If you live in the Houston area and "CenterPoint Energy" shows up on your electric bill, you do not have an electricity plan with CenterPoint. CenterPoint Energy is your TDU — the company that owns the poles, wires, and meter at your address. They deliver the electrons. Someone else, your retail electricity provider (REP), is the one charging you per kWh.
This trips people up constantly, and it matters because two of the line items on your bill come from CenterPoint regardless of which provider you pick. Understanding the split is the first step to actually shopping plans honestly.
What CenterPoint Energy actually does
CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric is a transmission and distribution utility (TDU). They are regulated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, not competing for your business in the deregulated market. Their job is the physical infrastructure: stringing wire, maintaining substations, restoring power after outages, and reading your meter.
CenterPoint's electric service territory covers most of the Greater Houston area, plus chunks of Galveston County, Brazoria County, and Fort Bend County. About 2.5 million electric meters. If your address is in this footprint, you cannot choose a different TDU. It's locked to your physical location.
The company also has a natural gas business in Houston (and Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi), which is a separate regulated utility. When people Google "centerpoint energy" they're often mixing the gas side and the electric side. On your Texas electric bill, the gas business is irrelevant.
How the TDU charge shows up on your bill
Every electricity bill in CenterPoint territory has two component groups:
| Component | Set by | Who keeps it |
|---|---|---|
| Energy charge (per kWh) | Your REP | Your REP |
| Base/monthly fee | Your REP | Your REP |
| TDU delivery charge (per kWh) | CenterPoint tariff | CenterPoint |
| TDU customer charge | CenterPoint tariff | CenterPoint |
The 2026 CenterPoint residential tariff sets the customer charge at $4.39/month and the delivery charge at roughly 4.62¢/kWh. On a 1,000 kWh bill, that's about $50.59 going to CenterPoint — before you've paid your REP a single cent for the actual electricity.
Your REP bundles all of this into the advertised rate you see on marketing pages. When a Houston plan advertises "11.5¢ all-in at 1,000 kWh," the math is something like 6.5¢ to the REP for the energy charge, 4.62¢ to CenterPoint for delivery, plus pass-through fixed charges.
Why this matters when you're shopping
Because the CenterPoint portion is identical across every REP, the only thing that varies between plans on your meter is the REP's energy charge and base fee. That's where competition lives.
A plan from TXU at 11.5¢ and a plan from Rhythm at 11.5¢ have the exact same delivery charge buried inside. They're competing on the 6.5¢ or so that's actually the REP's margin. The reason rate differences feel small in absolute cents is that more than 40% of your bill in CenterPoint territory is locked to a regulated utility you can't shop.
This also means the rate you'd pay in Oncor territory (Dallas/Fort Worth, most of West Texas) is not directly comparable to a CenterPoint rate, because Oncor's delivery charge is lower. A 10¢ plan in Dallas is not the same bill as a 10¢ plan in Houston. We track this at the city level when we surface comparison numbers.
What CenterPoint does NOT do
A few things people commonly assume CenterPoint handles, but doesn't:
- Set your rate. They publish a regulated tariff, not a rate. Your REP sets the price you actually pay.
- Send your bill. Your REP bills you. CenterPoint bills your REP.
- Handle plan switches. When you switch from TXU to Reliant, CenterPoint's role is just updating the back-end account flag at the meter. No service interruption.
- Pick which REPs operate in their territory. Any PUCT-licensed REP can serve CenterPoint customers. CenterPoint has no say.
The one time CenterPoint becomes your direct point of contact is during an outage. Your REP can't restore power. They didn't build the wire. The CenterPoint outage line is the right call for blackouts, downed lines, or restoration ETAs.
Outage reporting and grid reliability
CenterPoint's outage map at centerpointenergy.com lets you report a power loss by address and check restoration estimates. After Hurricane Beryl in 2024, the utility faced significant scrutiny over restoration timelines, and ERCOT pushed several reliability investments through the PUCT in 2025-2026. The infrastructure modernization is ongoing.
For practical shopping purposes, the takeaway is that grid reliability is a TDU question, not a REP question. The REP you pick has zero impact on how fast your power comes back after a storm. That's all CenterPoint.
How to figure out which REP is best for you in CenterPoint territory
Once you understand that CenterPoint's portion of your bill is fixed, the actual shopping question simplifies:
- Pull your last 12 months of kWh usage from your REP's portal. Average it.
- Filter plans for the CenterPoint TDU so you're only comparing apples to apples.
- Sort by total monthly cost at your average usage, not by the advertised rate at 1,000 kWh.
- Check the Electricity Facts Label (EFL) for any plan you're considering — bill credits and minimum-usage penalties hide there.
We do all four steps automatically on the comparison page when you enter your ZIP. The plans you'll see are only the ones available on CenterPoint's grid, ranked by true cost at your usage tier.
Bottom line
CenterPoint Energy is the wires, not the plan. You can't pick a different TDU, but you can pick from any of the 18+ REPs operating in their footprint. About half of your monthly bill goes to CenterPoint regardless of who you pick, so the actual shopping decision is about that other half — the REP's energy charge and base fee. Read the EFL, sort by total cost, and don't let the advertised rate at 1,000 kWh fool you if your home doesn't actually use 1,000 kWh.