The biggest electric power cooperative in Texas revived a fight over whether utilities and consumers should pay for billions of dollars in electricity charges imposed by state regulators during February’s extreme winter storm, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc., which collapsed into bankruptcy in March, filed court papers on Sunday challenging the right of the state’s grid operator to collect roughly $1.9 billion for electricity supplied during winter storm Uri. Brazos said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas violated its own rules on how to respond to extreme situations, such as when demand far exceeds available supply of electricity. The cooperative had said it filed for bankruptcy because it was unable to meet demands from Ercot, which raised electricity rates to the peak price of $9,000 per megawatt hour during the storm, compared with an average of roughly $22 per megawatt hour last year. A law passed last month empowers and mandates utilities to cover the costs of winter storm Uri by selling securitized debt backed by user surcharges. The legislation “didn’t provide the kind of relief Brazos was looking for, the cooperative’s lawyer Louis Strubeck said at a court hearing yesterday. While Brazos plans to explore securitization financing of some of its bills, it also plans to challenge part of the charges, he said.
