PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

Just days before Houstonians will be able to share their honest thoughts about CenterPoint Energy with the Texas Public Utilities Commission, the company’s top man has agreed to interview exclusively with KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding.

CenterPoint Energy plans to withdraw its 2024 rate case filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUC).

Jason Wells told regulators the company will launch a new outage tracker by Aug. 1. It will also trim more tree limbs near power lines and hire an executive to focus on emergency response.

The company’s power outages in July have drawn the ire of state leaders. Here’s what you need to know.

California regulators have approved an expansion that will allow two rival robotaxi service to operate throughout San Francisco at all hours.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo discussed the county’s extreme heat preparedness following a meeting with officials from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the Public Utilities Commission of Texas and Harris County Emergency Management.

The meeting started by detouring a bit and, instead of taking public comments, the PUC answered some questions from callers which included billing questions. Second, PUC representatives said they will likely not re-price the energy market like some senators and independent market monitors had suggested. ERCOT’s vice president Kenan Ogelman explained to state senators those storm-related prices are why it is owed more than $2 billion from energy companies that cannot pay their bill. He said the storm was causing fluctuating prices, which can inadvertently put a power producer in reserve status. ERCOT’s Technical Advisory Committee has scheduled a special meeting at 1 p.m. to review the cold weather event.

The decision is the latest of several recently announced departures from the ERCOT board, which also included Magness. Magness's absence leaves a mix of vacancies and temporary members on the 16-member ERCOT board. She had come under sharp criticism by lawmakers after largely pointing blame for Texas’ power outages to ERCOT, the entity her agency oversees. Magness also defended ERCOT as an entity that carries out what state lawmakers and the PUC direct. Magness worked at ERCOT for more than a decade and became its CEO and president in 2016 after working as its general counsel.

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)LOS ANGELES – Facing extreme wildfire conditions this week that included hurricane-level winds, the main utility in Northern California cut power to nearly 1 million people while its counterpart in Southern California pulled the plug on just 30 customers to prevent power lines and other electrical equipment from sparking a blaze. Red flag warnings of extreme fire danger expired and easing winds allowed PG&E to begin restoring power after the largest of five safety shutoffs this year. At its peak, PG&E cut power to about 345,000 customers — nearly 1 million people — in 34 counties. As of Tuesday night, only about 2,000 of Edison's 5 million customers were without power, according to an outage website. “Obviously, you can say in retrospect that it would have been better if SCE cut power where the line was.

If mishandled, the outages could also endanger the lives of people being supported by medical devices after contracting COVID-19. Critics now worry PG&E will lean on deliberate blackouts to reduce the chances its equipment starts more wildfires that saddle it with staggering losses. Batjer emphasized that PG&E can only use the outages as a last resort." Despite all its recent work on its grid, PG&E expects to be making further improvements for years to come in a process known as hardening." But that is only a fraction of the 7,100 miles (11,400 kilometres) of distribution circuits that the utility believes needs to be hardened.