More bile-inducement today on word that TXU, those fine folks who may be in a competitve situation in retail power supply (MAY be - big emphasis on MAY be), but are clearly still a monopoly when it comes to wholesale power production, were violently having their way with the public during the summer of 2005. It now looks like TXU was purposefully withholding electricity during the hottest months of the year in an effort (a successful effort, btw) to boost prices.
According to a Public Utilities Commission report, TXU withheld power from the "balancing energy market", the real-time power auction used to meet demand in a just-in-time manner, throughout the summer of 2005.
The telling paragraph from the DMN story:
The effect: Power prices on the balancing energy market, whose cost is
shared by electricity providers, increased by an average of 15.5 percent during
peak periods. That increased the overall costs to the market by $70 million and
earned TXU about $19.6 million more profit than it would have made if it had bid
in a competitive manner, the report said.
Steve Blow wrote a column, also in today's paper, which I think does not go nearly far enough in blasting this bunch of crooks. How is this ANY different from the crap Enron pulled?
Vomit!
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