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The Public Utility Commission of Texas held an open meeting on July 29. The Commission took up a number of items on the topics of water, communications, and electric. The PUC also took up a number of general matters. A recording of this meeting and its agenda can be found here.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Water

Agenda Item 1

Docket No. 49351; SOAH Docket No. 473-19-5674.WS – Ratepayers Appeal of the Decision by Bear Creek Special Utility District to Change Rates. (Final Order) Lorenzo Garcia

  • Carlton – Does not think 1.2 coverage is appropriate
  • Lake – Ratios are a requirement, not a discussion point. What is the debt service coverage ratio requirement?
  • Carlton – Rules have been changed to not require that
  • Lake – What is the minimum requirement that is put in the offering statement?
  • Carlton – Because of limitations on the evidence, those documents could not be admitted because they were after the rates were set
  • Cobos – The $74,000 can’t be touched, is that true?
  • Carlton – If it is touched, that is an SEC reportable event
  • McAdams – You do have the ability to come in for a future rate case to adjust. Has not changed his opinion
  • Cobos – I would be comfortable with giving more money for debt coverage
  • Deborah Fato, President of Bear Creek SUD – Ratepayers are being overcharged
  • Kourtnee Jinks, Commission Staff – Rate increases are not necessary or reasonable, staff recommends a revenue requirement and 1.0 debt service coverage ratio
  • Lake – The cash on hand is large, but that is in no way beholden to paying the debt service
  • Lake – I would be comfortable with 1.1, but 1.25 seems egregious to put on a ratepayer
  • Cobos – 1.1 seems grounded in the ranges provided. We need to see evidence in the record in the future
  • Motion to change debt service ratio to 1.1 prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 2

Docket No. 50435 – Complaint of Kyle A. Sadler Against Quadvest, L.P. (Final Order) Judy King

  • Recommends that complaint be denied
  • Motion to dismiss Mr. Sadler’s complaint prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 3

Docket No. 51738 – Petition of Sanctuary Texas, LLC to Amend Aqua Texas, Inc.’s Certificate of Convenience and Necessity in Denton County by Expedited Release. (Final Order) John Kelly and Connor Kilgallen

  • Memo with proposed changes to the revised proposed order
  • Motion to approve the revised proposed order prevails unanimously

Agenda Item 4

Docket No. 51843 – Application of CSWR-Texas Utility Operating Company, LLC for Temporary Rates for a Nonfunctioning Utility. (Final Order) Alex Scheifler

  • Proposed changes to the proposed order and a memo from Commissioner McAdams
  • McAdams – Purpose of memo was to clarify the process
  • Motion to approve the revised proposed order with proposed changes from McAdams prevails unanimously

Agenda Item 5

Docket No. 52223 – Petition for an Order Appointing a Temporary Manager for Oak High Community Water Service. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Open meeting hearing
  • Glenn Atkins on behalf of CSWR – CSWR is willing to serve as temporary manager
  • Motion to deny the petition prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 6

Discussion and possible action regarding implementation of state legislation affecting water and sewer companies, current and projected rulemakings and other projects, comments to other state agencies, and Commission priorities.

  • Item not discussed

 

Communications

 

Agenda Item 7

Discussion and possible action regarding implementation of state and federal legislation affecting telecommunications markets, current and projected rulemakings and other projects, comments to other state and federal agencies, and Commission priorities.

  • Item not discussed

 

Electric

Agenda Item 8

Docket No. 50302 – Application of Rio Grande Electric Cooperative, Inc. to Revise its Transmission Cost of Service and Wholesale Transmission Rates. (Final Order) Lorenzo Garcia

  • Cobos – In favor of approving the application
  • McAdams – Co-ops are unique in terms of the market construct. If we approve, this we have certain rights as the regulator at wholesale?
  • Cobos – Yes, we are setting the wholesale transmission rate
  • Motion to approve the second corrected proposed order revised prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 9

Docket No. 51100 – Application of the City of Lubbock, By and Through Lubbock Power & Light, for Authority to Establish Initial Wholesale Transmission Rates and Tariffs. (Final Order) David Hrncir

  • Lake – Not sure we should grant good cause exception
  • McAdams – I believe they have rate recovery ability; could commission advising add clarity? LP & L still has the obligation to pay the hold harmless provision
  • McAdams – I don’t think good cause is needed
  • Lake – I agree
  • Motion to adopt the proposed order as corrected and reflecting comments between Lake and McAdams prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 10

Docket No. 51301 – Application of Texas-New Mexico Power Company to Amend its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for the Greenbelt-Cattail-Cherokee 138-kV Transmission Line in Galveston County. (Final Order) David Hrncir

  • McAdams – There are 2 structures that would be subject to condemnation under this. Were sub routes considered? Is TNMP present?
  • Stephanie Sparks for TNMP – Different routes were considered
  • McAdams – Just wants to make sure that someone looked at this
  • Sparks – We can go back and confirm that everything possible was done and that this issue was unavoidable
  • Representative from Marathon Petroleum – A lot of the habitable structures have been purchased by Marathon Petroleum
  • Ruston Taywater – Staff experts did look into this issue, but are happy to do further investigation and report back
  • Item is tabled until future open meeting

 

Agenda Item 11

Docket No. 51557 – Application of Entergy Texas, Inc. to Amend its Generation Cost Recovery Rider to Reflect the Acquisition of the Hardin County Peaking Facility. (Final Order) David Hrncir

  • Motion to adopt the corrected proposed order prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 12

Docket No. 51567 – Compliance Filing of CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC for Rider TC2 and TC3 Refund of Transition Charges. (Final Order) Judy King

  • Motion to approve proposed order as modified by McAdams’ memo prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 13

Docket No. 51826 – Application of El Paso Electric Company to Implement the Third Updated Refund Tariff for Federal Income Tax Rate Decrease in Compliance with Docket No. 46831. (Final Order) Connor Kilgallen

  • Motion to approve the proposed order with proposed changes prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 14

Docket No. 51859 – Commission Staff’s Petition to Revoke the retail Electric Provider Certificate of Griddy Energy, LLC. (Preliminary Order)

  • Motion to adopt preliminary order prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 15

Docket No. 51961 – Commission Staff’s Petition to Revoke the Retail Electric Provider Certificate of GB Power LLC. (Final Order) Connor Kilgallen

  • Motion to adopt the proposed order prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 16

Docket No. 51996; SOAH Docket No. 473-21-2610 – Application of Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC to Amend its Distribution Cost Recovery Factor. (Final Order) Austin Spraetz

  • Motion to adopt the proposed order with the proposed changes prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 17

Docket No. 52078 – Petition to Revoke the Retail Electric Provider Certificate of MQE, LLC dba My Quest Energy. (Preliminary Order)

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 18

Docket No. 52100 – Application of Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC for Good Cause Exception to Extend the Rate Filing Deadline Under 16 TAC § 25.247. (Final Order) Connor Kilgallen

  • Motion to approve the revised proposed order prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Items 19 & 20

Docket No. 52321 – Application of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. for a Debt Obligation Order Under PURA Chapter 39, Subchapter M, and Request for a Good Cause Exception. (Discussion and possible action)

Docket No. 52322 – Application of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. for a Debt Obligation Order to Finance Uplift Balances Under PURA Chapter 39, Subchapter N, for an Order Initiating a Parallel Docket, and for a Good Cause Exception. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Lake – Recused himself from anything related to these two items

 

Agenda Item 21

Project No. 51830 – Review of Certain Retail Electric Customer Protection Rules. (Proposal for Publication) David Smeltzer

  • Smeltzer – Implements HB 16, tried to use more plain language, clarifies the definition of fixed rate products, other minor tweaks
  • Cobos – The goal of memo was to highlight policy issues
  • Cobos – Residential small commercial consumers would have to sign AOR before they consume a product. Should we allow these products altogether?
  • McAdams – What’s our threshold on small commercial?
  • Cobos – Less than 50 kw. We can get more information.
  • Motion to approve the proposal for publication reflecting Cobos’ memo prevails unanimously

 

Agenda Item 22

Project No. 51878 – Reports of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas for Calendar Year 2021. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 23

Project No. 51879 – Information Related to the Western Energy Imbalance Market. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 24

Project No. 52313 – Review of Statutory Definitions. (Proposal for Publication) David Smeltzer

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 25

Project No. 37344 – Information Related to the Entergy Regional State Committee. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 26

Project No. 41211 – Information Related to the Organization of MISO States. (Discussion and possible action

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 27

Project No. 41210 – Information Related to the Southwest Power Pool Regional State Committee. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 28

Discussion and possible action on electric reliability; electric market development; power-to-choose website; ERCOT oversight; transmission planning, construction, and cost recovery in areas outside of ERCOT; and electric reliability standards and organizations arising under federal law.

  • Cobos – ERCOT should provide the public and the Commission with updates on grid reliability, and recaps of summer reliability
  • Hobbs – We saw our peak demand on Sunday
    • Wind was low and solar was high
    • Peak demand for this week was Monday
    • Wind is still low and solar is fairly high
    • Improvement in outages
    • Confident that we’ll have sufficient generation to serve next week
    • Monitoring weather very closely
    • We will continue to operate the grid more conservatively
  • McAdams – We had a fair amount of solar that waws supposed to come online. Is that keeping up with expectations?
  • Hobbs – I think we are on pace with predictions
  • Woody Rickerson, ERCOT – Solar generating is right on pace, at roughly 7,000
  • Cobos – Other memo requested a presentation from ERCOT on outages
  • Rickerson – goes over resource outage approval process
    • We process 130,000-140,000 outages a year
    • 70% of outages are forced/maintenance level outages and are automatically accepted
    • 10% of outages are planned that are submitted with more than 45 days’ notice and are automatically accepted
    • Remaining outages are a mix, and some are approved
    • Most outages last a day or less
  • Emergency pricing is on the schedule for August 26th work session
  • Staff recommends issuing questions for interested parties to respond to
  • Lake – We need to get questions to staff relatively quickly, decides on August 2nd
  • Lake – Moving market design up to October and November and water back to December
  • Staff will file a memo on Monday listing all questions for workshop and laying out adjustments to work session schedule
  • Lake – Key initiatives are market design, distributed resources and generation, transmission

 

Agenda Item 29

Discussion and possible action regarding implementation of state and federal legislation affecting electricity markets including current and projected rulemakings and other projects, comments to other state and federal agencies and Commission priorities

  • Item not discussed

 

General

Agenda Item 30

Project No. 51715 – Rulemaking Calendar. (Discussion and possible action). David Smeltzer

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 31

Project No. 51812 – Issues Related to the State of Disaster for the February 2021 Winter Weather Event. (Discussion and possible action)

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 32

Discussion and possible action regarding agency review by Sunset Advisory Commission, operating budget, strategic plan, appropriations request, project assignments, correspondence, staff reports, agency administrative issues, agency organization, fiscal matters, and personnel policy.

  • ERCOT communication has been greatly improved
  • Building new commissioners’ suites
  • Lake – Very important that new commissioners have workplaces

 

Agenda Item 33

Discussion and possible action regarding customer service issues, including but not limited to correspondence and complaint issues.

  • Item not discussed

 

Agenda Item 34

Discussion and possible action on infrastructure reliability, emergency management, and homeland security.

  • Item not discussed