New Braunfels Utility says it will be breaking its Wholesale Power Contract with the Lower Colorado River Authority come January.

The utility has notified the LCRA that it will be terminating the contract under the terms that LCRA committed a material breach of the Wholesale Power Contract that is currently set to expire in 2016.

"The LCRA is in violation of the uniform rate clause and its statutory requirements for fair and equitable rates. They have not been applying those fairly across all of their customer base," said Gretchen Reuwer, Communications Manager for NBU, "and so since they have failed to make any attempt to cure those problems with the current contracts and rates, our customers are unfairly exposed to increasingly higher rates than they should have to pay under the current contract."

NBU filed a lawsuit on similar grounds against LCRA back in July, and the case is still currently active.

"Terminating the contract with LCRA will allow us to exercise some options that will get some better pricing out in the market, retain our reliability, and do so now instead of arraigning in an adverse situation for several more years," said Reuwer."

The utility has said it will not be making any additional changes to their billing rates or services, and that the change from LCRA wholesale power to another power supplier in the electricity market in ERCOT will be relatively invisible to NBU customers.

"The wholesale power costs they're all broken out so that they're very transparent as to what the cost of power is, but they aren't listed LCRA versus somebody else. The bill will look exactly the same and their service will remain the same," said Reuwer.

The utility is currently looking into a number of options as to who their new power supplier could be, and Reuwer told 550 KTSA that San Antonio's CPS Energy is one of their potential options.

By: Marissa A. Wagner