Who’s Who in the Texas Electricity Market: Power Generation Companies
By energy_linguist, September 14, 2009, FAQs
The final piece in the puzzle that is the Texas electricity market, the Power Generation Company.
A power generation company owns and operates the power plants (coal, nuclear, natural gas and some renewables) responsible for the dirtiest and most taxing job in Texas energy: making electricity hum. A power generation company, according to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, generates electricity intended to be sold at wholesale and does not own a transmission or distribution facility in this state.
Essentially, a power generation company produces and packages the power they generate for the wholesale market, selling to Retail Electric Providers like Bounce Energy who then package and redistribute in conjunction with a local Transmission and Distribution Service Provider (TDSP).
On paper, it looks a bit like this:
- Power generated, sent to the grid
- Power distributed and sold to REP
- REP handles service and billing
- TDSP ensure reliability and maintains power via transmission lines, ensures distribution, reads meters, etc.
- REP sells to customer
Of course, the steps are more robust than this, but in essence a power generation company is the first stop on the Texas electricity conveyor belt, ensuring things like peak load, capacity, safety, etc. are monitored and maintained as power is generated for consumption.
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