Regulators blast electricity providers for deception
Houston Chronicle, By L.M. Sixel
June 28, 2018 Updated: June 29, 2018 7:02am
Texas regulators criticized “misleading” offers by electric power providers on PowertoChoose.org, the website run by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and launched an effort to introduce more transparency into the system that millions of Texans rely upon to buy electricity.
Commissioners put some of the state’s biggest retail power providers on notice to make their confusing, too-good-to-be-true price plans easier for consumers to understand or regulators will step in and do it for them. The commission hopes to finish its inquiry by August.
DeAnn T. Walker, chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, said during a public meeting Thursday that she felt moved to act because the commission has received lots of complaints recently about multi-tiered pricing systems that some retail power providers offer. Some charge 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour for consumers who use up to 1,000 kilowatt hours of power each month, but then spike if consumers use more power.
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