Frequently Asked Questions

Plain answers about Texas electricity choice — PowerToChoose, EFLs, conditional-rate 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 conditional-rate 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 conditional-rate 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. Because PowerToChoose's ranking algorithm rewards a low advertised rate — not a low actual rate for a real customer's usage — the plans that climb to the top of its rankings are often the ones whose structures are tightest around those exact thresholds.

Common structures: usage-band credits, smart thermostat enrollment requirements, and time-of-use "free nights" plans where the daytime rate appears only in the footnotes. We mark conditional-rate plans with the ⚠ glyph in the plan list. The closely-related ⏱ TOU and § REQ badges flag the other two structural categories.

What's a time-of-use plan, and why is it flagged differently?

A time-of-use (TOU) plan charges different per-kWh rates depending on when you use electricity — typically a cheap rate at night and an expensive one during peak afternoon hours, or "free" weekends offset by higher weekday daytime rates. The headline price PowerToChoose shows is calculated against an assumed usage profile (often "36% of consumption during nighttime hours" or similar). If your actual usage doesn't match that profile, your bill won't match the headline rate.

This is structurally different from a usage-threshold conditional-rate plan, which is why we use a separate ⏱ TOU badge. A conditional-rate plan can be perfectly evaluated by knowing your monthly kWh — a TOU plan can only be honestly evaluated by knowing when you use that energy, hour by hour. The True Cost Calculator on each plan-detail page assumes a flat per-kWh rate, so it intentionally cannot estimate a TOU plan accurately. For TOU evaluation, the Shop by Usage page accepts a Smart Meter Texas interval-data export and scores every fixed-rate plan against your actual hourly consumption — it doesn't currently score TOU plans, but the comparison gives you a credible "what would I pay on a normal flat-rate plan with my actual usage?" baseline.

TOU plans aren't inherently bad. If your usage is genuinely concentrated at off-peak hours (EV charging at night, for example), a TOU plan can be the cheapest option in the market. The flag is there because the plan's headline rate is much less informative than a flat-rate plan's headline rate — extra diligence is warranted before signing up.

What does "bundle required" mean on a plan badge?

The § REQ badge marks plans whose advertised price is contingent on the customer enrolling in something else — most commonly autopay, paperless billing, a connected smart thermostat, or a partner product (home internet, security, etc.). Without those enrollments, the plan typically prices at a higher rate or carries additional monthly fees that aren't reflected in the headline number.

This flag is intentionally narrower than "any plan that mentions autopay." A plan that offers an optional $5 monthly credit if you sign up for autopay does not get the badge. A plan whose advertised rate requires autopay enrollment does. The distinction comes from the EFL — not all providers describe the requirement clearly, so we extract it carefully and only flag when the conditional language is explicit.

If you see this badge, hover or tap it to see the specific list of requirements. Then read the plan's full EFL before enrolling, because the language describing what happens when you fail to maintain the requirement (e.g. you forget to renew autopay one month) varies widely by provider.

What's a "base fee" on the plan list?

A base fee (sometimes called a base charge, customer charge, or monthly minimum) is a flat dollar amount the REP charges every month, regardless of how much electricity you use. It's separate from the per-kWh energy charge and from the TDU's own delivery charges. Most Texas plans have one — typical values are $0 to $10/month, with a few outliers above $15.

Why we surface it: a flat base fee distorts the per-kWh ranking heavily at low usage. A $10/month base fee is effectively 2¢/kWh extra at 500 kWh of monthly usage, but only 0.5¢/kWh extra at 2,000 kWh. PowerToChoose's "average rate at 1,000 kWh" calculation already includes the base fee in that blended number — but if your actual usage runs much lower (a small apartment, a vacation home), the headline rate dramatically understates what you'll pay.

We add a small $ badge alongside the base fee value when it's $9.95 or higher, since that's roughly where the distortion becomes material at typical residential usage. The True Cost Calculator on each plan-detail page handles base fees correctly when computing your actual bill — use it whenever a plan with a base fee is in your shortlist.

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.

What's the difference between "energy charge" and "total rate"?

The energy charge is what your retail electric provider (REP) charges for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. It's written into the contract and, on a Fixed plan, is locked for the entire term — it does not change with season, weather, or ERCOT grid prices.

The total rate — what PowerToChoose prints as the big number on every plan tile — bundles the energy charge with several other things:

• The TDU delivery charges your utility (CenterPoint, Oncor, AEP Texas, TNMP) collects for maintaining the poles and wires. These change at least twice a year when the TDUs file new rates with the PUCT, and they're identical for every REP on that utility — no provider controls them.
• The plan's fixed monthly base charge (if any), amortized across an assumed usage level.
• Any bill credits that apply at a specific usage threshold (most commonly 1,000 kWh).

That's why on our site the chart defaults to showing both: a solid black line for the energy charge (the REP's actual locked rate) and dashed lines for the total rate at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh (what appears on PowerToChoose). The gap between solid and dashed is everything except what your REP controls. If the total rate moves while the energy charge stays flat, your provider didn't do a thing — your utility's delivery charges changed, or you crossed a bill-credit threshold.

For an apples-to-apples comparison between REPs, compare their energy charges. For an estimate of your actual bill, use the True Cost Calculator on any plan's detail page — it uses each of these components separately and applies bill credits only when your usage crosses the threshold.

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.