Oncor Electric Delivery

Last updated

Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Electric Utility
Founded2007
Headquarters Dallas, Texas
Key people
Allen Nye
(CEO)
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$4.3 billion (2019) [1]
Increase2.svg US$651 million (2019) [1]
Number of employees
4,000 or more
Parent Sempra Energy
Website www.oncor.com

Oncor Electric Delivery Company is the largest transmission and distribution electric utility in the state of Texas and the 5th largest utility company in the US. [2] Their service territory includes east, west, and north-central Texas, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Irving, Plano, Arlington, Beeville, Midland, Odessa, Killeen, Waco, Wichita Falls, Tyler, and other cities throughout Texas. [3] In 2018, Sempra Energy acquired a majority stake in Oncor for US$9.45 billion. [4]

Contents

History

It was formerly known as TXU Electric Delivery and TU Electric. Predecessor companies include Dallas Power & Light (DP&L), which served the city of Dallas; Electric Service Company (TESCO), which served areas surrounding Fort Worth; and Texas Power and Light (TP&L), which served other areas of northwest and east-central Texas. Oncor began replacing analog meters in 2008 with digital meters throughout its system, although some older analog meters remain.

Oncor is privately held by a limited number of investors including Energy Future Holdings Corporation ("EFH"). Oncor is separate from its owners and separately managed by a majority independent board of directors. While a majority owner, EFH was not involved in the management of Oncor. On March 24, 2016, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) granted the request to convert Oncor into a real estate investment trust (REIT) with the reservation that the PUC would consider the treatment of potential tax savings, which could account for $250 million, from the REIT structure in a separate proceeding to be held at a future date. The subsequent proceeding's focus was to determine how the potential tax savings attributable to the REIT format would be shared with utility ratepayers. [5]

On July 7, 2017, it was announced that Berkshire Hathaway had agreed on a deal to buy the whole of Energy Future Holdings and ultimately Oncor. This bid was ultimately surpassed by Sempra Energy, which bid $9.45 billion in cash and the assumption of debt on August 21, 2017. [6] The acceptance of the Sempra bid effectively terminated the Berkshire bid. The Sempra bid subsequently received court approval on September 6, 2017. [7] On March 8, 2018, regulators in Texas approved Sempra Energy's purchase of a majority stake in Oncor for $9.45 billion. [4]

Major projects

As of 2014, Oncor Electric Delivery Company was working in partnership with Siemens AG Power Technologies to build a smart grid in an exploration of the use of storage batteries and micro-grids. [8] The Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) project was intended to improve the transmission of wind power to Oncor's grid. [9]

Oncor Electric Delivery Company works with private and public utilities throughout the country through organizations called Mutual Assistance Groups. Oncor is a member of Texas Mutual Assistance Group, Midwest Mutual Assistance Group, and the Southeastern Electric Exchange. The mutual partnerships are part of a larger network of utilities that meet throughout the year to share best practices and improve upon safety methods. Members are able to quickly access and deploy resources and personnel across long distances to communities impacted by severe weather. For example, Oncor crews were sent to Florida and Georgia to assist in Hurricane Matthew aftermath in 2016. [10] Additionally, crews were sent to California to assist in restoring power to areas devastated by the region's wildfires in 2018, and to Florida to assist in preparing for Hurricane Dorian in 2019. [11] [12]

Environmental impact

Oncor Electric Delivery Company's Take A Load Off provides a variety of energy efficiency programs for residences and businesses in an effort to reduce energy and save people money on their electric bill. Oncor budgeted more than $50 million for its programs in 2019; in the last ten years, Take A Load Off Texas has helped more than 250,000 customers reduce their energy usage. [13]

Oncor assisted with the adoption of larger, commercial electric vehicles. The company worked with electric vehicle original equipment manufacturers and other utilities to monitor the use of electric vehicles in its service territory, to provide power supply to vehicles and homes; it has helped install and plan locations for charging stations. [14]

For nine consecutive years, Oncor has partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation's Energy-Saving Trees Program to give away thousands of free trees to customers. The program is designed to help customers better understand where to plant trees for maximum energy savings and the protection of electrical equipment. [15]

Oncor's transmission system is planned to connect to a $104 million solar farm in Falls County. San Antoniobased OCI Solar Power is planning the project where 800 acres will be leased from private landowners in the reinvestment zone where it plans to build the 100-megawatt farm. [16]

Oncor partnered with IBM Oncor to predict for preventative maintenance where vegetative growth is most likely to interfere with power lines, which can cause blackouts and wildfires. [17]

Social responsibility

In April 2020, Oncor donated $1.7 million to community non-profit organizations across its service territory that serve those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. [18]

In 2021, Oncor announced a donation of 110 acres of land to the City of Dallas to be used as a public park. It will be the largest donation of land to the city since the 1930s. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

Energy Future Holdings Corporation is an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The majority of the company's power generation is through coal and nuclear power plants. From 1998 to 2007, the company was known as TXU Corporation until its $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. That purchase was the largest leveraged buyout in history. As of 2019, TXU Energy is a subsidiary of publicly traded Vistra Energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TXU Energy</span> American retail electricity provider

TXU Energy is an American retail electricity provider headquartered in Irving, Texas, serving residential and business customers in deregulated regions of Texas since the deregulation of the Texas electricity market in 2002. A subsidiary of Vistra Corp, it is one of the largest retail electricity providers in Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xcel Energy</span> American utility company

Xcel Energy Inc. is a U.S. regulated electric utility and natural gas delivery company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers across parts of eight states. It consists of four operating subsidiaries: Northern States Power-Minnesota, Northern States Power-Wisconsin, Public Service Company of Colorado, and Southwestern Public Service Co.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Electric Power</span> United States utility company

American Electric Power Company, Inc. (AEP), is an American domestic electric utility company in the United States. It is one of the largest electric utility companies in the country, with more than five million customers in 11 states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constellation Energy</span> Energy company headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland

Constellation Energy Corporation is an American energy company headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The company provides electric power, natural gas, and energy management services. It has approximately two million customers across the continental United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NRG Energy</span> Energy company serving customers in the northeast United States and Texas

NRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company, headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was formerly the wholesale arm of Northern States Power Company (NSP), which became Xcel Energy, but became independent in 2000. NRG Energy is involved in energy generation and retail electricity. Their portfolio includes natural gas generation, coal generation, oil generation, nuclear generation, wind generation, utility-scale generation, and distributed solar generation. NRG serves over 7 million retail customers in 24 US states including Texas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio; the District of Columbia, and eight provinces in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sempra</span> Utility holding company

Sempra is a North American public utility holding company based in San Diego, California. The company is one of the largest utility holding companies in the United States with nearly 40 million consumers. Sempra's focus is on electric and natural gas infrastructure and its operating companies include: Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) in Southern California; Oncor Electric Delivery Company in Texas; and Sempra Infrastructure, with offices in California and Texas.

The Texas electricity market is deregulated, meaning that there is competition in the generation and distribution of electricity. Power generators in the Texas Interconnection, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, participate in an energy-only electricity market and are compensated only for the electricity they produce. The wholesale generation market was deregulated in 1995 and the distribution market in 1999, with Texas Senate Bill 7. This replaced the prior system in which power was generated and consumed locally by the same utility with one in which retail providers contracted with generators across the state.

A virtual power plant (VPP) is a system that integrates multiple, possibly heterogeneous, power sources to provide grid power. A VPP typically sells its output to an electric utility. VPPs allow energy resources that are individually too small to be of interest to a utility to aggregate and market their power. As of 2024, VPPs operated in the United States, Europe, and Australia.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy is a holding company and subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns 92% of the company. Berkshire has owned a controlling stake since 1999. The company also controls power distribution companies in the United Kingdom and Canada. The remaining 8% is owned by the family of Walter Scott Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison Electric Institute</span> American trade group

The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) is an association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawaiian Electric Industries</span> American utility company

Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HEI) is the largest supplier of electricity in the U.S. state of Hawaii, supplying power to 95% of Hawaii's population through its electric utilities: Hawaiian Electric Company serving Oahu, Hawai'i Electric Light Company serving The Big Island, and Maui Electric Company serving Maui, Lanai and Molakai. In addition, HEI owns a financial institution serving Hawaii, American Savings Bank, and a clean energy and sustainability company, Pacific Current LLC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Mountain Energy</span> American energy company

Green Mountain Energy is a United States company that sells green electricity products via renewable energy credits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Arizona</span> Overview of solar power in the U.S. state of Arizona

Solar power in Arizona has the potential to, according to then-Governor Janet Napolitano, make Arizona "the Persian Gulf of solar energy". In 2012, Arizona had 1,106 MW of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems, and 6 MW of concentrated solar power (CSP), bringing the total to over 1,112 megawatts (MW) of solar power. As an example, the Solana Generating Station, a 280 MW parabolic trough solar plant, when commissioned in 2013, was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage.

Vermont electric power needs are served by over twenty utilities. The largest is Green Mountain Power, a subsidiary of Énergir which recently also took over Central Vermont Public Service. Together this single company represents 70% of the retail customers in Vermont. The state is a small electricity consumer compared with other states. Therefore, its electricity sector has the lowest carbon footprint in the country. As of 2010, the state had the lowest wholesale electricity costs in New England. Efficiency Vermont engages in aggressive initiatives to cut residential electricity waste, which often identifies other problems that it claims can save hundreds per household per year. Accordingly, Vermont's overall energy bills are also relatively lower than in the rest of the New England states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reliant Energy</span> American energy company

Reliant Energy is an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. It serves the state of Texas.

Whitefish Energy Holdings, LLC is a small holding company based in Whitefish, Montana whose portfolio of companies installs, maintains, and repairs electrical grids. The holding company was founded in 2015 by Andy Techmanski, a former lineman. In October 2017, Whitefish, a company whose previous biggest assignment was $1.4 million, was awarded a $300 million contract to repair part of the energy infrastructure in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. This contract involved Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). The contract was ultimately canceled after coming under public scrutiny; the company relied on subcontracted workers, who were paid several times less than the sum Whitefish Energy charged PREPA in return, which was described by The New York Times as "far above the norm even for emergency work — and almost 17 times the average salary of [such workers] in Puerto Rico."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electric Bond and Share Company</span>

The Electric Bond and Share Company (Ebasco) was a United States electric utility holding company organized by General Electric. It was forced to divest its holding companies and reorganize due to the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Following the passage of the Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) selected the largest of the U.S. holding companies, Ebasco to be the test case of the law before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court case known as Securities and Exchange Commission v. Electric Bond and Share company was settled in favor of the SEC on March 28, 1938. It took twenty-five years of legal action by the SEC to break up Ebasco and the other major U.S. electric holding companies until they conformed with the 1935 act. It was allowed to retain control of its foreign electric power holding company known as the American & Foreign Power Company (A&FP). After its reorganization, it became an investment company, but soon turned into a major designer and engineer of both fossil fuel and nuclear power electric generation facilities. Its involvement in the 1983 financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System's five nuclear reactors led to Ebasco's demise because of the suspension of nuclear power orders and lawsuits that included numerous asbestos claims. The U.S. nuclear industry stopped all construction of new facilities following the 1979 nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, going into decline because of radiation safety concerns and major construction cost overruns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home energy upgrades from public utilities</span> HVAC and power improvements to residences offered by service providers

Home energy upgrades from public utilities are added home energy efficiency and renewable energy features planned or installed by public utilities. Help from a public utility can make it easier for a homeowner to select, install or operate climate-friendly components. The utility might assist with coordinated use of utility-supplied energy, building features, financing, operating options and neighborhood supplied energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change in Texas</span> Climate change in the US state of Texas

The climate in Texas is changing partially due to global warming and rising trends in greenhouse gas emissions. As of 2016, most area of Texas had already warmed by 1.5 °F (0.83 °C) since the previous century because of greenhouse gas emissions by the United States and other countries. Texas is expected to experience a wide range of environmental impacts from climate change in the United States, including rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather events, and increasing pressure on water resources.

References

  1. 1 2 "ONCOR REPORTS STRONG 2019 RESULTS". sec.gov. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  2. "About Us". Oncor Official Site. April 14, 2022.
  3. com/content/oncorwww/us/en/home/about-us/service-area-map.html "Oncor Service Area Map". Oncor Official Site. April 14, 2022.{{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  4. 1 2 Peg Brickley (March 8, 2018). "Texas Regulators Approve Sempra's $9.45 Billion Oncor Buyout". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660. Wikidata   Q114386747 . Retrieved October 3, 2022.
  5. Davidson, Mark (March 25, 2016). "Texas Oncur Buyout Approved – With Reservations". The National Law Review. Lewis Roca Rothgerber LLP. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  6. "Form 8-K". www.sec.gov. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
  7. Nikolewski, Rob. "Judge OKs Sempra's $9.45B deal with Oncor". sandiegouniontribune.com. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
  8. Desonie, Dana (April 2010). "A Smart Grid for Smart Texans" (PDF). siemens.com. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
  9. Schnurman, Mitchell (May 31, 2014). "Oncor bets on a better grid". dallasnews.com. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
  10. McFarland, Susan (October 6, 2016). "Oncor crews head east to assist in hurricane aftermath". Fort Worth Star Telegram.
  11. "Oncor sends crews from state to state to assist with outages after wildfires". Dallas News. November 23, 2018. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  12. "Oncor crews head to Florida ahead of Hurricane Dorian". FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth. August 30, 2019. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  13. Chinn, Kelley (March 3, 2017). "How to get incentives to help pay for solar panels or insulation". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  14. "How Oncor is preparing for a wave of large electric fleet vehicles".
  15. "Oncor gives 5,000 free trees ahead of Arbor Day". September 9, 2019.
  16. Corso, Jessica (January 21, 2020). "CPS supplier building $104M solar farm near Waco". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  17. "IBM BrandVoice: IBM GRAF Builds on the Weather Company's AI and Cloud Capabilities". Forbes .
  18. "Oncor donating $1.7M to nonprofits affected by COVID-19 Oncor had a snow freeze in March 2021. Handling customer with fast service as possible in rotation. The 14 years of this company serving power. Did excellent keeping customers warm through the week of rotating outage. The electric went back into its routine power. Making the cities warm for customers". KETK.com | FOX51.com. April 14, 2020. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  19. Bailey Jr., Everton (November 20, 2021). "Dallas is getting 110 acres of land from Oncor for new park, The LOOP trail" . Dallas Morning News. Retrieved April 4, 2022.