Power companies lose fight over transmission costs in Texas, a win for renewables
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Fossil-fuels-lose-fight-over-transmission-costs-13548143.phpJanuary 21, 2019
Texas regulators last week rejected a proposal to change the way transmission costs are apportioned among power generators, a move that would have cost wind farms in West Texas more to get their power to market.
Electricity is lost naturally as electrons travel along transmission lines and the state apportions the costs of the lost power equally among generators. Calpine Corp. of Houston and NRG Energy of Houston and Princeton, N.J., asked the state to assign transmission losses based on the distance the power travels, a move that would benefit traditional power companies which tend to have plants closer to population centers and hurt wind and solar farms in the remote parts of the state — namely, West Texas where the majority of wind farms are located.
NRG, Calpine and other merchant power companies have struggled in recent years in a highly competitive electricity market with low prices.
Texas became the nation’s top producer of wind energy by attracting billions of dollars of investment in wind farms in large part by offering generators low-cost transmission and access to power markets in urban areas. A key element was the decision to spread the cost of transmission losses equally among generators.
In a memo submitted Wednesday ahead of the decision, DeeAnn Walker, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, wrote that she did not believe changing the way the state apportions transmission costs was worth the market disruption....
