Electricity retailers are asking Texas’ power regulator to suspend immediate collections on the massive bills arising from the state’s electricity outage, as energy market participants try to mitigate the threat to their financial health. Electric retailer Just Energy Group Inc. on Wednesday filed a request to the Texas Public Utility Commission to suspend invoice collections by the state’s grid operator, one of several similar requests for relief by retail energy companies stemming from last month’s extreme winter freeze.
The weather event knocked power plants offline, led to blackouts and caused a jump in energy prices in the Texas wholesale market, saddling many energy players with big bills to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator. Already, the invoices have tipped the state’s largest electricity cooperative into bankruptcy and threatened the finances of cities, municipal power authorities, energy retailers, cooperatives and others including Just Energy.
The company, based in Toronto, filed the request Wednesday to stop Ercot, which collects money from electric retailers to pay power plants, from issuing or settling invoices until questions raised by government authorities in Texas around the energy crisis “are investigated, addressed and resolved.” Just Energy has estimated its bills related to the weather event could reach $40 million.
Ercot declined to comment on the petition, filed with the Public Utilities Commission, Ercot’s regulator. The Public Utilities Commission didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Just Energy said in its request that requiring electricity providers to pay full invoices even while discussions continue and amid uncertainty around data “has and will continue to drive market participants out of business.” Just Energy pointed to Monday’s bankruptcy filing by Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc., which filed for chapter 11 protection overwhelmed by a $2.1 billion invoice from Ercot.
Disputes between Ercot and power buyers are emerging as the grid operator faces questions from market participants about its own financial health amid growing disputes between it and the power providers it contracts with.
Brazos filed for bankruptcy partly to give itself breathing room while the Texas legislature searches for a solution, Louis Strubeck, the cooperative’s bankruptcy attorney, said at a hearing on Wednesday.
The cooperative also chose to seek chapter 11 protection to avoid foisting enormous electricity bills on its members and their customers, Mr. Strubeck said.