Tuesday AM April 13th, 2010

The merger between Houston-based RRI Energy, which is Reliant Energy’s power plant business, and Atlanta-based Mirant Corporation, will form the second largest power plant operator in the U.S.. The merged company will be headquartered here in Houston and be named GenOn Energy. Alan Lammey is a local energy analyst and says its all about credit.

“It only makes sense that companies that have been affected by this kind of market environment are looking at each other to kind of combine forces to be able to kind of alleviate or mitigate some of the issues that come from such a credit-intensive business.”
 
He says because the companies deal in the wholesale markets, you probably won’t see much difference in your electric bill.

“I don’t really think that it’s going to have any noticeable impact that would occur for any of their retail customers.”

The combined companies will have a market cap of about $3 billion.