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NRG CEO’s Talk On Choice Again Falling Short of Actions
April 23,2015 NRG Energy underwrote a conference on its favorite subject -- millennials -- this past week organized by The Atlantic called Generation Unplugged It included "sponsored content" in the form of an interview with NRG CEO David Crane discussing millennials and NRG's oft-repeated vision for the generation as bringing some type of transformative change to not just the energy industry, but the world. We previously gave our thoughts on these "socially conscious" millennials here What struck us from the talk was Crane's statement that: "Millennials will have something that my generation did not have, they'll have choice, across the energy spectrum. And you will be able to make purpose-driven decisions with your consumption choices even in the world of energy, where before the state basically told you where you got your electricity, [where] you had one type of car you could drive -- an internal combustion engine vehicle -- and you'll have choices. And if you choose to use those choices to not consume the energy products of companies that you don't like what they stand for -- and that's supposed to be one of the traits of millennials, is that they want every consumer decision they make to be purpose-driven -- you will change behavior in corporate America faster than you can possibly imagine." What strikes us is that NRG actively works against this envisioned empowerment through choice -- at least in those states where it owns incumbent generating assets. Its crusade for a Texas capacity market was the antithesis of choice, and is a state-driven, not consumer-driven, selection of power resources. The state would be telling Texans from what plants they'd be getting electricity. Progressive, eh? And while a capacity market is currently on the ropes in Texas, like the Zombies that millennials overly love in pop culture, it's never truly dead, and we've yet to see NRG publicly and vociferously repudiate its prior stance in favor of a capacity market. Indeed, a recent S&P report basically tells us that the song remains the same. While adequate reserve margins show how unnecessary a capacity market is, S&P sees a potential "reboot" of discussions regarding the need for a capacity market due to federal environmental regulations, no doubt as incumbent asset owners use the specter of retirements as the latest "crisis" requiring a capacity market. In any case, not only is the capacity market the essence of state-dictated power decisions, it would also disfavor millennials' favorite power sources -- solar and other clean energy -- in favor of old (read: dirtier and less efficient) formerly incumbent assets with low going-forward fixed costs. And the moderation of energy market prices promised by capacity market acolytes would further stall any movement to solar by taking away one of its key advantages for REPs and their customers: the avoidance of super-peak ERCOT prices and ability to monetize excess generation at high prices. Nor is the inconsistency between Crane's vision for choice and NRG's actual actions confined to Texas. In New York, state-action is forcing all ratepayers to fund the repowering of NRG's Dunkirk plant -- so much for millennials being able to not consume power from companies they don't like. Video: Crane's remarks at Generation Unplugged: Energy, Tech, And Designing The Future
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