Texas regulators last week agreed with their staff’s recommendation to end a moratorium on retail customers’ cutoffs for nonpayment at the end of September.
Public Utility Commission staff filed a memo that recommended enrollment in the commission’s COVID-19 Electricity Relief Program halt on Aug. 31 and that the benefits end on Sept. 30 (50664).
“This is a hard balance to have, but I think it is the time,” PUC Chair DeAnn Walker said during the commission’s open meeting Thursday.
The PUC created the program in March to help retail providers’ unemployed customers by shielding them from disconnections for nonpayment and offering bill payment assistance. The program is funded by a charge applied to customer bills within the ERCOT region.
A separate requirement to provide customers a deferred payment plan upon their request will continue, Walker said.
“The people who have been on the relief program will be transitioning off and may need to have that opportunity,” she said. “I still view … that we’re in a state of emergency.”
Texas on Friday became the third state to record 10,000 deaths from the coronavirus. The state has more than 545,000 confirmed cases and registered a spike of 6,755 cases the same day as the PUC’s open meeting.
In other actions, the PUC:
- fined Reliant Energy $100,000 for failing last year to maintain and produce verification of 292 switch requests and for failing to energize 33 customers on the agreed service start dates, resulting in a loss of service. The utility agreed to change its processes for using third parties to enroll customers (51045).
- approved a $39.4 million fuel refund for Southwestern Public Service. The refund had been authorized in April on an interim basis (50556).
