CPS Energy’s ERCOT power sales buoyed its financial metrics

CPS Energy generated $190 million more than it had planned selling surplus power in 2023, a windfall that boosted the utility’s overall finances and spurred trustees to approve spending more on a program that helps its poorest customers pay their bills. The decision came as CPS voted to approve its annual debt and financing plan this week. “It allows for more system improvements than we had planned,” Chief Financial Officer Cory Kuchinsky said of the windfall from excess power generation.

Behind City Council’s 60-hour dash to spend an extra $20 million in CPS Energy revenue Trustee John Steen, who cast the lone vote against the finance plan, shared long-held concerns that the utility is managing its debt poorly. As evidence, he cited the current $163 million in past due bills that the one-time influx of revenue didn’t solve.

CPS Energy customer bills down as generation costs slip; its wholesale power sales jump “Doing nothing is not an option,” CEO Rudy Garza said in response to Steen’s concerns. “We’ve got to invest in our system, and there’s only two places you go to do that: our customers or the markets.” Garza said that if CPS is going to keep rates affordable, it will have to continue being “smart about the use of debt capacity.

With 207,000 accounts past due, CPS Energy pushes installment plans to get customers caught up Steen said CPS management was continuing to downplay the problem, emphasizing that 196,000 of its roughly 1.3 million customers are behind on their bills. Board of trustees Chair Janie Gonzales reiterated it’s unrealistic to undo the fallout from the pandemic over just a couple years. Help paying bills Trustees voted unanimously to increase the number of customers eligible for bill pay assistance.

City approves 4.25% CPS Energy rate hike, the second in two years. The program had 65,00 customers enrolled as of Jan. 31. As of February, it added about 3,000 more, with plans to raise the number to 80,0000. Under the current poverty threshold, nearly 140,000 CPS customers are eligible for the program. Under the new criteria, that number would increase to about 200,000 customers. Steen asked whether expanding eligibility was part of a strategy to get past-due bills down.

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