Power to Choose in Texas

What Power to Choose Actually Is

Power to Choose is not a website. It’s a consumer right.

In 1999, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 7, which restructured the state’s electricity market. The law separated the industry into three parts: generation (making electricity), transmission and distribution (delivering it), and retail (selling it to you). It gave Texans the right to choose who sells them electricity, while the local utility continues to deliver it through the same wires.

That right took effect on January 1, 2002. Since then, residents in deregulated parts of Texas have been able to pick their retail electricity provider from a competitive market. You choose who sends you the bill and what rate you pay. You can’t choose who delivers the power — that’s your TDU (Transmission and Distribution Utility), and it’s determined by your address.

This is what “Power to Choose” means. It’s the principle that you have a say in one of your biggest household expenses. The website came later.

How Texas Electricity Deregulation Works

More than 100 retail electricity providers (REPs) compete to sell you electricity in Texas. They buy power on the wholesale market, package it into plans with different rates, contract lengths, and features, and sell those plans to residential and business customers.

Your TDU — Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas, TNMP, or LP&L — still owns the wires, maintains the poles and meters, and physically delivers electricity to your home. When you switch providers, the TDU doesn’t change. The same trucks roll out after a storm, the same infrastructure carries the power. The only thing that changes is who bills you and at what price.

Reliability is the same regardless of which REP you choose. Electricity is electricity. Every provider delivers the exact same electrons through the exact same grid. The difference is purely financial: your rate, your contract terms, and the quality of customer service when something goes wrong.

Competition is supposed to drive prices down, and it does — if you know how to compare. The problem is that over two decades of deregulation, the market has become genuinely complex. There are hundreds of plans in any given ZIP code, each with different rate structures, bill credits, tiered pricing, and fine print. The complexity itself became a barrier to the savings that deregulation was designed to create.

That’s where comparison tools come in.

Power2Choose.org — The State’s Comparison Tool

The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) created Power2Choose.org as an official, state-run tool for comparing electricity plans. Every licensed retail provider in Texas is required to list their plans on it.

For what it does, it works. You can enter your ZIP code, filter by plan type, contract length, and renewable content, and see a list of every available plan in your area. Each listing links to the plan’s Electricity Facts Label (EFL), which is the official disclosure document showing rates, fees, and contract terms. The site also shows provider complaint scores, so you can see which companies have the most customer complaints relative to their size.

Power2Choose.org is a legitimate, useful resource. It’s comprehensive, it’s free, and it’s maintained by the state regulator. If you want the raw data on every plan available at your address, it’s there.

What the State Tool Doesn’t Show You

Power2Choose.org lists rates at three consumption levels: 500 kWh, 1,000 kWh, and 2,000 kWh. These are the three benchmarks required on every Electricity Facts Label. Most shoppers look at the 2,000 kWh rate because it’s usually the lowest number, and it’s what providers advertise.

But the average Texas home uses about 1,200 kWh per month. And many plans are structured so the rate looks best at 2,000 kWh thanks to bill credits and tiered pricing that kick in at higher levels.

Here’s what that looks like in practice: a plan might advertise 8.5 cents per kWh at 2,000 kWh. Looks great. But at 1,200 kWh — where your home actually lands — the effective rate is 12 cents per kWh. That’s the difference between a $102 monthly bill and a $144 monthly bill. Over a year, you’d pay $500 more than the advertised rate suggested.

Power2Choose.org shows you the rate at those three fixed levels. It doesn’t calculate what you’d actually pay in dollars at the amount of electricity your home uses. It doesn’t adjust for bill credit thresholds, tiered pricing structures, or the specific way each plan’s math works at your consumption level. You see rates, not bills.

That gap between the advertised rate and what you actually pay is where most Texans lose money.

How ChooseMyPower Compares Plans

ChooseMyPower.org pulls from the same plan data that every comparison tool uses. The difference is what we do with it.

Instead of showing you a rate at 500, 1,000, or 2,000 kWh, we calculate what you’d actually pay each month — in dollars — based on how much electricity your home uses. Enter your address or estimate your monthly consumption, and we’ll show you the real monthly cost for every available plan, sorted from cheapest to most expensive at your specific level.

This matters because a plan that’s cheapest at 2,000 kWh is often not the cheapest at 1,200 kWh. Bill credits, base charges, and tiered pricing all shift the math depending on your consumption. Two plans that look nearly identical on an EFL can differ by $30-40 per month at your actual level.

We also explain plan structures in plain English. If a plan has a bill credit that only kicks in above 1,000 kWh, we tell you that upfront. If a plan’s rate jumps at a certain tier, you’ll see it. No fine print, no surprises on your first bill.

When you find a plan through ChooseMyPower.org, enrollment is handled through ComparePower.com, a licensed retail electricity broker registered with the PUCT (BR190020). Your enrollment, account, and billing are all directly with the electricity provider you choose. We’re the comparison tool, not the provider.

Who Can’t Participate

About 15% of Texas isn’t part of the deregulated electricity market. If you live in one of these areas, you have one electricity provider and can’t switch.

The main non-deregulated areas include:

• Austin — served by Austin Energy, a municipal utility owned by the City of Austin
• San Antonio — served by CPS Energy, the nation’s largest municipally owned electric and gas utility
• El Paso — served by El Paso Electric, which operates outside the ERCOT grid entirely
• Rural electric cooperatives — many smaller towns and rural areas are served by member-owned co-ops that opted out of deregulation

If you’re not sure whether your address is deregulated, enter your ZIP code on ChooseMyPower.org. If plans show up, you’re in a deregulated area and you can shop. If they don’t, your area is served by a regulated utility and your provider is already set.

For those in deregulated areas — the large majority of Texans — the right to compare and switch providers is one of the most effective ways to lower a monthly bill that you’re going to pay regardless. The electricity is the same. The wires are the same. The only variable is the price, and that part is up to you.