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House Bill 4492 |
House Author: Paddie |
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Effective: 6-16-21 |
Senate Sponsor: Hancock |
House Bill 4492 amends the Government Code and Utilities Code to provide for the financing of certain extraordinary costs associated with the electric markets incurred during Winter Storm Uri, thus allowing default and uplift balances to be repaid over time at a low carrying cost. Among other provisions, the bill provides for the establishment of a debt financing mechanism by ERCOT, using money loaned from the Economic Stabilization Fund, also known as the Rainy Day Fund, to finance up to $800 million owed to ERCOT by certain competitive wholesale market participants as a result of the storm and provides for the repayment of amounts financed through default charges established by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) over a period not to exceed 30 years.
House Bill 4492 provides for the establishment of a debt financing mechanism that enables ERCOT to finance up to $2.1 billion that was uplifted to municipally owned utilities, electric cooperatives, and retail electric providers due to energy consumption during Winter Storm Uri for reliability deployment price adder charges and ancillary services costs in excess of the system‑wide offer cap set by the PUC. The bill requires the entities that receive offsets to specific uplift charges to adjust customer invoices to reflect the offsets for any charges that were or would otherwise be passed through to customers under the terms of service with the entity and provides for the repayment of the charges that are financed by ERCOT through the assessment of uplift charges over a period not to exceed 30 years.