TL/DR: The OP asked whether a PG&E chapter filing could affect TE's contract(s) at Moss Landing. Your response: a categorical "NO!"
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable, My response "Depends. (and it's complex)" "
Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable We'll both see
You haven't ever followed a utility company bankruptcy, have you? ..
Arrogant idiot. I know this stuff. You don't.
It's unfortunate that you are apparently incapable of engaging in civil discussion with anyone who might have different information, experiences or viewpoints than yours, but consistently resort to juvenile ridiculing and begin hurling insults at any and all who might contradict your beliefs.
They're about a lot more than that {PUCs' power to set rates}, including "public necessity and convenience", and that's all I'm going to say about that..
Is that because a CCN is little more than a grant of a monopoly right to provide public utility services in a defined geographic area? "Necessity" does not connotate what you seem to be implying.
The state can literally order the company to do things and spend money based on public necessity, regardless of what the bankruptcy trustee wants.
Who is the "state"? PUC?, Attorney General? Governor? If the "state" = CPUC, that's a misrepresentation of how it operates, even when a utility it regulates files for creditor protection (Perhaps it's you who fails to grasp the public policy principles inherent in regulated monopolies?).
"Public Necessity" actions before PUCs are prophylactic measures requested by the regulated utillites. When granted, the ruling pre-empts rate-payer advocacy groups (like TURN) from retro-actively playing "gotcha" in prudency dockets, claiming an action/project/capital expenditure should be removed from the rate base on which the utility earns a return of and a return on its infrastructure investments.
PUCs do promulgate broad policy goals and standards (with the more technical standards in the realm of Reliability Councils and ISOs), using rate actions as their primary leverage to achieve the desired results. In exigent circumstances, a PUC could threaten to amend or revoke a CCN, but that's usually a ultimate measure.
For the utilities they have jurisdiction over, PUCs DO indeed have final say about re-organization plans agreed by the creditor committees in bankruptcy proceedings. However, their
modus oprandi is generally "Yay or Nay." If "Nay," it's often "bring me another rock" with some guidance from the PUC's staff about what might be acceptable. PUCs and their staffs have insufficient time, interest, and resources to micro-manage re-organization plans. Rest assured, CPUC is not going to reach down into the nether details of PG&E's reorganization plan and decree that unless the Trustee accepts TE's executory contract at Moss Landing as previously awarded and approved by CPUC for addition to PG&E's rate base, the plan will not be approved.
Bankruptcy proceedings ensue when available liquid assets exceed near term liabilities. One obvious tactic to bring the two into better balance is to delay, or even cancel, planned capital expenditures.
A PG&E bankruptcy isn’t “likely” at this time as the company can tap other sources of cash, either through the sale of its natural gas unit or other real estate, or a cut in its $5.5 billion capital spending plan, analysts at Mizuho Securities USA LLC led by Paul Fremont wrote in a research note Tuesday.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Tesla might get paid late, sure. (Or paid by the state government, depending on the final outcome.)
Your parenthetical is simply fanciful. It's NOT going to happen. California may ultimately backstop some portion of PG&E's tort liabilities to innocent fire victims but will resoundingly reject ALL of PG&E's contractual liabilities. California has previously enacted legislation (somewhat similar to the federal Price Anderson nuclear indemnity) to limit liability for the 2017 fires but passage of a similar measure for 2018 (and future fires) is far less likely.
Nate, you may well be omniscient and capable of accurately predicting the future. I'm not, and won't even guess whether PG&E will file for protection. If that occurs, however, all counter-parties to executory contracts should proceed cautiously. I submit that Vistra (to whom TE submitted a proposal for significantly more MWhs using "Mega-Packs" as part of VST's PPA with PG&E) is will aware of the risks, having experienced the torturous path from TXU as a fully-integrated regulated monopoly through deregulation, re-organization, TxPuc approval and merger to its current form.
One consideration in the resolution of the tragedies in PG&E service territory that I have not seen discussed much is that the ultimate "deep pocket" is not the PG&E's insurers, re-insurers, creditors, share-holders, or even the State of California, but its electrical customers/rate-payers. They will probably be hit with surcharges. The ultimate resolution may effect TSLA more than at just Moss Landing--it might depress the EV market in the region while benefiting residential solar and stationary storage markets.
