TEXAS-SIZE?
Most Oklahomans won't see utility bills like some reported south of Red River
Oklahomans can expect to see bigger utility bills next month as they pay for additional energy used to get through February' s brutal winter weather.
And no one should be surprised. As temperatures plummeted, energy needs spiked.
But state leaders offered assurances to worried consumers Monday most won't see Texas-size amounts when they open those bills.
Most consumers of electricity and natural gas within Oklahoma are served by companies, electrical cooperatives, municipal systems and other sanctioned power providers regulated by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission or Oklahoma's Legislature.
Legislative leaders, agency representatives and Gov. Kevin St it ts aid Monday discussions are underway between providers and authorities to spread increased fuel costs out overtime to consumers.
What does that mean? That means any fuel cost adjustments related to higher spot-market pricing utilities or other power providers had to pay to keep the lights on and gas flowing during the storm will be closely scrutinized.
Specific filings before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission from regulated utilities won't be coming for a while, officials said.
Non-commission-regulated
providers also are pledging to spread out increased costs to their customers over time.
Meanwhile, legislative leaders announced Monday they will undertake efforts to evaluate the storm's impact on Oklahoma's energy system as well.
Those inquiries will be carried out in addition to an already-launched study initiated by Secretary of Energy and Environment Kenneth Wagner' s office in 2019 to evaluate similar issues.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter's office, which represents customers on rate cases before the Corporation Commission, also is looking into potential violations of Oklahoma' s Price Stabilization Act, which became effective when Gov. Kevin Stitt issued an executive order Feb. 12 declaring a state of emergency within Oklahoma.
The emergency order prohibited businesses from hiking prices more than 10% on a product or service being offered while the order remained in effect, and of particular interest to the agency are spot market pricings for natural gas that skyrocketed along with demand before shortages even existed.
Plus, Oklahoma' s Corporation Commission already opened an inquiry into evaluating Oklahoma's electrical energy distribution systems and how they responded to an early ice storm in October that left some residents without power, for weeks.
Officials said discussions on how the system performed during this most recent storm are likely as well.
“This storm just didn't hit Oklahoma, it impacted areas of our nation reaching Canada all the way to the Gulf Coast,” said Brandy Wreath, director of the agency's Public Utility Division.
While he agreed the electrical distribution system serving the Great Plains overseen by t he Southwest Power Pool regional transmission operator came close to failing at times, he said it certainly wasn't unique in the challenges it faced.
“This storm just didn't test the electric infrastructure used to deliver power to consumers. It also tested systems that supply that infrastructure with fuel needed to generate energy.”
It wasn't prepared, he continued, for problems posed by natural gas processing plants and pipelines to downstream consumers that were frozen to a standstill.
“Those are the things we will be looking at at the corporation commission, with our state partners and others from across the SPP region,” Wreath said.
Actions pledged
At the start of the news conference, Gov. Stitt described February's storm as a historic event.
“In Oklahoma City, the temperature hit 14 below zero. It was the coldest it had been since 1899. We stayed below 20 degrees for almost a week straight—the longest in at least 60 years. This truly was a once-in-a-lifetime storm,” said Stitt.
He t hanked Oklahomans for their efforts to conserve the power they used during the event, telling them those efforts mattered despite issues with power system related problems the state had never seen before.
St it ts aid the storm' s impact son the way Oklahomans were provided energy were profound.
While Oklahoma normally gets about 40% of its energy from wind, that resource wasn't available during parts of the storm, meaning coalfired generation was heavily relied upon to help pick up the slack.
On other days of the storm, wind outperformed expectations as natural gas- fired systems faltered, helping to save t he day, he and other officials observed.
Still, the situation was uncomfortable throughout, and that's why he and state leaders said they want to improve Oklahoma's future in that regard.
“I know many Oklahomans are worried about what this could mean f or theirutili ty bills. And I want you to know that we are going to do everything we can to help you and your families get through this,” Stitt said.
“Now that the immediate health and safety threat is over, the leaders here with me today and I have two main goals,” said the governor, who was joined at the conference by Wagner, Wreath, Hunter, Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, House Speaker Charles McCall and Mark Gower, director of Oklahoma's Office of Emergency Management.
“No .1, we want to do everything we can to help Oklahomans get financial assistance for their upcoming energy bills. And No. 2, we want to get to the bottom of this and learn what we need to do so that this never happens again,” Stitt said. “We are going to turn over every rock until we find a solution. This is a heavy lift, and it is going to take all of us working together.”
Business writer Jack Money covers Oklahoma's energy and agricultural beats for the newspaper and Oklahoman. com. Contact him at jmoney@ oklahoman.com. Please support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a subscription today at oklahoman.com/subscribe.