Archive for the ‘Texas Electric Rates’ Category
By Cyman Harrison
Knowing the hands of Texas Hold’em is so important you shouldn’t play it if you don’t. If you have to ask questions about hands during the game, you’ll give your hand away. It’s as simple as that.
To avoid embarrassment and begin to understand the game and the reasons you want the cards you do, check out the following hand rankings:
The Royal Straight Flush is a rare and beautiful creature in poker. It is the unicorn of poker. Even if you played every day of your life, you will rarely see one and even more rarely actually get one yourself. It is like the hole in one in golf. It is a straight. It is a flush. And it is made up of the highest cards in the deck. Look for an ace, king, queen, jack and ten of the same suit.
The Straight Flush is slightly less lackluster than it’s more royal counterpart, but exciting and wonderful nonetheless. This hand is still rare and made up of five cards of the same suit, ranked in succession. An example would be the six, seven, eight, nine, ten of clubs in one hand.
Next, you’ll be wanting the four of a kind. This is pretty obvious. You have a four of a kind when get four cards of the same number. Look for four kings, four tens, or four fives for instance.
The Full House is also a pretty good hand. It happens when you have three cards of one type and two cards of another type. To determine whether or not one full house ranks higher than another, look at the set of three cards first. The one that is larger wins. For instance three jacks and two tens beats three tens and two jacks.
A flush is something special, too. If you have five cards of the same suit, you’re laughing, but be careful to hide your glee. You don’t want to give your opponents an advantage. If there are multiple flushes, look for the hand with the highest card in the flush. An example of a flush would be a three, seven, ten, queen, and ace of diamonds.
After a flush, you’re looking for a straight. This is when there are five cards in your hand that rank in succession. The ace can be played as either a high card or low card. Straights are very common in Texas Hold’em. Look for an eight of hearts, ten of spades, jack of diamonds, queen of hearts, and king of clubs for example.
The three of a kind is a more lowly creature, but it wins its fair share of hands. If you hit one of these with a pocket pair and one in the community cards, it’s called “a set.” If you have two cards in the flop and one in your hand, it’s called a “three of a kind.” Look for three fours, three queens, or three aces for example.
Two pair comes next. This is when your best five poker cards create a pair twice. Look for two aces and two queens or two fives and two threes for instance.
One pair is next. It’s pretty self explanatory. Look for one pair in your hand. For instance, two threes or two jacks.
High card is the next hand in the ranking. This happens when you don’t get anything and your hand only counts for the high card. Even if you had an ace, a pair of twos could beat you.
About the Author: Cyman Harrison writes for several Texas Holdem websites including http://www.PokerTipsandStrategies.com which provides resources to help poker players improve their skills. Do you want to WIN more at Texas Holdem? Get your FREE Poker Guide at: http://www.holdemadvancedstrategy.com/texas-holdem.html
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=117568&ca=Recreation
Link:
Tags: ace, card, don, flush, hand, high, highest, kind, pair, queen, straight, ten, texas
By Cyman Harrison
When a group of poker players sits around a table, the pressure is on. The blinds have been placed and the pocket hands dealt. Each player looks at his or her cards and watches each other, wondering what each hand holds and where the game is going. Everyone is anxious to win, attempting to maintain their control against the increasing excitement of the game. The betting ensues and the flop is revealed. The excitement dies for some and increases for others. More betting and the players are wondering if they’ve bet too much, or too foolishly. Other wonder if they bet too little or shouldn’t have bet at all. Thus the pressure to bet and win often overcomes each player as they make or break their way to the showdown.
What many players often don’t realize is that winning at Texas Hold’em isn’t about guts or dealing with pressure. It isn’t about recognizing tells in your opponents. It isn’t about bluffing or making the big bets. Winning at Texas Hold’em is about patience, restraint and prudence. This is especially true for Online poker. Experts have said time and time again, that to win at Texas Hold’em, a tight and aggressive strategy is required. Yet, too many people let their excitement and their emotion get away from them, influencing their hand and ultimately causing a loss. And even fewer apply this strategy to their long-term poker lifestyle.
Sometimes people can encounter weeks or months of bad cards. A good poker player learns to ride it out. Betting on bad cards will only cause them more lost money and more frustration. Poker is a game that is won over the long run. There are no rushed bets in professional poker. The best players know that the game has a lot of highs and lows and the only way to play is to remain steady and consistent.
Instead of measuring your success by how much you win or lose each hand or each game, you should measure your success by how much you have won or lost over the period of a month. If you played well, you should have turned a profit. If you haven’t turned a profit, you should ask yourself whether or not you waited patiently for each hand or betted needlessly on busted hands and played too often.
Even if you only play the best hands, you can still be acting too impulsively by putting too much money in. And then, not noticing when another play continues to call or raise your bets. You need to recognize your hands a bust and write off the loss, instead of continuing to bet on a busted hand like it’s the nuts.
When you’re playing too many hands, you’re not being selective enough and you’re not being patient enough. Relax and wait for the good cards. Sometimes this can get boring, but don’t let it loosen up your game. Combat boredom by only playing when you’re alert. It’s your best defense against new players.
What’s that story about the rabbit and the turtle again? Oh yeah, “slow and steady wins the race.”
About the Author: Cyman Harrison writes for several Texas Holdem websites including http://www.PokerTipsandStrategies.com which provides resources to help poker players improve their skills. Do you want to WIN more at Texas Holdem? Get your FREE Poker Guide at: http://www.holdemadvancedstrategy.com/texas-holdem.html
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=117813&ca=Recreation
Go here to see the original:
Tags: cards, don, hand, hold, long, loss, play, played, player, poker, profit, win, winning
By Cyman Harrison
Texas Hold’em can be a pretty mysterious game. Although the community cards allow all the players an insight into each other’s hands, they won’t tell the whole truth. Players who can use this to their advantage while bluffing, will find winning easier than not. And players who can ascertain when others are bluffing, will find winning is the name of the game.
Here’s what you need to know:
First, the two cards in your hand are the only two cards that can help you to win. They are the only cards that set you apart from your opponents. And, they are the only two cards that you have that the other players aren’t aware of.
And second, the community cards are there for everybody. So, if there are four spades showing, chances are that your flush isn’t the only one.
The reason you need to know this is so that you can focus not only on what those cards mean to you, but on what those cards mean to everyone else. The most important two hands to watch your opponents for are their straight and flush possibilities.
In order to bluff successfully, you need to be careful not to let on anything that you don’t want the others to know. For instance, this can mean holding out on betting until a later round, or betting smaller or larger than you think your hand warrants. It also means controlling your body physically. For instance, sharp intakes of breath, sweating, flushed cheeks, tapping fingers, fidgeting, eye movements, facial expressions, lip biting and many other movements can indicate to others whether your hand is good or bad. This is especially true if you are consistently repetitive with these gestures.
Checking is one way to prevent your opponents from understanding your hand. They may think your hand is weaker than it is and it protects you from betting too early.
Another way to bluff is to consistently raise and to push your opponents to the point that they believe you have an excellent hand. The strategy behind this type of bluffing is to get your opponents to bet early on at reasonable or high amounts and then fold later in the hand as you increase your bets considerably.
To see if your opponents are bluffing against you, simply read the cards. If the community cards look good, their hand could be the real thing. However, good community cards are good for everybody and they may not be the only one with a good hand. If the community cards are bad, raises could signal a high pocket pair or a straight or flush possibility. By reading the cards, watching for tell-tale signs from your opponents and monitoring betting behavior, you should be able to tell when your opponents are for real and when it’s a bluffing game.
About the Author: Cyman Harrison writes for several Texas Holdem websites including http://www.PokerTipsandStrategies.com which provides resources to help poker players improve their skills. Do you want to WIN more at Texas Holdem? Get your FREE Poker Guide at: http://www.holdemadvancedstrategy.com/texas-holdem.html
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=116995&ca=Recreation
Link:
Tags: bad, bet, bluff, bluffing, cards, consistently, game, good, hand, holdem, instance, opponents, players, texas
By Dan Ford
Defensive driving refers to a state of knowledge. This state of knowledge involves the intricate knowledge of the road and mechanics of driving. The goal is to help drivers not only drive well, but drive safely when others around them make driving conditions poor. Texas offers several different defensive driving schools. Defensive driving schools in Texas are often available online. Four of these include Online Defensive Driving, a Sense of Humor Driving, Get Defensive, and Texas Defensive Driving Online.
Online Defensive Driving
One school that is based in Texas that is meant to help the Texan driver handle him or herself defensively is Interactive Online Defensive Driving. The program is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The course is segmented into six different sections. Then there is a test at the end. The computer will be the grader of the test and you will have the certificate sent to you.
A Sense of Humor Driving
One program that is centered in the state of Texas is A Sense of Humor Driving School. The sections include an introduction, the traffic safety problem, the student profile, the top 5 moving violation causing crashes, attitude, feelings, habits and emotions, driving challenges, traffic laws, procedures and driving emergencies, protective equipment, organ donation. There are also sections on seat belts, road signs, defensive driving strategies, road rage, DWI, and jeopardy.
Get Defensive
Get Defensive.Com offers another option for Texas drivers. The course is easy and can be done online. The site keeps track of the progress and offers help for course takers.
The course itself is based on defensive driving. There are statistics, animations, driving examples, videos showing the difference in signs, traffic lights and more.
The course is complete when the final exam is taken.
Texas Defensive Driving Online
Finally, there is the Texas Defensive Driving Online. The course is self paced. In other words, you can take the course in how ever much time it takes you to take it. You can retake the final exam. The defensive driving course is a six hour course and covers 12 chapters, with quizzes available after each chapter.
About the Author: John Mancini has been writing about defensive driving online and offline for a long time. Visit http://best-driving-schools.info or http://www.defensivedrivingschools.net to read more about matters like online traffic schools and Texas defensive driving schools.
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=12620&ca=Automotive
Read the original here: Defensive Driving Schools In Texas: The Four Texas Online Sites You Need To Know!
Free Backlinks
Tags: chapter, day, driving, exam, final, humor, road, sense, texas, traffic
By Cyman Harrison
As playing poker become more and more popular, it is increasingly more important for every day people to understand the importance of the game. Many people will be asked to play or watch the game in social situations and knowing how to play the game and knowing how the game works can make playing and watching more interesting and more fun. No one wants to be left out and the game provides an excellent past time for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Poker is a card game that requires that players vie for a central pot full of chips that may or may not represent money. The pot is awarded to the player with the best combination of cards or to the player who makes an uncalled bet.
Poker is a game with hundreds of variations, but all versions follow the same basic pattern. The dealing position rotates among all the players. This position is normally marked by a dealer button. In a casino, a house dealer handles the cards for each hand, and the button is rotated clockwise among the players to help the dealer determine the order of betting.
In some versions of poker, players are required to make forced bets called blinds or antes at the beginning of each hand to help raise the action in the game. The dealer shuffles, cuts and the cards are dealt to the players, one at a time, in a clockwise direction. After the deal, the first of several betting grounds begins. As the rounds progress, the players hands develop and the betting continues as more cards are dealt or previously dealt cards are replaced. All bets are gathered into the central pot.
When players bet during the betting round, opponents are required to fold, call or raise. If no opponents choose to match the bet or raise, the hand ends immediately and the bettor wins the pot. No cards are required to be shown and the next hand begins. Because the hand is not revealed, bluffing is possible.
If more than one player remains at the end of the last betting round, there will be a showdown. All remaining players must reveal their hands. The player with the best hand ranking wins the pot.
The three most popular variants of poker are draw poker, stud poker and community card poker.
In draw poker, players receive five or more cards, which are hidden and then can replace these cards a certain number of times throughout a hand.
In stud poker, players receive cards one a time, some of which are displayed to their opponents.
In community card poker, such as the ever popular Texas Hold’em, players receive hidden pocket cards one at a time and then receive other community cards which are displayed on the poker table.
Poker has been around for hundreds of years. Learning at least one variation of the game is time well spent. If you’re not sure which version to learn, try Texas Hold’em. It’s the most popular variant on the market today.
About the Author: Cyman Harrison writes for several Texas Holdem websites including http://www.PokerTipsandStrategies.com which provides resources to help poker players improve their skills. Do you want to WIN more at Texas Holdem? Get your FREE Poker Guide at: http://www.holdemadvancedstrategy.com/texas-holdem.html
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=118015&ca=Recreation
Original post: Texas Holdem – Learn To Play Texas Hold’em Poker In Minutes
Hair Loss Treatment
Tags: card, dealer, hand, player, poker, popular, pot, raise, receive, required, time
By Sean Wheller
Last year (2008) was a tough year for South African households. As interest rates rose 7 times, mortgage bonds killed excess cash in household budgets. Adding to the problems, petrol prices sawed making an already difficult situation even harder.
Adding to the problems South Africans were faced with “load shedding” power failures to decrease the load on the utility companies which couldn’t cope anymore with the high demand on the infrastructure.
Hot on the heels of the “load shedding” debacle, South Africans received the news that Electricity Prices will have to be increased.
Depending on area, utility prices were hiked between 14% and 20% in various areas to upgrade infrastructure, once again placing additional financial pressure on households.
Utility companies have stated that increases are not flat rate but per usage. In other words, the more you use the higher tariffs you pay. For this they created prices breaks per usage. This in turn created a situation where the household has become responsible for using less electricity in order to avoid the higher bracket tariff rates. But how would a household use less, when they only find out how much they use when the bill arrives? At which point it is of course too late to turn back the clock and reduce usage.
Both households and commercial properties need the use of a system that can help them monitor consumption on an ongoing-basis during the month. Greater transparency into ongoing consumption creates greater awareness with which people can take steps to cut usage and conserve in order to reduce consumption before the bill arrives.
For this reason, many residential houses, landlords with tenants and commercial premises have started to use secondary prepaid meters. Such meters enable daily monitoring of use by way of a digital display. When one sees the usage daily, one can take action based on this input. One can replace old devices, trying new devices that are more electricity efficient, switch off lights when and where these are not necessary, etc.
Furthermore, there is no longer a need to budget for electricity usage. Once the usage is prepaid, one can reduce the usage for that budget to last longer. It helps both with budgets and especially with better cash flow in households.
Since the increases in electricity tariffs more tenants both residential and commercial are asking landlords to install secondary meters simply for monitoring purposes. Once installed a very interesting phenomena has been found. Many users of prepaid electricity meters significantly change the electricity usage habits.
Electrical heaters are replaced with cheaper heaters that use gas, geyser timers are installed. Geysers are one of the largest contributors to domestic electricity bills. Timers enable users to switch on their geyser for only a few hours in the day during periods when hot water is required. Other people are buying electricity saving light bulbs, they are far more expensive than normal light bulbs but can cut 1000′s in the electricity bill for many months.
In summary, it was found that prepaid electricity was once considered a bad thing because you have to dish out the money in advance, proved to be extremely useful when reducing the use of electricity and therefore the month electricity bill.
One of the major barriers to people and commercial properties using prepaid electricity was payment habit. Why pay in advance, when you can deal with it later? However, since the increases in electricity tariffs, this barrier has been lowered. Consumers that were once unhappy about prepaying for electricity are now happy that prepaid meters have been installed. They never thought they could save so much in electricity until they started monitoring their own use.
About the Author: Sean Wheller is the founder of www.PrePaidMeters.co.za, a PrePaid Metering provider, dedicated to create efficiency in metering electricity and water for the benefit of both tenants and landlords.
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=363647&ca=Home+Management
Go here to see the original: Decreasing Electricity Costs With PrePaid Electricity Meters
Anti Aging Cream
Tags: bill, budget, consumption, geyser, meters, monitoring, people, prepaid, rate, south, usage
By Bounce Energy
Everyone in the state of Texas is familiar, even if they don’t understand why, of the fact that their electricity bills might rise and fall from month to month depending on the time of the year. For Texans, this fact is specifically true in the summertime. But what might be curious to people is how this happens, even if a customer has a fixed rate plan and fastidiously keeps their thermostat at the same setting, month in and month out throughout the course of the year. So if this is the case, why does your electricity bill fluctuate? Well, there are many different reasons, but unquestionably, a huge factor that affects your electricity bill is the weather.
For Texans, lets start with what we’re most familiar with, which is the summertime. As I’ve said, everyone knows that our bills go up in the summer, and we know basically that this is because the summers in Texas get hotter. But why does this affect your electric bill? Well, to understand why this is, you need to wrap you head around the basic understanding of temperature and your electricity bill. For Texans, even if you keep your thermostat at 72 all year round, when it’s 100 degrees outside, suddenly your generators have to work to move the temperature down 28 degrees, when they might perhaps only have to work to move it 4 degrees from 68 to 72 in mid-October. That means that in the summer, the generators are working four times as hard to keep your apartment at a constant temperature. So the general rule is that the harder a generator has to work, the higher the cost of your electricity bill. Seems fairly simple, right?
Summer Weather and Your Electricity Bill
The same principle about electricity bills and the cost of cooling your place has other affects on the cost of your summer electricity as well. We’ve already discussed the effort it takes to keep the electricity in your home at a constant rate, and how that relates to the cost/amount of electricity you use. Well, that general idea also applies for the actual creation of electricity as well. If it takes more energy to keep your home cool in the summer, well, that extra electricity has to come from somewhere. This means that the actual generators that create the electricity for your home have to work harder (or more generators will have to be utilized) to make up for this increased need for energy. So not only are you using more electricity to get the same results, but the costs to generate the electricity for the local Transmission Distribution Service Provider (companies like ONCOR and Centerpoint) increase as well. Naturally, that increase in costs will be passed onto the Retail Electricity Provider who sells the electricity to the customer. And that increase will in a measure be passed onto the customer.
But lets reference this with a recent real world example that happened recently in the Texas electricity market. Recently, an electricity generator in Texas went offline for an extended period of time. Well, this put an extreme amount of strain on the other generators to keep up with the demand for all of the electricity customers in the state of Texas. They generators have to be run constantly. Imagine driving your car at 80 miles per hour for 24 hours straight. Eventually, something is going to happen, be it you’ll run out of gas, the car will overheat, or something inside will break. Now consider that this came at a time of peak summer heat and in the midst of an extremely brutal Texas drought, which has also been working overtime to make sure that Texas isn’t getting any kind of reprieve from the heat. So all things considered, you’re talking about a lot of factors that have been putting extreme stress on all of the generators in Texas, and one finally broke and went offline. So that’s one less generator to keep up with the same demand. So the weather and oppressive heat were a double-edged sword in this instance. The excessive drought and heat caused the generators to work overtime to keep up with the increased demand for customers to keep their homes and business cool. These two factors combined to essentially cause a generator to go offline. So before when the demand was at its peak, now there’s even one less generator helping to produce electricity and keep things cool. Ironically, this caused the price of electricity to go up even higher, which was a cost difference that had to be paid out by both the Retail Electricity Providers (REPs) like Bounce Energy, Reliant, TXU, etc. These companies who sell electricity to customers have to pay higher prices for them, and that cost is then passed onto the customers themselves. And all of this can be tied in directly to the oppressive summer weather in the state of Texas.
Winter and Your Electricity Bill
Well, we’ve taken a look at summer, but wintertime has its own set of ways in which it affects your electricity bill. Now, things are different in the State of Texas than they are in the northern states, for certain, but lets take a second to overview how it works all over. The same way that the summertime is the most expensive time of the year for Texas, in the northern states, the most expensive time of the year is the wintertime. Because in 15 or 20 degree weather, the cost of raising the temperature of a house to 70 degrees is much more expensive than trying to do it from 55 or 60. And the primary method of heating houses up north comes from Natural Gas consumption. So, again, the more natural gas that is consumed, the higher the cost of the natural gas because of the increased demand. One important thing to consider, not that it matters to a person’s pocket book, is that much like houses down in Houston with gas ranges, almost all houses up north have a natural gas bill and an electricity bill each month. Up north, it’s common for natural gas directly to be the source of heat in people’s individual homes, as where in Texas natural gas is used as fuel in the power plants to create the electricity people use in their homes to both heat and cool as well as turn on the lights. So when the winter sets in, it’s the gas bill that goes up, not necessarily their electricity bills. But at the end of the day, we’re still talking about an increase in everyone’s utility bills in the wintertime. And the take away here is simply a further illustration that the different weather and the seasons have a strong effect on the costs of a person’s individual electric bills.
General Weather and Catastrophes and Your Electricity Bill
It probably goes without saying, but there are other weather events that can affect your electricity bills, most of these are a lot more obvious but are still worth mentioning. On the largest scale would be weather catastrophes, such as tornadoes and hurricanes. Obviously these things, if they disrupt your local power plants or power lines, are going to disrupt your electricity flow. Floods and mudslides, volcanic eruptions, obviously anything that makes a news broadcast as some kind of weather event is going to inevitably come with electricity disruptions. But other minor events can also affect things as well. In the north, ice storms can cause tree branches to snap and knock down power lines, or even damage electricity generators, which again will affect electricity flow. Freezing is less common in the south, but flooding happens regularly and has been known to cause electricity disruptions as well. Granted, all of the things I’ve listed in this section are in the nature of cutting off your electricity, which at the end of the month will mean a lower bill, as opposed to the main theme of what I’ve been writing about, which is ways in which the weather will cause your electricity bill to fluctuate. Still, it’s interesting to consider just how every facet of the weather can affect your electricity bill on a month to month basis.
About the Author: Bounce Energy is a Texas Electric Company based in Houston. Bounce Energy’s goal is provide more than low Texas Electric Rates to our customers. With innovative and flexible plans, excellent customer service, and superior customer rewards, Bounce Energy offers a unique approach to Texas electricity.
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=411289&ca=Home+Management
Read the original here: How Weather Effects Your Texas Electricity Bill
Electronic Cigarette
Tags: affect, bill, demand, energy, gas, natural, summer, time, weather, work, year
By Bounce Energy
TDSP stands for Transmission/Distribution Service Provider. That probably doesn’t mean all that much to the average Texan, although I’d wager it’s only the term that is unfamiliar, and not actually the companies themselves. But first, let’s take a quick look at what a TDSP is exactly, and what their role is in energy service after Texas became deregulated.
History of the TDSP in Texas Electricity
When the state of Texas deregulated, it forced the incumbent companies (like Reliant, TXU, etc) to break up into different pieces. Before the electric companies provided full scale electricity service, which included maintenance of the electricity infrastructure and getting electricity from the plants to the customers, from start to finish (with a few exceptions). When the state of Texas deregulated, that practice made way for individual Retail Electricity Providers (REPs). At this point, it became a conflict of interest for the already existing former Incumbents to retain ownership of their own Transmission and Distribution systems, as it would create an obvious competitive advantage for the bigger and already established companies.
At the same time, it was also illogical and unreasonable to expect smaller and newly created REP’s to have to build and create their own infrastructure for delivering electricity to their customers. One, it would create excessive redundancy that would be expensive and serve no purpose, and two, the amount of money it would take to construct an infrastructure from scratch would act as immediate barriers of entry for new companies, defeating the entire purpose of deregulation in the first place.
The Difference between a TDSP and the REP
The TDSP, as already mentioned, maintain the infrastructure for electricity transmission or distribution. The names you probably recognize include Centerpoint (split from Reliant), Oncor (Splint from TXU) Texas New Mexico Power Company, AEP North, and AEP Central. These are the TDSPs who own the power lines and come out to repair them when they go down. They’re also responsible for transmitting the electricity over those lines from the power generators and into a customer’s home. The electricity they own they sell to the REPs wholesale, and they also charge the REP’s monthly charges for the upkeep of the infrastructure.
So that is a quick overview of how the TDSPs work in the state of Texas. To use a metaphor that helps make the understanding easier, the TDSPs are like the guys who ship in all the popcorn, hot dogs, sodas and pretzels to the ballparks, which customers then walk up to counters and purchase at the concession stands. They essentially “stock the shelves” for the customers.
Power Generators in Texas Electricity
Being the leading crude-oil producing state in the U.S., Texas plays a vital role in the country’s overall energy capacity. Texas not only provides a quarter of the nation’s refining capacity with nearly 5 million barrels of oil processed per day, but also accounts for a quarter of total natural gas production as the nation’s leading producer.
So it goes without saying that power generation companies are not few and far between in the Lone Star State.
What is a Texas Power Generator?
Power generators or power generation companies use natural gas, coal, wind, nuclear, biomass and hydro to produce the power that Texas businesses, residents and commercial facilities count on. Power generation companies own and operate the power plants responsible for producing energy sold on the wholesale market to Retail Electric Providers in Texas, who of course turn around and package it for the consumer.
Texas power generation companies are responsible for a vast portion of the country’s energy capacity, with Texas specifically the leader in wind energy development throughout the entire U.S.
Major Texas Power Generators
There are of course numerous power generators in Texas and several subsidiaries that are responsible for generating the power placed on the grid and transmitted to homes and businesses across the state.
Here are the major players in Texas power generation:
“Luminant”:http://www.luminant.com/about/default.aspx
Luminant is a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings (EFH), formerly TXU Corp., and generates more than 16,100 megawatts (MW) of energy in Texas, including 2,300 MW of nuclear and 5,800 MW of capacity generated from coal. Luminant also happens to be the largest purchaser of clean electricity generated from wind in Texas and fifth largest in the United States.
“NRG Energy, Inc.”:http://www.nrgenergy.com/index.htm
Founded in 1989, NRG currently has a capacity of more than 24,000 MW across the globe, including nearly 11,000 MW in Texas. NRG also has full or part ownership in 44 power generation plants.
“Suez Energy”:http://www.suezenergyna.com/ourcompanies/energygen.shtml
Suez Energy Generation is located in the heart of energy land in Houston, Texas. Suez owns and operates 72 power, cogeneration, steam, and chilled-water facilities, with a total power capacity of more than 7,750 MW. Suez power generation facilities use various fuels to produce electricity, including renewable resources.
“Shell”:http://www.shell.com/
Providing the world’s first commercial gas liquification plant in 1964, Shell is one of the largest energy producers in the world, active in everything from gas-to-liquids, wind and solar energy to coal gasification technology. In addition to providing gasoline for automobiles across the country, Shell is also heavily involved in building and operating natural gas pipelines, and developing wind and solar technology.
Power generation companies are essentially the first line of a long conveyor belt that serves the Texas electricity market from generation to home and business. As the means to improve infrastructure and add additional power plants becomes available, Texas is generally at the front of the pack when it comes to producing energy in new, more ecological, efficient and abundant ways.
The Role of ERCOT in Texas
ERCOT is otherwise known as The Electricity Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT may not affect you directly, but through its actions helps insure you safe reliable electricity for your home.
What is ERCOT?
The Electricity Council of Texas (ERCOT) is a nonprofit corporation entity under NERC/FERC, which manages the flow of electricity and power to over 22 million Texas electricity consumers. ERCOT schedules power to an electric grid that covers over 38,000 miles of Texas Electricity Transmission, equivalent to 85% of the state’s electric load. ERCOT manages 75% of the deregulated electricity market in the state. ERCOT also oversees financial settlements for the wholesale bulk-power market in Texas as well as customer switching for more than 6.5 million Texans in deregulated areas.
What Role does ERCOT play in Texas Electricity Market?
The Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is overseen and regulated by The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT). The PUCT aids in ERCOT performing its role in the Texas electricity market by helping manage the power grid and ensuring that market rules are in place to protect consumers.
One of ERCOT’s major roles in the Texas Electricity Market is to ensure that consumers have reliable electric service. ERCOT performs this role by constantly monitoring and analyzing all power grid components every 2-4 seconds for status updates. ERCOT also directs the flow of electricity in conjunction with your local Transmission and Distribution Service Provider (TDSP) so you can have safe and reliable energy.
ERCOT also plays a huge role in the deregulated Texas Electricity Market. Now that people in Texas have the power to choose their own Retail Electric Provider (REP), ERCOT’s role is to help facilitate retail registration of energy and also help the switching process fpr Texas electricity companies and their customers.
Market Process and Participants
Although ERCOT is managed and regulated by the PUCT, it is not the key reason why ERCOT is able to fulfill its roles in the Texas Electricity Market. There are four major entities that help ERCOT perform its three processes in Texas: Qualified Scheduling Entities (QSE), Resource Entities (REs), Load Serving Entities (LSE), and the Transmission and Distribution Service Providers (TDSPs).
Market Operations:
Qualified Scheduling Entities (QSE) is the key part of the market operations of ERCOTs process. QSE submits daily schedules for their bilateral transactions with total generations and demand. QSEs also place bids for ancillary service and settle financial payments with ERCOT.
Power Operations:
Resource Entities are facilities that are represented by a QSE that has been approved and capable of providing energy. Resource Entities either own or manage a generation resource or has the option to act as a Load Acting as a Resource (LaaR) that correlates with ERCOT instructions to lower electricity usage or provide ancillary service.
The Transmission and Distribution Service Providers (TDSPs) transmit and delivers the electricity to a customer’s home or business along the poles and wires. This company is responsible for maintenance and repair of these poles wires.
Commercial Operations:
Load Serving Entities (LSE) provides electrical service to retail and wholesale customers. LSE includes competitive retailers that sell electricity in Texas in a competitive market.
The Texas Electricity Market in 2009
Deregulation provides not only unique benefits to the Texas electricity consumer, but also unique structural and logistical needs in order to ensure that electricity service across the state remains safe and reliable. Moving forward into 2009, the continued growth of deregulation in the Texas electricity market only serves to increase competition and foster more opportunity for affordable and reliable electric service.
Each of the players in the Texas electricity market detailed above are essential cogs in the wheel that ensure energy is generated in an efficient and cost-effective manner, that the wholesale and retail markets are maintained with consumer protection and good business practice in mind, and that ultimately the electricity reaches its final destination in a safe and ongoing, reliable manner.
About the Author: Bounce Energy is a Texas Electric Company based in Houston. Bounce Energy’s goal is provide more than low Texas Electric Rates to our customers. With innovative and flexible plans, excellent customer service, and superior customer rewards, Bounce Energy offers a unique approach to Texas electricity.
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=429892&ca=Advice
Follow this link: Who’s Who in the Texas Electricity Market Pt. 2
HGH Reviews
Tags: consumer, customer, electric, electricity, entities, ercot, generation, generator, infrastructure, market, power, provider, resource, service, texas
By Bounce Energy
Understanding what is new in the Texas electricity market as a direct result of deregulation and the introduction of competition can be a daunting task. Granted, not all Texans live in areas of the state where choosing an electricity provider is an option, but regardless, understanding the working pieces that drive Texas electricity will make all of us more informed energy consumers.
The following subjects will be addressed and clarified to help all Texans better understand the nature of the Texas electricity market:
* The Public Utility Commission of Texas and it’s role in protecting your electricity rights, in addition to specific responsibilities and regulations therein.
* The role of the Retail Electric Provider (REP).
* Transmission and distribution of electricity and its relationship to the power generators, REPs and the consumer.
* Power generators and their role in producing electricity and placing it on the grid.
* The Electricity Reliability Council of Texas and it’s role in the management of Texas electricity.
Each section will detail the important players, their responsibilities in the Texas electricity market and how each affects the energy bottom line for Texas businesses and consumers.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT)
What is the PUCT?
The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) is a local state agency responsible for the regulation of electric and telecommunications services. Its primary mission is to ensure consumer protections are in place, foster healthy competition and promote high quality and safe energy and telecommunication infrastructures.
In addition to operating a consumer information hot line, The PUCT also regulates rates and services of all investor-owned electric and local telephone companies, sets and maintains ongoing standards of service for regulated electric companies, and issues statewide franchises for cable TV and video services.
Here is a list of the consumer services that the PUCT does have authority to regulate:
* Long distance
* Wireless telecommunications service
* Gas
* Water
* Cable TV rates and content
* Rates established by municipal electric utilities
* Rates established by electric cooperatives
* Internet
* ISDN
What Role does the PUCT Play in Texas Electricity Service?
The PUCT is vitally important in the deregulated electricity market in Texas. Though it’s swiftly becoming more common knowledge that Texas is a mostly deregulated state for electricity, the mere fact that Texans do have the power to choose their electric provider is often lost in the fray of misinformation.
The PUCT is quite simply a consumer advocate for choice in the Texas electricity market. The PUCT is primarily responsible for regulating rates and terms of service for both transmission and distribution in Texas’ deregulated areas, oversight of the ERCOT market, managing renewable energy resources, ensuring consumer protections for retail electric service and more.
What the PUCT does not do is endorse particular electricity providers over another, which helps to foster competition and protect consumer rights that would not survive otherwise.
The PUCT and ERCOT
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the flow of electric power to 22 million Texas customers, managing a grid that carries more than 85 percent of the state’s electric load. ERCOT monitors and maintains nearly 40,000 miles of transmission line across 75 percent of Texas, amounting to a large portion of the state’s deregulated electricity areas.
The PUCT specifically provides oversight of ERCOT, ensuring that all market rules are thoroughly reviewed at the behest of public interests. ERCOT actually monitors system reliability as well, so when you think of the vast majority of the deregulated market in Texas, think ERCOT and it’s friendly PUCT neighbor.
The PUCT and Texas Electric Choice
The PUCT operates the Texas Electric Choice Web site that is devoted to providing information for consumers looking to switch electricity providers. The site details the benefits of switching, what Texas electric choice means to the consumer, PUCT regulated terms of service and consumer protections, general information about electricity deregulation in Texas and more.
The PUCT and Texas Electric Choice, or powertochoose.org, specifically provides electricity consumers with:
* Details about electric choice including the basics of the retail electric market in Texas, electricity generation, the transmission and delivery of electricity and how that is maintained, and the general safety and reliability of electricity service in Texas markets.
* General information about the PUCT and a link to their site.
* The process of switching electricity providers.
* Introduction to energy conservation, efficiency and general money saving tips.
* Questions to ask potential electricity providers.
* Understanding the choices consumers have when comparing providers.
* Offer information from Texas Retail Electric Providers (REPs)
Sources
“PUCT”:http://www.puc.state.tx.us/ocp/complaints/regulate.cfm
“ERCOT”:http://www.ercot.com/about/
“Power to Choose”:http://powertochoose.org/index.asp
The Role of the REP in Texas
There is a lot of confusion surrounding exactly how the electricity market works in the deregulated areas of Texas. Despite the fact that areas of the Texas electricity market have been deregulated for almost a decade, some people don’t really understand who the different players are in the Texas marketplace and the extent of their roles and responsibilities. However, the most forward facing and well-known players in the Texas electricity market are without a doubt the Retail Electricity Providers (REPs).
What is an REP?
REPs are common and well-recognized companies that provide you with the billing and customer service aspects of your electricity service. Reliant, TXU, Bounce Energy and Gexa are a few example of Texas electricity providers, or REPs. The biggest reason that these are the most known entities in the Texas energy market is the simple fact that the REP sends you a bill every month, in addition to handling turn on and turn off of service. First on their list of priorities and responsibilities is the customer relationship.
A Texas REP competes for your business by offering a a variety of rate plans, incentives and specials for new customers, renewable energy options and more.
What Exactly does an REP provide?
The life cycle of REP to customer goes something like this:
•Customers call up an REP like Bounce Energy or Reliant, and place an order for electricity service.
•The REP on the other end is then responsible for logging that order with the local TDSP (Transmission/Distribution Service Provider) and ensuring that electricity service will be turned on and ready at the specified date on the order.
•Once the service is turned on, it is the responsibility of the REP to monitor and bill a customer for their electricity usage and collect the outstanding debt.
•By the same token, when something goes wrong with a customer’s electricity service or there are any outstanding questions, it’s the REP’s role to field those calls and work with the customer to find the most satisfactory resolution possible.
So, to sum up, an REP is responsible for all of the customer-facing responsibilities in the Texas electricity market, from making sure the lights get turned on (and stay on) to billing the customer and providing customer service.
What Makes a Texas REP Unique?
So now that we understand at a basic level what a Retail Electricity Provider does, we should next take a look at what separates one REP from another as far as the customer is concerned. What separates each company is an illustration of one of the reasons the Texas electricity market was deregulated to begin with: Service.
The creation of competition in Texas forces companies to work harder to bring value to their customers in order to retain and attract new business. The most obvious value to a customer is lower prices, and at the end of the day, it’s obviously the most important. Competition in the market place forces companies to try and be as efficient as possible to keep their electric rates as close as possible to the market basement.
At the same time, there are other things that a good REP can offer to their customers. Excellent customer service and having a knowledgeable staff that can answer questions is a highly valued asset to an REP. One of the most common customer complaints among customers is waiting too long on hold or getting the run around from customer service and billing departments. Differentiating or weeding through the good versus the bad when choosing an electricity provider is an advantage that Texans in deregulated areas have.
REP’s in competitive areas usually offer versatile energy plans, such as low variable or fixed rates, or the chance for customers to order Green energy plans in order to entice new customers to sign up for service. Certain providers also offer incentives to their customers, like rebates, bill credits, airline miles and more.
The competition that is created by the deregulation of the Texas electricity market forces the different REPs to work as hard and as efficiently as possible to try and stay competitive with other companies in their marketplace. And since the REPs are responsible for the customer relationship in the Texas marketplace, that competition forces the REPs to offer the best rates, service, and overall value to the customers to make sure they keep their customer base as well as attract new. And at the end of the day, this benefits the customer, because not only do they have a number of options to find the best company for themselves, but the checks and balances created by the presence of competition helps keep the REPs honest.
About the Author: Bounce Energy is a Texas Electric Company based in Houston. Bounce Energy’s goal is provide more than low Texas Electric Rates to our customers. With innovative and flexible plans, excellent customer service, and superior customer rewards, Bounce Energy offers a unique approach to Texas electricity.
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=429891&ca=Advice
See the article here: Who’s Who in the Texas Electricity Market Pt. 1
Human Growth Hormone
Tags: consumer, customer, electricity, energy, ercot, provider, rate, rep, role, service, state
By Bounce Energy
Since deregulation began within the state of Texas at the turn of the millennium, Texans have learned as much or more about how electricity works than people in any other place in the world. Some of the lessons learned were great for the foundation of understanding how the market would affect customers in principle. Some of the lessons learned could be considered more symptomatic of the times than as part of the bedrock of how the market will always function.
One of the lessons that we’ve all learned and been taught to expect is that electricity rates will always go up, sometimes way up, during the summer heat season. The notion of the rate increasing and the bills increasing seems almost intuitive. And frankly, why wouldn’t it? Since the days before deregulation, Reliant’s rates jumped each summer from May – November.
Was the seasonal rate increase a product of additional expenses during that period? Greed? State mandate?
The reality of it is that it was almost exclusively a product of the companies incurring additional expenses in the summer time. But shouldn’t the cost of generating electricity more or less remain constant between the winter and the summer? The simple answer is usually “no”.
Why?
Given that it is much hotter in the summer within the state of Texas, more air conditioners are run, for both homes and businesses. It takes more A/C power to heat the same room at the same temperature as the outside heats up, too. The A/Cs have to run longer and later to keep homes and businesses cooled off. As more electricity is needed on a household by household basis, and a business by business basis, more electricity has to be generated and placed onto the state’s electricity grid. As that happens, more electricity generators need to be run to keep up with demand than in other times of the year. The generators that are forced to come on line during this period are usually more expensive to run for the provider – which is why they’re not the first generators online each day. When the generation becomes more expensive, the price increase is spread down the supply chain. The Retail Electricity Provider has to pay more and the customer, ultimately, has to pay more as well.
That makes it seem as though electricity rate increases really should be part and parcel to each year’s heat season. But should this always be the case? Perhaps not.
Often times, experts will speak about this cause and effect relationship and then divert on a tangent in regard to natural gas prices. Natural gas prices affect the price of electricity in a place like Texas because many of the less-used generators run on natural gas as fuel for generating the electricity. Natural gas, as opposed to coal, nuclear, or various other products also used to generate electricity within the grid, is a much more expensive and volatile product on the price side. As a for instance, last summer saw record electricity prices that correlated almost symmetrically with record natural gas prices. Heading into this summer, however, we find that as a market, natural gas prices have basically collapsed to points that we haven’t seen in more than half a decade. With that as a given, can’t we basically assume that prices won’t rise significantly? Yes, as part of the equation, as long as natural gas prices are lower, electricity prices will be lower. This is a foundational principle to how the market functions.
But that’s not the entirety of the story. Another variable within the equation is often ignored and typically, by the average trader and forecaster within the Texas market, dismissed as relevant because it is assumed to be a relative constant, is market demand for electricity. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s always a hot summer in Texas, right? Homes will always need to be cooled, right? Businesses will always be booming and consuming more and more energy to create more products, right?
Well, the truth to one of those questions is, it’s often a hot summer in Texas, so that assumption is ok.
On the question about home being cooled, well, homes always do need to be cooled, too. And so do apartments. But what happens if the mix of homes using electricity versus apartments using electricity ever dramatically shifts? Can less people living in homes drive the overall demand for electricity within the market down? Let’s think about it.
On average, home dwellers use about 1.5 times the amount of energy that is used by apartment dwellers. Overall, the residential demand within the Texas grid, in aggregate, is roughly 40% of the total electricity used. If the mix of home dwellers to apartment dwellers is historically 55% to 45% of the population within Texas, this would indicate that almost 70% of the residential electricity demand traditionally comes from home dwellers. That also means that home dwellers generally impact about 27-30% of the total demand within the Texas electricity market as whole. Let’s assume the 27-30% consumed by home dwellers within the market works for the summer, which is the most likely.
Now consider the possibility that a migration within the marketplace occurs from people living in homes to people living in apartments. In recessionary times, this is usually a reality and this recession is no different. Apartment communities are nearing capacity throughout Houston and Dallas, just as foreclosures rise and people move out of homes after layoffs and payroll decreases as an act of reducing expenses. Publicly available data on this is scarce, but we can use some of the information provided recently by http://HAR.com, which covers Houston real estate sales. This shows that more than 30% less new homes were sold in the Houston area over the first quarter this year and last. They’ve also released data disclosing that roughly 25% less existing homes were sold in the same time period. Meanwhile, foreclosure rates continue to increase, as do apartment occupancy rate. Extrapolate that across to Dallas as well and the numbers and demand within the overall market starts to look considerably different than years past. Specifically, a shift of that nature on the residential side of electricity usage translates into a relevant decrease in overall market demand for usage. The market clearing price for electricity within the market is based on what the last electricity generator selling electricity to the market has to charge to cover its costs. If the more expensive generators are impacted by that “demand destruction”, and given that since those generators are the last to be used, they are impacted, the prices are not going to see the potential exponential increase that those generators would create.
That portrays what role something as simple as a shift in dwelling type for Texas residents could do to the market.
What happens if demand destruction also exists on the business side of the market? Are businesses using less electricity today than they were a year ago in Texas?
The answer is that if demand destruction occurs on the business side, the need for excess, more expensive electricity capacity within the market would see an even sharper decrease than what we looked at on the residential end. Business usage is demonstrably higher than residential usage within the Texas market, as whole.
So are businesses using less electricity today than this time last year? Well, yes. For one, any business that has gone out of business is using less, to be sure. It is a simple fact that the market is contracting right now, which means we’re experiencing negative growth today. A classic and directly related example of this situation is what’s occurring on the Houston Ship Channel. As a group, this set of businesses uses more electricity than any other specific group of businesses within the state. They have to use enormous amounts of electricity to create the products, such as plastics and tires for automobiles, that they ship throughout the rest of the world. When orders for new products weaken or dry up, these businesses are forced to take action, such as extended shut downs or flat out closures of production lines or the businesses themselves. These events have occurred within the last 12 months, and they’ve happened across multiple plants with few plants being unscathed.
With business usage for electricity on the whole representing a net decline within the market, coupled with less residential usage for the same reasons, demand destruction is a very real part of the overall prices reflected within the market at the beginning of this summer. If the demand remains depressed compared to the past 7+ years, this often dismissed potential variable within the equation for electricity prices to the public will continue to play a big role. The end result may be so significant that prices throughout the summer don’t actually rise much at all, and could ultimately wind up lower at the end of the summer than when the heat season began. With that as a possibility, if not a probability, Texans can count on continuing to see some of the lowest electricity prices within the entire country for the duration of 2009. For every Texas resident within these recessionary times, that should be considered good news.
from May 24, 2009
About the Author: Bounce Energy is a Texas Electric Company based in Houston. Bounce Energy’s goal is provide more than low Texas Electric Rates to our customers. With innovative and flexible plans, excellent customer service, and superior customer rewards, Bounce Energy offers a unique approach to Texas electricity.
Source: www.isnare.com
Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=386225&ca=Business
Go here to read the rest: What’s Up (or Down) With Texas Electricity Rates?
HGH Supplement
Tags: apartment, businesses, demand, dwellers, energy, gas, generator, natural, rate, residential, texas, time, usage
You can go forward to the next page
