A year after a historic winter storm left millions of Texans without power for days, the state’s largest electrical co-op is set to open its case in bankruptcy court in Houston today, contending that it was overcharged hundreds of millions of dollars by the Texas grid operator, the Houston Chronicle reported. Waco-based Brazos Electric, which serves 1.5 million customers in Central Texas, argues that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas broke rules governing the state’s power market when it set power prices at the $9,000 per megawatt hour price cap — more than 300 times the normal price. The elevated price was meant to lure generators to quickly return frozen power plants back online. The case is set to be heard by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones, who will decide what portion of the $1.9 billion ERCOT bill Brazos needs to pay, with the money distributed among power generators and other market partcipants. Claims by other creditors, including $180 million owed to natural gas suppliers like Koch Energy Services and French energy giant TotalEnergies, will be heard later.
