National Power Attempts to Pull one Over on the PUCT and Texas Consumer

In Texas energy is exceptionally high. Many consumers enjoy being able to lock into a 12 month fixed electric rate that will not change the entire term of the contract. NPC Co attempted to renege.

Back in 2002 Texas deregulated the Texas electric market and did so quite well. In fact in Texas the federal government sees the success of deregulation in this state as the benchmark they hope all other states will copy when transitioning to a competitive retail electricity market. One of the main issues that has arisen with Texas deregulation is with electric providers in Texas reneging on their electric agreements with their customers. What has happened in the past is an energy provider will advertise a fixed electric rate to customers letting them know the rate is fixed and will not change for the term of the agreement. Some of these providers will then change the electric rate on them midway through the contract. The reason an electric provider will raise the fixed electric rate on a customer is because they may not have hedged their energy like they were supposed to do and instead were betting that the market would go their way. Betting on the market sometimes doesn't work and so the Texas electric company must then raise their electric rate much higher then they may have intended to do. One recent example of an electric provider in Texas attempting to raise their customers fixed electric rate is with National Power and Riverway Power. These two companies almost mimicked each other in their attempt to raise their customers electric rates. This type of fraudulent bait and switch tactic by National Power is a clear example of what the Deceptive Trade Practices Act forbids and if a company takes money at the higher electric rate they could be liable for their fraud scheme. This is only one example of some of the dirty little tricks some of the energy companies in Texas have attempted on the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas consumer.

Fortunately, the Public Utility Commission listened to over 300 complaints sent in by disgruntled National Power customers who were ready to go class action on National Power Company. Letters, email, and phone calls went out to all official positions in the Texas government, National Power Company, and many other websites, consumer organizations, and other related news companies. In the end the Texas consumer won and the web once again assisted in fighting for the consumer as one large collective.

Texas just does not have Affordable Energy right now and there is no telling when the states electric rates will come back down. If anything we atleast need to protect the customer from the mistakes of the electric provider. A contract is not meant to be broken and when it is it is up to the consumer to fight to make sure future Texas customers do not have the very same thing happen to them again. It looks like the PUCT and government has waken up as this type of thing has happened before and the government sided with the energy provuder rather then the consumer.