Energy Future Holdings Corporation

One of Texas' Biggest Power Generators Just Admitted Deregulation Is a Colossal Failure

A bigwig at NRG, Texas' second-most prolific electricity generator, took to the editorial page of the Houston Chronicle the other day, and the result was remarkable -- a tacit admission from one of the sector's biggest players that deregulation simply does not work. As we noted recently, Texas' pow ... More >>

Here Are a Couple of Common-Sense Pieces of Legislation the Texas Electricity Lobby Killed

Electricity issues may not get as much ink as abortion-ban legislation here in Texas, but there were a few bills filed this session -- more like kale than red meat -- that sure as heck would have had a bigger impact on your pocketbook. They were common-sense and pro-consumer protections and, obvious ... More >>

Oncor's "Phantom Tax" Windfall May Become Permanent as Bill Hits Texas House Floor

Oncor, the Dallas-based sticks-and-wires utility, has collected half a billion dollars from ratepayers since 2007 for federal income taxes. But according to a report, the IRS hasn't received a dime. In fact, most of that cash has gone to its struggling parent, Energy Future Holdings, which is march ... More >>

Hedge Fund Says Tottering, Dallas-based Electricity Giant is Screwing Creditors

Aurelius Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund and perpetual pain-in-the-ass for distressed companies like Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, sued the massive utility in federal court Tuesday for $725 million. It claims Energy Future made some sweetheart intra-company loans even as ... More >>

Al Armendariz, Ousted EPA Chief, Leads Sierra Club's Drive to Chase Customers from TXU

Every week, managing editor Patrick Williams disappears into his office and reemerges a cranky, nicotine-addicted, third-person-referring superhero we like to call Buzz. Let's kick this off with a couple of truisms: It's hard to keep a good man down, and be careful what you wish for. We're looking ... More >>

Dallas-based Electricity Giant Energy Future Holdings Warns of Potential Bankruptcy, Reports Huge Losses

The fount of red ink spilling onto the pages of beleaguered power generator Energy Future Holdings' quarterly reports continues unabated. The Dallas company logged $3.36 billion in net losses for 2012. In its last quarter alone, the company reported a $1.95 billion net loss, due largely to a write ... More >>

ERCOT Greenlights Temporary Shutdown Of Power Plant As TXU Weathers Financial Doldrums

Electricity is so cheap right now that for some generators it doesn't even pay to make it. At the end of August, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU, announced it would mothball two units at its Monticello coal-fired plant for six to seven months. ERCOT, the state's grid manager, gav ... More >>

Texas Electricity Generators Got Another Big Bailout from State Energy Regulators Yesterday

Here we are, some 10 years into the deregulation of the Texas electricity grid, and a crisis approaches. Supply, it is predicted, will not keep pace with demand in the very near future. Generators say electricity prices are simply too low to justify the financing of new power plants. In fact, in at ... More >>

Like A Vampire, Wall Street Will Drain TXU Until There's Nothing Left

At least for now, Dallas-based electricity and transmission giant Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU, is paying off its debts. Technically, it's completely insolvent, but that hasn't stopped the Wall Street firms who purchased the company in the biggest leveraged buyout in history from extractin ... More >>

Was Luminant Bluffing Texas When It Threatened Power Plant Shutdowns Over EPA Regs?

Does Texas' biggest electricity generator, Dallas-based Luminant, just have one hell of a poker face, or should we not read too much into Friday's announcement that it will idle two units at its Monticello plant for six months? If you'll recall, the company threatened to idle the units last summer, ... More >>

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Texas Challenge to EPA Power Plant Pollution Rule

A split three-judge panel of a federal appeals court rejected an EPA rule that would curb the drift of harmful power plant pollutants across state lines. The agency, the majority ruled, had overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act. The legal challenge was mounted by a number of states and ... More >>

Our Largest Electricity Generator Looks Like It's Preparing for Bankruptcy

Market seers think Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, which owns the state's biggest power generating assets, might be engaging in a little prebankruptcy housekeeping. The latest sign? It's repayment of an inter-company loan. Energy Future isn't a single, vertically integrated giant like it was w ... More >>

Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, Texas Biggest Power Generator, Piles On More Debt

The announcement that Energy Future Holdings, the biggest generator of electricity in Texas, is going to issue $750 million in debt probably could have been timed better. Earlier this week, the company announced it was going to terminate the pensions of about a third of its workforce by the end of ... More >>

EPA Accuses Dallas-based Luminant's North Texas Power Plants of Clean Air Act Violations

Dallas-based Luminant, the electricity generation arm of Energy Future Holdings, got hit with a violation notice from the EPA Friday, accusing it of completing major modifications to its northeast Texas coal-fired plants, Big Brown and Martin Lake, without installing modern pollution control devices ... More >>

Politics of Misdirection: Dallas-based Luminant and Coalition of Utilities Blame the EPA for Coal's Creeping Demise

Dallas-based Luminant, the electricity generation arm of Energy Future Holdings, and a number of other utilities that own coal-fired fleets are attempting to head off an EPA rule that would curb the amount of nervous system-disrupting mercury, cancer-causing dioxin, arsenic and lead emitted from the ... More >>

Why Does TXU Want Texas to Raise the Price Cap on the Electricity it Buys?

Here's a question for all you MBAs in Unfair Park Land: Why would an independent retailer operating in a free, deregulated market want the state to take steps to suddenly raise the retailer's costs? For example, say you own a mom-and-pop store that sells tomatoes. The government suddenly wants to i ... More >>

Sierra Club Sues Energy Future Holdings, Accuses it of Thousands of Clean Air Violations

Sierra Club on Tuesday sued Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the state's largest unregulated generator of electricity, accusing the company's Big Brown coal-fired plant near Fairfield of thousands of violations of Clean Air Act standards. The environmental group gave the company an ultimatum l ... More >>

Will the Firewall Protecting Oncor From Its Basketcase Parent Company Keep It From Getting Burned?

Oncor, the transmission company that runs power lines and electricity meters, is just about the only good thing Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings has going for it. Energy Future's generation arm, Luminant, the largest unregulated power generator in Texas, has seen its coal-fired power plants preci ... More >>

A Less-Than-Crushing Blow for the EPA

Last week, in response to a post Brantley Hargrove wrote about power giant Energy Future Holdings' slow death waltz with potential bankruptcy, a commenter gently smacked him for ignoring some Major News related to power plants, smokestacks, etc. "And in other [news] this kid refuses to cover. The ... More >>

So There's a Good Chance Energy Future, Texas' Largest Power Generator, Goes Broke

A major credit-rating agency is expressing grave doubts about the ability of the state's largest nonregulated power generator to pay off its debt. Energy Future Holdings, the Dallas-based parent company of power generator Luminant, transmission company Oncor and retail electricity provider TXU Ener ... More >>

Texas' Biggest Power Supplier Wants to Blame the EPA for Future Blackouts

Warren Buffett Calls His Investment in Dallas-Based Energy Future Holdings a "Big Mistake," At Risk of Being Wiped Out

Warren Buffett, the inimitable Jesus of Investing, got it wrong, he admits. Investing in the highly leveraged buyout of Texas utility TXU by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Goldman Sachs was a bad bet, plain and simple, he told his shareholders in a letter Saturday. And if things at the former TXU (now ... More >>

Dallas-Based Energy Future Holdings, Texas's Biggest Power Generator, Had a Rough Year

Energy Future Holdings' end-o'-year popped up on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's website late Tuesday, and, boy, is it ugly. Now, why should you care? Because Energy Future is the parent company of Luminant, Texas's biggest generator of electricity. And TXU Energy, a huge retail suppli ... More >>

Former NY State Comptroller Makes Case For Retiring Three of Luminant's Coal-Fired Plants

Big Brown​Former New York State First Deputy Comptroller-turned-investment banker Tom Sanzillo released a report this morning, via the Sierra Club, demanding that Dallas-based Energy Future Holding (and its Luminant subsidiary) shutter three of its coal-fired power plants: Big Brown (in Fairfield) ... More >>

TXU's $9 Million Victory Last Summer Is Now Blowin' in the Wind

Dim and Dimmer

How many county commissioners does it take to screw in a light bulb?

TXU Says "F.U." To You and You and You

Still Plenty of Smoke to Be Cleared in TXU Deal

Them Balls Gots Plenty o' Juice

Money-Huggers

How can all the top dogs in Dallas come out against TXU and coal?

TXU Doesn't Wanna Talk to Mayor in Front of Media. Pussies.