Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc., grid operator for most of the state, announced today that customers of National Power Company, Houston, are being switched to another retail electric provider tomorrow at its request because it is no longer able to meet its financial obligations to ERCOT.   

The number of customers being switched to alternate retail electric providers is 15,163, including 14,721 residential and 442 small non-residential customers.  The size of the associated load is approximately 616 megawatt-hours per day. 

ERCOT anticipates implementation of the automated switching process early tomorrow morning. All switching is expected to be completed in three days. 

Residential customers by transmission provider are:

CenterPoint                               9,128

Oncor                                       4,060

AEP Central                              794

Texas New Mexico Power           470

AEP North                                 252

Sharyland Utilities                      17 

ERCOT has been working closely with the Public Utility Commission (PUC) and affected market participants to ensure an efficient and effective transfer of customers. 

Customers who are transitioned from National Power to another provider will be notified in accordance with PUC rules which require both the defaulting retail electric provider and the new provider to notify the customer. 

Providers-of-last-resort are listed on the PUC web site: http://www.puc.state.tx.us/ocp/electric/polr/polr.cfm 

Electric customers who have questions or issues may contact the PUC Consumer Hotline, 1-888-782-8477, or go to the PUC’s Consumer Web Site.