As temperatures climbed into the triple digits this summer, big commercial and industrial companies shut down production lines, sent employees home and fired up backup generators. These moves, however, weren’t made to avoid the temporary spikes that sent wholesale electricity prices soaring to the maximum $9,000 per megawatt hour, but rather to cut their transmission costs throughout the year — and ultimately shift them to consumers and small businesses.
TCPA is a non-profit trade association representing power generators, wholesale power marketers, and retail providers with investments in Texas and the ERCOT wholesale and retail electric markets. TCPA members own more than 54,000 megawatts of generation capacity and 82% of all natural gas generating capacity in the ERCOT/Texas market. That’s approximately half of all the installed generation capacity and 2/3 of the non-wind capacity in ERCOT. They represent billions of dollars of investment in the state, and they employ thousands of Texans.
