknowledged that the massive generators, which have never been used, added about $30 million to the company’s bottom line for shareholders. Wells apologized for many aspects of CenterPoint’s handling of Hurricane Beryl, from pre-storm staging to communication failures. But he stood by the company’s decision to acquire the big generators even though the company says 15 were intended to be used only in the extremely rare event of a state grid failure, as we saw during Winter Storm Uri: “I don’t see it as an overspend given the risks that we’re trying to manage for our customers,” Wells said.