The Public Utility Commission of Texas clearly wants your electricity prices to be higher. They have endorsed a certainly expensive but otherwise uncertain and completely untested market design. The PUCT believes the amount will “only” be $460 million per year.

A new study from Aurora Energy Research presented at last week’s ERCOT Market Summit, called that number into doubt; they modeled the shiftily named Performance Credit Mechanism (or PCM, as in, “Pretty (much a) Capacity Market”).

Aurora estimated that the PCM would cost Texans an additional $2 - $3 billion per year — money paid entirely through electric bills for homes and businesses. That’s a net increase in costs, after subtracting out cost reductions in the energy market (the small gray bar in the slide below).

That amounts to roughly a 15% increase in energy costs.