Frequently Asked Questions
Plain answers about Texas electricity choice — PowerToChoose, EFLs, gimmick plans, ERCOT, TDUs, and how to actually pick a plan.
What is PowerToChoose?
The official electricity shopping site run by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Every licensed retail electricity provider operating in a deregulated service territory is required to post their current plans there, along with pricing at standard usage tiers and a downloadable Electricity Facts Label for each plan.
It's complicated. Here's why.
Texas has a deregulated electricity market, which means you choose your electricity provider the way you might choose a phone plan. The wires coming into your house are still owned and maintained by a regulated utility (called a TDU or TDSP), but the electricity commodity itself comes from whichever retailer you sign a contract with. PowerToChoose is where those contracts are supposed to be visible and comparable.
The problem is "supposed to be."
Is PowerToChoose accurate?
As a snapshot of today's rates, it does what it's designed to do. The problem is that design is wrong for most shopping decisions.
PowerToChoose shows you what providers are advertising right now. It does not show you what they advertised last month. It doesn't track whether a plan's rate changed after you enrolled, whether a provider has a history of pulling bait-and-switch pricing, or whether the rate you're comparing today was introduced six hours ago. The data has no memory.
For a market where contracts typically run 12 months and rates can change between when you compare and when your plan begins, a site with no memory isn't a comparison tool. It's a window.
What is an EFL?
An Electricity Facts Label — the standardized disclosure document every Texas electricity plan is required to have. Think of it as a nutrition label for your electricity contract.
A well-written EFL shows your rate at multiple usage levels, explains any bill credits or conditional pricing, lists the cancellation fee, and spells out what happens when your contract ends. The problem is that EFLs are distributed as PDFs, providers are not required to make them machine-readable, and the fine print that matters most — the conditions attached to the advertised rate — is frequently buried in footnotes.
We parse EFLs to expose what the headline rate actually requires.
What is a gimmick plan?
Here's a real-dollar example. A plan advertises 7.9¢/kWh. You use 900 kWh in a month — typical for a Texas summer — and expect to pay about $71. Instead, your bill is $130. You dig into the EFL and find a clause: there's a $95 bill credit, but only if you use between 1,000 and 2,000 kWh. At 900 kWh, you get nothing. The 7.9¢ rate was never real for you.
That's a gimmick plan.
The advertised rate is structured around the three usage tiers PowerToChoose uses to rank plans — 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh. Hit those exact numbers and the math works. Use any other amount and the rate you were shown evaporates. Providers design plans around those thresholds deliberately, because PowerToChoose's ranking algorithm rewards a low advertised rate — not a low actual rate for real customers.
Common variants: usage-band credits, smart thermostat enrollment requirements, and time-of-use "free nights" plans that bury the daytime rate in footnotes.
What should I do when my contract is about to expire?
Start shopping 45 to 60 days before your contract end date. This is the most dangerous moment in your relationship with a Texas electricity provider.
When a fixed-rate contract expires, most providers automatically roll you onto a variable-rate plan. Variable rates are unregulated — they can move week to week — and in summer months they can run two to three times what you were paying on a fixed contract. Providers are required to give you advance notice of the transition, but that notice can be easy to miss.
The move: find your contract end date (it's on your bill and in your online account), set a calendar reminder 60 days out, and start comparing fixed-rate plans before your provider has a chance to roll you onto a variable rate.
Can I sign up for a plan through this site?
No. PowerToFail is an archive. We track and analyze plan data; we don't process enrollments.
To sign up for a plan, go directly to the provider's website or use PowerToChoose.
What is ERCOT?
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas — the grid operator that manages the flow of electricity across most of the state's deregulated market. ERCOT coordinates between power generators, transmission utilities, and retail providers, and it operates the wholesale electricity market where providers buy power before selling it to customers.
ERCOT does not set your retail rates. But when the grid tightens — during heat waves, winter storms, or generation shortfalls — ERCOT's management of wholesale prices is what drives the swings you eventually see in variable-rate plans.
Most of Texas is on the ERCOT grid. Small areas in the Panhandle, El Paso, and parts of East Texas are on different grids and are not part of the deregulated market.
What is an early termination fee, and how bad can it get?
An early termination fee (ETF) is what your provider charges if you cancel a fixed-rate contract before it expires. ETFs on residential plans commonly run between $150 and $300, and some are structured as a per-remaining-month fee that adds up quickly if you're canceling early in a 24-month contract.
Before you switch plans mid-contract, read your EFL or call your provider to confirm the ETF. Sometimes the savings from switching outweigh the fee. Often they don't.
Which TDUs are covered, and how do I find out which one I'm in?
The four TDUs in the deregulated Texas market are:
- Oncor — Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and much of North and West Texas.
- CenterPoint Energy — Houston and the surrounding region.
- AEP Texas — Two areas: AEP Texas Central (Corpus Christi, Laredo, Victoria) and AEP Texas North (Amarillo, Lubbock).
- Texas-New Mexico Power (TNMP) — Smaller service areas including New Braunfels, Midland, Seguin, and Stephenville.
To find your TDU: check your current electricity bill — the TDU name appears on every bill. Or enter your ZIP code on the PowerToFail home page and we'll identify your service territory automatically.
Why do rates look different at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh?
Because many plans include fixed monthly charges or bill credits that don't scale with usage. A $10/month base fee represents 2¢/kWh if you use 500 kWh, and only 0.5¢/kWh if you use 2,000 kWh. Similarly, a $50 bill credit is worth 5¢/kWh at 1,000 kWh — but nothing if you use 999.
This is why the "average rate" at 1,000 kWh is often wildly different from your actual bill. Your usage rarely lands exactly on round numbers. When we display rates, we show all three tiers and flag plans where the spread between them is suspiciously large.
How often is data updated?
Four times a day — every six hours, on the hour, in Central Time. Rate data is timestamped so you can see exactly when each snapshot was captured. EFL documents are archived at the time of capture and re-fetched only when a plan's fact-sheet URL changes.
How do I actually pick a plan?
Start with your usage. Check your last 12 months of electricity bills and find your average monthly kWh. That number — not 500, not 1,000, not whatever the marketing copy assumes — is what matters.
Then calculate the all-in effective rate for any plan you're considering: (monthly base charges + (rate × kWh) − any credits) ÷ kWh. Read the EFL. Check the contract term and the cancellation fee.
Then use our historical data to see whether a provider has a pattern of competitive pricing — or a habit of offering good rates to new customers and quietly raising them at renewal. That's the thing PowerToChoose can't tell you. We can. If you have your own usage data from Smart Meter Texas, the Plan Shopper will score every fixed-rate plan against your real consumption — entirely in your browser, no upload.
Is PowerToFail affiliated with any electricity provider?
No. This site exists because the information should exist — not because someone is paying us to steer you somewhere. No ads, no referral fees, no preferred providers. See the methodology and disclaimer for details.
Why is the site called PowerToFail?
PowerToChoose is the state's official electricity comparison site. It shows you a snapshot of today's rates and discards everything else — no history, no patterns, no accountability for what providers advertised last month or last year. It is a shopping tool that works adequately for the moment of shopping and fails at everything that comes after.
PowerToFail is the archive PowerToChoose should have built from day one. The name isn't subtle. Neither is the problem.
These answers are general information, not advice. Always verify current rates and plan terms directly with the provider and on PowerToChoose before enrolling. See the full disclaimer for the legal version.