Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc., grid operator for most of the state, announced today that customers of Etricity (Hwy 3 MPH, LLC) are being switched to alternate retail electric providers due to the company’s default on financial obligations to ERCOT, as of 5 p.m., Tuesday. 

The number of customers being switched to alternate retail electric providers is 12,222, including 12,193 residential, 28 small non-residential, and one medium non-residential customers.  The size of the associated load is approximately 429 megawatt-hours per day. 

Using the timeline in the market rules, ERCOT began the switching process this morning. Most switching will be initiated by tomorrow. 

Residential customers by transmission provider are:

CenterPoint             7,080

Oncor                     4,950

AEP Central                  28

Texas New Mexico Power     134

AEP North               1

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 Etricity to a designated provider-of-last-resort (POLR) will be notified in accordance with PUC rules which require both the defaulting retail electric provider and the new provider to notify the customer.   

The POLR service is designed as a temporary safety net assuring continuous electric service if a retail electric provider leaves the market and customer accounts are not sold or transferred to a competitor.  POLR rates may be high priced due to planning costs, so any Etricity customer who receives notice that they are on a POLR rate, should immediately review the notice and contact the provider or a different provider to enroll in another plan. 

Customers may shop for a new price plan at the PUC’s Power to Choose Web site:

http://www.powertochoose.org/ 

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 should contact the PUC Consumer Hotline, 1-888-782-8477, or go to the PUC’s Consumer Web Site.