Back to School Special

A. Oncor*, most likely, which is the company that delivers our electricity. It can be confusing, though, with all the different players in texas’ energy grid. Here’s a cheat sheet:

Generators: texas has 550 generating units across the state that create energy from natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind and other sources.

Electric Reliability Council of Texas: ERCOt is an independent organization that manages the wholesale electricity market in texas. When a rolling blackout happens, it’s because ERCOt mandated it.

*Transmission and delivery companies: In Dallas, there’s only one company — Oncor — that funnels power from the state’s generators through transmission lines and into homes and businesses. During a power outage, Oncor employees are the ones who can restore it. Call 888.313.4747 to let them know (even though your smart meter may be able to notify them more quickly).

Retail electricity providers, or retailers: these are companies such as tXu Energy, Reliant, green Mountain Energy and others that track and bill for electricity use. they contact Oncor to turn on electricity when you move into a new house, for example, or to shut it off when you aren’t paying your bill. Retailers don’t have anything to do with outages caused by storms or power line damage.

50

Retail electricity providers in the competitive areas of texas

250+ the number of plans offered by retail electricity providers (details at powertochoose.org)

Source: ERCOT and TXU Energy

Q. If I sign up for a ‘green’ electricity plan, does that ensure the power reaching my house is produced by wind, solar or another renewable energy?

A. Nope. Coal, natural gas and nuclear power are still being pumped through your transmission lines and into your home, most likely. But you are guaranteeing that the amount of renewable energy you are paying for will be piped into the power grid.

“Regardless of which retail electricity provider a customer chooses, there is no way to separate electricity on the power grid based on how it was generated,” says Juan Elizondo, a spokesman for TXU Energy. “When a consumer purchases a retail electricity plan with renewable electricity, that amount of renewable energy is put onto the power grid. It may or may not be the power that reaches that customer. Those consumers are ensuring that renewable power is put onto the grid, and they are supporting the further development of renewable resources.”

“Think of the electric grid as a giant bathtub that is constantly being filled from many different faucets, and each one represents a different electricity generation source such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, etc.,” says Katie Ryan, spokeswoman for Green Mountain Energy. “Each time you use electricity, you drain a little water from the bathtub. As the demand for electricity from renewable sources increases, more of the clean water goes into the tub — and less of the dirty water from fossil fuel sources is needed.”

Q. Is there any way that renewable energy could grow so popular in Texas that customer demand would overtake supply?

A. Yes, in theory.

“The demand for renewable energy is what makes it grow,” Ryan says. “When demand exceeds supply, renewable energy gets built.”

16,000

Pounds of CO2 emissions avoided in a year by someone who participates in a 100 percent renewable energy plan and uses an average of 1,000 kilowatt hours per month

6,000

Pounds of newspapers that would have to be recycled to equal avoiding 16,000 pounds of CO2 emissions

Source: Green Mountain Energy