Top generation, transmission and retail electricity executives said June 4 that their policies responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic are likely to persist for months, even as an industrial trade group's executive raised the possibility of significant power demand growth.
During a Gulf Coast Power Association virtual seminar entitled, "Real World Impacts of COVID-19 on the Electric Power Industry," Curt Morgan, Vistra Energy president and CEO, said, "We have counted over 100 activities now that we were not doing three months ago."
Vistra Energy's Luminant unit has Texas' largest generation fleet and its TXU Energy represents a large retail electricity segment.
As examples, Morgan cited these measures:
Checking employees' temperatures as they enter areas, particularly power plants, with other employees;
Planning and arranging logistics for sequestering employees at a site, such as a power plant, for multiple days;
Requiring maintenance contractors to adhere to Vistra's social distancing and personal protective equipment policies before entering a work site; and
Establishing weekly virtual meetings for all employees that have drawn as many as 3,000 attendees and as many as 400 questions.
"I think our company today is closer together than prior to this," Morgan said.
Allen Nye, CEO of Oncor Electric Delivery, a unit of Sempra Energy that owns Texas' transmission system, said his company established a pandemic response plan in 2007, and started implementing it in January, as reports of the situation's gravity began proliferating.
Oncor now requires each field technician employee to use a separate vehicle, and to take it home and sanitize it before returning to work, Nye said. Employees can no longer share tools. If they need a tool that is kept in a separate location, they have to schedule an appointment and obtain that tool when the site is empty, Nye said.
'A different world'
Safety meetings previously handled in person now occur virtually, Nye said. People must wear masks and gloves when it is practical to do so. Oncor has hired caterers to provide food at work sites so technicians need not risk infection at restaurants.
"It's essentially a different world," Nye said.
Oncor employees not required to work in the field have been working from home, he said, adding that "I anticipate we we will be out of the offices much of the summer until we get some indication that a vaccine has been developed or it is otherwise safe."
Morgan said Vistra staff who now work from home will do so the rest of the summer, at which time the issue may be revisited. A significant factor will be social distancing rules – standing in line at the bathroom, for example, or conducting Zoom meetings at desks, rather than in a conference room.
"How can you, as a CEO, bring people back when you can get the same productivity at home, and you would increase the incremental risk to those people?" Morgan said. "Our people just don't want to do it. They have kids. They don't want to bring something back home."
Cathy Webking, executive director and general counsel of the Texas Energy Association for Marketers, a competitive retail electricity trade group, said her members have faced much higher call volumes from customers whose finances have worsened since the pandemic's economic effects spread.
The "questions ... were challenging," Webkin said, as competitive retail electricity providers have a variety of business models and rate schedules. "The solutions are quite varied," she said.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas' declaration of a moratorium on service disconnections, which ends July 17, helped retailers by allowing some of the revenue to be deferred to later bills.
Also, Webking said, "REPs have an opportunity to apply for [reimbursement] for part of the kilowatt-hours they sold, just to maintain liquidity."
These programs were funded by a 33 cent/kWh rate rider applied to all customers, Webking said.
Hope for automakers
Tony Bennett, Texas Association of Manufacturers president and CEO, said the pandemic hit Texas industry hard, with General Motors and Toyota plants in Arlington and San Antonio, respectively, shutting down as vehicle demand plummeted. In recent weeks, however, as regular gasoline prices stayed below $2/gallon, demand for pickups "have gone through the roof," Bennett said.
While demand for aviation fuel remains weak, road vehicle fuel demand has grown, he said.
"It appears that people are going to take a lot of road trips, rather than getting that Southwest flight to New Orleans, for example," Bennett said.
Toyota wants resume production, and GM plans to start up in July, but much of their parts come from Mexico, where the pandemic has shut down several key factories, Bennett said.
Problems getting supplies from Mexico have prompted discussion of bringing much of that production north of the border.
"Fear of a second wave of infection disruption may change things in the supply chain, maybe in a good way for the state of Texas for manufacturing," Bennett said.
