Oklahoma lawmakers recognized that HB 1602, the electric deregulation bill that died in committee Thursday, would dismantle our state’s cost and reliability protections for Oklahoma electricity consumers, who largely oppose restructuring. HB 1602 is backed by a group of third-party gas marketers called the Alliance for Electrical Restructuring in Oklahoma (AERO) that would stand to profit from the chaos and confusion that would come from uncoupling transmission and distribution. We commend lawmakers for unmasking the real consequences for Oklahoma ratepayers who want more, not less oversight on rates and investments utilities make to the grid.
Read MoreI am pleased that Pro Tem Treat’s SB 1103 advanced out of the Oklahoma Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee today. If passed into law, this legislation will protect consumers by creating greater accountability at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) and stabilizing rates at a time when fuel prices are making electricity more costly.
Read MoreHB 1602, proposed today by Rep. Ryan Martinez, promises to “introduce choice” for electric customers by creating competition between providers by breaking apart generation, transmission and retail distribution into separately operated businesses, also known as deregulation or electric restructuring. We know from polling conducted as recently as this week that Oklahomans remain overwhelmingly opposed to deregulation.
Read MoreAs Oklahoma lawmakers prepare for the 2023 legislative session to begin next month, former Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud is asking that one New York Times article makes its way onto the reading lists of the state’s elected officials.
Read MoreAverage retail electricity costs in the 35 states that have partly or entirely broken apart the generation, transmission and retail distribution of energy into separate businesses have risen faster than rates in the 15 states that have not deregulated, including Florida and Oregon. That difference has persisted for much of the last two decades or so, including in the last year, when energy prices increased worldwide after Russia invaded Ukraine.
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The latest rate increase request from Public Service Company of Oklahoma has consumers wondering when the financial hits will end.
The proposed hike comes as part of a rate review. If approved, the raise of about $14 a month on average would be the third increase for PSO in the past year. The utility has about 560,000 customers. Its other two increases were for temporary cost recoveries. Pending is an earlier plan to buy three new wind farms and three new solar facilities to diversify power sources and save money long-term; it would raise bills an average of $3.48 a month by the end of 2025.
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Texas regulators and ERCOT have been working to bolster power reliability since Winter Storm Uri devastated the grid in 2021 and led to 246 deaths. Despite a host of market improvements and generator weatherization requirements, the grid’s reserve capacity is lower this season than last, said Vegas.
Read MoreCompared with other states in the region, Oklahoma had the lowest price of electricity for residential utility customers in 2021.
Read MoreI’m troubled by AERO’s blatant misrepresentation of Oklahoma as having the highest electricity rates in our region. This is simply untrue. Reports released by the Public Utility Commission of Texas clearly show that Texas’ deregulated prices are continuing to climb at a dramatically higher rate than Oklahoma’s when comparing 2021 rates to 2022 rates. While Oklahoma electricity prices are at 10.87 cents, Texas is seeing prices between 20 and 30 cents, and some service areas are seeing as much as 150% increase.
Read MoreIn deregulated states, customers are turned into de facto natural-gas forecasters, gambling on the direction of highly volatile markets when it’s time to renew their contracts.
Millions of Americans are being forced to bet on power and natural-gas prices at a time when even seasoned professionals are unsure where highly volatile markets are headed.
Read MoreA group of third-party energy marketers, or 'middlemen,' is attempting to manufacture a problem for Oklahoma.
These middlemen are the founders of a new group called Alliance for Electrical Restructuring in Oklahoma (AERO) that is seeking to deregulate Oklahoma’s electric industry. Recently, AERO’s executive director, Mike Boyd, wrote an op-ed alleging Oklahoma utilities Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. (OG&E) and Public Service Corp. of Oklahoma (PSO) 'wildly overpaid for the natural gas' during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.
Read MoreOn Aug. 4, 2000, Governor Tom Ridge (R) announced that electric competition would lead to job growth, economic expansion, and decreased rates… This Electric Fantasyland never materialized. To the contrary, electric companies collected $11.4 billion in “stranded costs” (mostly for uneconomical nuclear plants), shifted taxes to municipalities and school districts, and dumped customers at record rates.
Read MoreThe regulated electric utilities in Oklahoma include - Oklahoma Gas and Electric, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, Liberty Utilities and 5 electric cooperatives.
State law prevents the Commission from regulating any electric utility operated by a governmental entity, such as the Grand River Dam Authority, or cities, which are members of the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority.
As technology becomes increasingly central to our lives, deregulation will neither minimize costs, nor reduce outages. Rather, it risks Oklahoma’s reliable, affordable power to follow an unproven path many in other states now wish they had avoided.
Read MoreThe Alliance for Secure Energy (ASE) is proud to announce the appointment of Jeff Cloud as executive director.
Read MoreThe Public Utilities Division of Oklahoma’s Corporation Commission is querying electric service providers across much of Oklahoma about how they handled outages caused by October’s ice storm and about how they propose to mitigate potential impacts caused by future similar events.
Read MoreHurricanes and tropical storms are major headaches for Florida utility providers, but even garden-variety severe thunderstorms create issues, especially in overgrown areas
Read MoreWhen an ice storm hits, politicians lose power at their house just like everyone else and some of Oklahoma's representatives want to know what can be done to keep the lights on.
Read MoreElectric vehicle (EV) owners will soon be taking road trips across the Midwest with increased confidence. That's because six regional energy companies have committed to a first-of-its-kind Memorandum of Cooperation, committing to work together to build a vast network of Midwest EV charging stations by the end of 2022.
Read MoreIt should be inconceivable that in a time of American energy abundance, within the nation’s richest and most populous state, citizens are being subjected to rolling electricity blackouts.
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