Texas Senate Approves Bill-May Reverse ERCOT’s 16B in Overcharges

The Texas Senate almost immediately passed a bill Monday that could reverse the billions of dollars that were overcharged during the winter storm that resulted in one of the worst electrical crises' that Texans have endured.

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Bill 2142 was filed by the Republican senator of Mineola, Bryan Hughes, early Monday morning. After only about 4 hours, the Senate quickly passed the bill, which will now be sent to the House for approval.

The bill would help electrical providers recover some of the 16 billion dollars that were overcharged during last month's winter storm electrical failures. It has been verified that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT, overbilled electrical providers due to charging their absolute maximum prices for an 'inappropriate' amount of time. According to a report by the Austin American-Statesman, the maximum price of $9,000 was charged for 32 hours resulting in 16 billion dollars of charges.

According to a recommendation by Potomac Economics, ERCOT intervention with prices should have ended at 23:55 on February 17, 2021.; instead, they continued to hold the maximum prices until the morning of February 19th. Some of the charges were unnecessary because it was for energy that was not needed or produced. Potomac insisted that their recommendations would not result in any revenue shortfalls for ERCOT's because the corrected prices would be sure to efficiently reflect the actual supply, demand, and reserves during this period.

"This bill recounts what we already believe to be true, that ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission have the authority to make these changes," Hughes said during a brief Jurisprudence Committee meeting.