One thing I’ll never fully understand about Texas is why we have to play this ridiculous game of selecting an electric provider like you’re in a fantasy football league. (Truth be told, I know the history behind Texas electric deregulation, and our thanks go to the hard work of a loyal reader, but I just want to gripe.) Electric companies (retail electric providers (REPs)) sell electricity to you, such as Gexa, Frontier, 4Change, Express Energy, etc. They don’t generate electricity, maintain power lines, or fix outages. They just buy electricity from power plants and resell it to you, adding in their own fees and gimmicks.The “real” electric companies are “Transmission & Distribution Utilities” (TDUs). These are the companies that actually maintain the power lines and restore outages. In North Texas, that company is Oncor. In Houston, it’s CenterPoint. Other areas have AEP or Texas-New Mexico Power (TNMP). In my case, no matter which Retail Electric Provider I choose, Oncor still delivers the power and maintains the infrastructure. If my power goes out, I call Oncor, NOT the electricity provider. Maybe that’s only weird to me? So, Texans go to PowerToChoose.org (the official website of the Public Utility Commission of Texas) to find a deal on an electric provider or risk getting stuck with whatever their provider decides to charge once their plan expires. For the last 11 months, I’ve procrastinated and just been rolling over on my old plan, not bothering to shop around. Turns out, my current rate is 23.9 cents per kWh.
Meanwhile, there are three-month plans that are as low as 9.7 cents. I could literally cut my bill by 60%, yet I keep putting it off. Ideally, I’d sign a two or three-year plan and not have to think about this again for a while. But the long-term plans aren’t as competitive, and I don’t want to put a reminder on my calendar and renew every three months like I’m on some kind of weird Columbia House subscription service for electricity. If I log into my provider’s website and look at my renewal options, the lowest they’ll offer me is 20 cents per kWh — which is way higher than what I could get if I just went through PowerToChoose.

And that’s the trap. So many people just renew with their current company without realizing they can seamlessly switch providers with barely any effort. If you forget or don’t know any better, you’re stuck paying outrageous prices while the energy companies laugh all the way to the bank.I ended up going through ChooseEnergy.com, an energy broker registered with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), to find a better deal than I could through PowerToChoose.org. Basically, I just cut my electric bill in half for the next two years. To get this rate, I just have to consume more than 1,000 kWh a month. Easy peasy.
