Summary of Georgetown Electric Fiasco

An excellent article recently appeared describing the financial fiasco that Georgetown has created with their municipally owned electric company. Here are several of the salient quotes from the article: Forbes

The City of Georgetown, Texas, and its mayor, Dale Ross, have become known internationally over the past couple of years due to the city’s claim that its municipal electricity utility uses 100% renewable energy.

But as recent developments show, Georgetown’s proverbial 15 minutes of fame came at great cost to taxpayers and electricity ratepayers. Mayor Ross can get on television. But can he fix a pothole?

First, some background about Texas’ electricity market. In 2002, the Texas electricity market moved from a heavily regulated system to a market based system. Most electric customers, except for El Paso and parts of the Panhandle and East Texas, can choose their energy supplier. As a result, millions of consumers have shopped for lower prices, and Texans pay less for the electricity they use than the national average. There are exceptions though: consumers served by electric cooperatives and municipal utilities can’t choose their electric providers.

First, Georgetown just announced that it is renegotiating its wind and solar energy contracts after energy costs came in about $23.1 million over budget in 2016 and 2017. This year, the city—meaning the city’s taxpayers—paid $8.6 million more for electricity than expected due to falling electricity prices. The city made up $1.8 million of the shortfall by not spending as much as budgeted on investments in electric infrastructure. So much for getting a good deal for the taxpayer.

And here is the money quote!

As for Georgetown’s claim of 100% renewable electricity, Charles McConnell, executive director of the Energy and Environment Initiative at Rice University, told the Austin American-Statesman in 2017, “It’s not kind of misleading, it’s very misleading, and it is for political gain.”