Recently in the local news is was anounced that TXU was going to be raising rates 24%. To this I say – WTF? $110 bill now becoming a $150 bill? Wasn’t the purpose of the deregulation to not only give consumers a choice, but also help them save money? How exactly are we saving money when TXU does control all of the lines of power and sells blocks to other, smaller companies at what I would assume would be a lower rate, which they in turn sell to their customers for a rate that is only slightly lower than that of TXU? But then even if your provider is not TXU your rates will go up along with those of the TXU customers because TXU will charging your provider more?

About the only people who are glad that TXU rates are going up are the shareholders (their stock went up when the hike was announced).

I have been trying to research the whole electricity deregulation issue, looking for information on what happened in California. I read a transcript where one expert on the issue was saying that dereglation should be reversed and electricity should be controlled by one (possibly government) entity. Don’t remember the exact wording, but his point was basically how can you have competition with something that is passed through the same lines? You have the cable vs. satellite, but the cable is one set of lines and the satellite is a different set, that may also come through a cable in your wall, but that cable is attached to a dish on your roof, and this must be installed. When one entity is controlling the power you receive in one way or another, how is that deregulation?

For what it is worth, that is my understanding of this issue. Not sure if I have it right (and I am still looking into all of this) but I do know one thing – from what I read about the latest hike, it has something to do with the way the new deregulation laws are worded, giving TXU the power to jack the rates up (again) with the approval of the state. I wanna say I remember back before the deregulation, TXU would ask for a certain rate hike percentage, but there were times when the state would not approve what they were asking for, but would approve a lower rate. If I have something wrong here, please correct me, and provide links (for me to include in my reading on this issue).