Four legal and financial advisors with connections to Waco-based Brazos Electric and the 16 community members the co-op serves across 68 counties say that Brazos faces a demand for payment of possibly hundreds of millions of dollars for power and natural gas it purchased from other energy companies through ERCOT or directly from other energy producers during the frigid temperatures between Feb. 15 and 19. “This week, Brazos and other power distributors are getting invoices to be paid by the end of next week that are 10, 20 and 100 times the normal invoice amounts,” said Jackson Walker bankruptcy partner Matt Cavenaugh, who is not currently representing a party in the matter but has direct knowledge of the situation. The problem for Brazos Electric, which is a nonprofit, and other power co-ops is that they paid high prices to purchase electricity for their clients, but they don’t have the ability to collect the high rates from its retail customers.
Santosh Kumar · Tue 2 Mar 2021 12:59PM
UNITED STATES [01 MARCH 2021]
Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, the largest generation and transmission co-op in Texas, is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shortly.
Four legal and financial advisors with connections to Waco-based Brazos Electric and the 16 community members the co-op serves across 68 counties say that Brazos faces a demand for payment of possibly hundreds of millions of dollars for power and natural gas it purchased from other energy companies through ERCOT or directly from other energy producers during the frigid temperatures between Feb. 15 and 19. “This week, Brazos and other power distributors are getting invoices to be paid by the end of next week that are 10, 20 and 100 times the normal invoice amounts,” said Jackson Walker bankruptcy partner Matt Cavenaugh, who is not currently representing a party in the matter but has direct knowledge of the situation. The problem for Brazos Electric, which is a nonprofit, and other power co-ops is that they paid high prices to purchase electricity for their clients, but they don’t have the ability to collect the high rates from its retail customers.