Texas regulators last week agreed to end a moratorium on customer disconnects for nonpayment that dated back to February as energy prices soared in the wake of a severe winter storm.

The Public Utility Commission said Friday that with a “proliferation” of available financial support and the need for utilities to resume normal business operations, it would end the moratorium on June 18. It went into effect Feb. 21 and applied to investor-owned utilities under the PUC’s jurisdiction.

Retail electric providers (REPs) must issue new disconnection warning notices to customers in danger of losing service, effective June 19. That will trigger a 10-day waiting period that allows customers to arrange deferred payment plans the REPs are required to offer (51812).

Commissioner Will McAdams signaled the PUC’s intention when he filed a memo earlier this month that said continuing the moratorium could lead to an “unsustainable impact” on “financially at-risk Texas consumers.” He pointed out that customers facing disconnection would soon fall under automatic moratoriums during heat advisory conditions, as defined by a National Weather Service heat advisory issued on a county-by-county basis.

“In some cases, these liabilities could amount to seven months of overdue bills before the commission may be able to readdress the issue in the fall,” McAdams wrote.

“My memo still stands,” he said during the PUC’s open meeting. “In my view, the emergency has passed. We need a catalyst in the market to break this logjam. The longer we stay in this kind of regulatory limbo, the more these consumers are going to just be rolling these large averages into the fall.”

McAdams encouraged customers to contact their REPs and ask for a deferred payment plan. Electric providers are required to offer plans that allow customers to pay back their debt over five billing cycles.

The PUC’s decision came after it opened the meeting with public comments. Two customers of REPs called for an extension of the moratorium, complaining they were being hit with pass-through ancillary service charges. A representative for a retailer urged that the moratorium be lifted to ensure the REP’s financial well-being.

“There’s a delicate balance between the financial impact on consumers and households and the economic health of competitive providers in our marketplace,” PUC Chair Peter Lake said. “It’s a tough challenge to find that balance … but we do need to move forward.”

The winter storm is thought to have inflicted more than $130 billion in damage throughout the state.

In other actions Friday, the commission approved Entergy Texas’ request to recover $31.6 million through an amended transmission cost recovery factor (51406) and Southwestern Public Service Co.’s implementation of a net surcharge of $71.5 million on its Texas retail customers as part of a previous rate case (51644).