How Electricity Gets to Your Home in Texas

The Journey from Generator to Wall Outlet

Every time you flip a light switch, electricity completes a journey that started at a power plant and traveled through a network of lines, transformers, and substations to reach your home. That journey has four main stages: generation, transmission, distribution, and delivery to your meter.

Stage 1: Generation

Electricity starts at a power plant or generator. Texas has a diverse mix of generation sources:

Natural gas plants are the backbone of Texas generation, providing flexible power that can ramp up and down quickly. Texas has over 70,000 megawatts of natural gas capacity, spread across hundreds of plants.

Wind farms are concentrated in West Texas, the Panhandle, and along the Gulf Coast. Texas has over 40,000 megawatts of wind capacity, making it the largest wind energy producer in the US.

Solar farms have grown rapidly, with over 25,000 megawatts of installed capacity as of 2025. Most are in West Texas and South Texas.

Nuclear plants provide steady baseload power. The South Texas Project and Comanche Peak together generate about 5,000 megawatts.

Coal plants have been declining but still contribute several thousand megawatts of capacity.

At the power plant, generators produce electricity at relatively low voltages, typically 11,000-25,000 volts. Before it leaves the plant, step-up transformers boost the voltage to transmission levels.

Stage 2: Transmission

High-voltage transmission lines carry electricity over long distances, from generators to substations near cities and towns. In Texas, transmission voltages typically range from 69,000 to 345,000 volts.

Why so high? Physics. Electrical energy is lost as heat when it travels through wires. The higher the voltage, the lower the current needed to deliver the same amount of power, and lower current means less energy lost to heat. At transmission voltages, losses are typically 2-3% over hundreds of miles.

Texas has over 52,000 miles of transmission lines managed by various entities but coordinated by ERCOT. The Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) transmission lines, completed in 2014, added 3,600 miles of high-capacity lines specifically to carry wind energy from West Texas to major cities.

Transmission lines are the tall metal towers you see along highways and through rural areas. They carry three-phase power on bundled conductor cables, often with a smaller shield wire on top for lightning protection.

Stage 3: Distribution

When transmission lines reach a populated area, the electricity enters a substation where step-down transformers reduce the voltage. A large substation might reduce 345,000 volts down to 69,000 volts, and then a smaller substation further reduces it to distribution levels of 4,000-35,000 volts.

From the substation, distribution lines carry electricity through neighborhoods and business districts. These are the lines you see on wooden poles along your street (or buried underground in newer subdivisions).

Along the way, smaller transformers mounted on poles or in green ground-level boxes reduce the voltage one more time — down to the 120/240 volts that your home uses. A typical pole-mounted transformer serves 5-10 homes.

Your TDU owns and maintains all of this distribution infrastructure. When a tree branch takes down a line in your neighborhood, the TDU crew that comes to fix it is maintaining the distribution system.

Stage 4: Your Meter and Home

The last step is your electric meter, which sits between the distribution line and your home’s electrical panel. The meter measures how many kilowatt-hours of electricity pass through it.

Most Texas homes have smart meters that record your electricity data every 15 minutes and transmit it wirelessly to your TDU. This data flows to your REP for billing and is available to you through Smart Meter Texas.

Inside your home, the electrical panel distributes power through circuits to outlets, lights, and appliances. Your panel typically provides 200-amp service, which is enough for most modern homes including central air conditioning.

Energy Losses Along the Way

Not all the electricity generated at the power plant makes it to your home. At each stage, some energy is lost:

• Generation: Modern natural gas plants convert about 60% of fuel energy to electricity. The rest is lost as heat.
• Transmission: About 2-3% of electricity is lost as heat in transmission lines.
• Distribution: About 3-5% is lost in distribution lines and transformers.
• Total system losses: Roughly 5-8% of generated electricity is lost between the plant and your meter.

These losses are factored into the prices you pay and are one reason why generating electricity close to where it is consumed (like rooftop solar) can be efficient.

Underground vs. Overhead Lines

Some newer Texas subdivisions have underground distribution lines. These are less vulnerable to wind, ice, and falling branches, which means fewer weather-related outages. However, underground lines are more expensive to install and repair, and when they do fail, restoration takes longer because crews have to dig to find and fix the problem.

Overhead lines are cheaper to build and easier to repair but are more exposed to weather. Your TDU’s vegetation management program (tree trimming along power line corridors) is one of the most effective ways to prevent outages from overhead distribution lines.

The Bottom Line

Electricity travels a remarkable path from power plant to your wall outlet, passing through transformers, transmission lines, substations, and distribution networks. Your TDU maintains this infrastructure, and the delivery charges on your bill cover the cost of keeping it all running. Understanding this system helps you appreciate why delivery charges exist, why outages happen, and how the Texas grid moves electricity hundreds of miles to keep your lights on.