• The Texas Public Utility Commission voted to raise the state's price cap on wholesale electricity by 50% on Aug. 1, and some experts doubt that the move will lead to more power plants being built, as the commission hoped.
• “You have to understand that electric generators in the market we have in Texas really earn their return on those very high-priced hours," John Ragan, president of NRG’s Gulf Coast operations, said in StateImpact interview, "And there’s only a couple hundred of those hours in any given year.”
• John Bick, a Dallas energy consultant, agreed in the story, saying that energy prices will need to go up even higher before new plants are built.

From the article:

According to some industry insiders, when the state-regulated peak price for wholesale electricity jumps 50% next month, it will fail to do what the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) had hoped: encourage the construction of new power plants to avert shortages.

“The prices have to go up before you see any significant generation being built,” said Dallas energy consultant John Bick, formerly with TXU Energy, now with Priority Power Management. ...