By Danburg H.B. No. 2534
75R8258 DWS-F
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to a pilot program involving competitive supply of energy
1-3 from certain sources.
1-4 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-5 SECTION 1. The legislature finds that technology and
1-6 resource availability have evolved to the point that electric power
1-7 generation by an appropriate mix of efficient natural gas and
1-8 renewable sources such as small hydroelectric, solar thermal, solar
1-9 photovoltaic, wind, biogas, and biomass may produce retail prices
1-10 at or below current retail electric rates, depending on fees
1-11 utilities are allowed to collect for distribution, billing, and
1-12 other functions necessary to the transport and delivery of electric
1-13 power.
1-14 SECTION 2. Subtitle B, Title II, Public Utility Regulatory
1-15 Act of 1995 (Article 1446c-0, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is
1-16 amended by adding Section 2.058 to read as follows:
1-17 Sec. 2.058. PILOT PROGRAM. (a) Not later than September 1,
1-18 1997, the commission shall develop a pilot program to allow
1-19 customers the choice of purchasing electric power from suppliers
1-20 offering to provide power generated from a mix of efficient natural
1-21 gas and renewable sources such as small hydroelectric, solar
1-22 thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, biogas, and biomass. In any
1-23 product sold under this pilot program at least 10 percent of the
1-24 energy must be from renewable resources.
2-1 (b) The commission, for electric utilities under its
2-2 jurisdiction, and in consultation with the governing boards of
2-3 municipally owned utilities, shall determine:
2-4 (1) the percentage, which may not be less than five
2-5 percent, of the customers in each certificated area who are
2-6 eligible to participate in the pilot program; and
2-7 (2) the electric power suppliers that are to
2-8 participate in the pilot program.
2-9 (c) In each certificated area, the customers who are
2-10 eligible to participate must include customers from all customer
2-11 classes.
2-12 (d) Nothing in the pilot program may affect the obligation
2-13 of each utility or municipally owned utility to continue to
2-14 transmit and distribute electric power to customers in its
2-15 certificated area.
2-16 (e) The commission shall develop standards for power
2-17 suppliers that participate in the pilot program to ensure that each
2-18 supplier is registered with the commission and is capable of
2-19 generating or obtaining for delivery sufficient electric power,
2-20 generated from a mix of efficient natural gas and renewable
2-21 resources described by this section, to serve all its subscribed
2-22 customers under the pilot program.
2-23 (f) A customer participating in the pilot program must be
2-24 charged for the electric power at market prices. The commission
2-25 shall determine the appropriate manner of separating the price of
2-26 the electric power from the price of transmission and distribution
2-27 of the electric power so that the supplying of the electric power
3-1 under the pilot program is competitive. The commission shall
3-2 regulate the prices charged for transmission and distribution to
3-3 ensure that the prices do not include amounts representing unused
3-4 monopoly generation facilities.
3-5 (g) A customer wishing to participate in the pilot program
3-6 shall notify the utility or municipally owned utility that
3-7 distributes electric power to the customer. The utility may make
3-8 the customer's name and address and information on the customer's
3-9 electric power usage available to all electric power suppliers
3-10 participating in the pilot program. A utility or municipally owned
3-11 utility shall make information available on customers under this
3-12 section in numbers proportional to the total number of customers in
3-13 each class served by the utility or municipally owned utility.
3-14 (h) Each customer participating in the pilot program shall
3-15 evaluate the program in the form and manner the commission
3-16 determines appropriate.
3-17 (i) On or before September 1, 1998, the commission shall
3-18 report to the legislature the information it has derived from the
3-19 operation of the pilot program to allow the legislature to evaluate
3-20 the feasibility of expanding or restricting retail customer choice
3-21 of electric power providers.
3-22 (j) This section expires August 31, 1999.
3-23 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
3-24 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
3-25 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
3-26 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
3-27 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
4-1 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
4-2 passage, and it is so enacted.