When energy analyst Bill Peacock wrote a letter to the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas requesting electricity pricing data, he didn’t expect to receive a rejection letter in response.
That’s because he thought the increase in the Operating Reserve Demand Curve (ORDC) tax, and how it is adding to electricity costs, is a public record request under Texas Freedom of Information Act laws and the Texas Public Information Act.
“I had asked for the data so people could see how much the government is artificially increasing the price of electricity,” Peacock said.
Now it is up to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Plano) to issue a final ruling on whether the information requested is, in fact, public information.
“The PUC had denied the request for the information because they believe it is excepted from release under the Public Information Act and they have asked the attorney general to issue an opinion on it,” Peacock said. “It’s up to the attorney general to determine whether or not this information is publicly available.”
Peacock told the Lone Star Standard last month that Texans will face higher electric bills and shouldn’t expect relief anytime soon.
“The PUC doesn't want Texans to know how much they're being forced to pay because of the ORDC,” he told the Texas Business Coalition. “It indicates the possibility that they don't want the public to know about how much extra they are paying for electricity because of the unwillingness of Texas policymakers to take on renewable energy.”
The price of electricity is being artificially increased, according to Peacock, because there is a concern by regulators that there aren’t enough reliable sources of electricity other than natural gas.
“There's two ways to deal with it,” he said. “You can get rid of the cause, which are the renewable subsidies, or you can pay the generators new subsidies in the hopes that they'll build natural gas generation.”
Wind, solar, nuclear and fossil fuels have secured between $13 billion and $37 billion in federal subsidies since 2010. Wind receives 17 times and solar 75 times more subsidies per unit of electricity generated than the average for oil, gas, coal and nuclear, according to a Texas Public Policy Foundation study.
"PUC published no information last year that made it easy for the public to understand how much the ORDC cost," Peacock said. "I had to do calculations based on the information they did publish to determine that the ORDC cost about $3.6 billion last year, but the PUC never put that information out directly. They didn't do that until about October or November of last year.
"So, it's after the fact because most of the costs for the ORDC came in August and September and Texans couldn't find out in real-time how much the ORDC was costing them," he continued. "We may be able to get the information later this year, but in both cases, the PUC is making it very difficult for Texans to find out how much the electricity tax imposed by the PUC is costing them."