A NEW SPARK
Renewables have already helped lower energy prices.
Texans got good news last week when the manager of the state’s power grid reported Texas will have more electricity generating capacity this summer than it did when a heat wave last summer forced consumers and businesses to conserve power as supplies became perilously tight. The announcement from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that the state has added 523 megawatts of capacity since December — mostly new wind power, but also new solar and natural-gas fired generation — has already lowered electricity prices.
Twelve-month electricity plans are already about a halfcent cheaper than they were a week ago, one energy analyst said.
The price for a 12-month contract is 9 cents to 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour this week, compared with nearly 10 cents per kilowatt hour a couple of weeks ago, said Paul Paras, vice president and co-founder of Real Simple Energy in Houston, an electricity shopping website that tracks prices.
And as we get closer to summer, electricity prices are likely to fall further, reflecting lower transmission and distribution charges on most residential power bills beginning in April. Consumers of Center-Point Energy, the regulated utility that supplies most of the power in the Houston area, will pay about 2 percent less than they paid a year ago.
ERCOT predicts that Texas will have total generation capacity of 82,417 megawatts this summer, which — if the weather is normal — should be enough to keep the air conditioning on in Texas.
ERCOT is anticipating that summer’s peak load will top out at 76,696 megawatts, about 2.5 percent higher than last summer’s peak load of 74,820 megawatts that was set during the afternoon of Aug. 12, when a heat wave sent wholesale electricity prices soaring to $9,000 per megawatt hour.
But lots of things can still go wrong, according to one electricity expert.
Temperatures could be higher than projected, a generator could unexpectedly retire a coal plant, taking capacity off the grid, or a key generating plant could malfunction, said Fred Anders, founder of Texas Power Guide in Houston, a shopping site that helps consumers find the cheapest plan based on their past use.
But more new generating capacity is scheduled to come online in the next couple of years, especially new renewable sources, which would likely continue to ease supply concerns and probably continue to reduce electricity costs.
So don’t lock in for more than a 12-month contract, Anders said.
That’s because the price for power then may be cheaper than it is today.