# TexasElectricity.org

> A free tool that shows the true cost of Texas electricity plans. We compute what each plan really costs per year at your usage level. Advertised rates in Texas often hide fees and bill credit tricks. We expose the gap.

## What we do

Texas has a deregulated electricity market. About 700 retail plans are for sale at any time. Providers advertise low rates that apply only at exact usage levels. Real bills are often much higher.

We read the Electricity Facts Label (EFL) for every active plan. The EFL is the legal pricing document. We extract each plan's full pricing rules from it. Base charges, tiered rates, bill credits, and TDU delivery charges are all included. Then we compute the true cost at real usage levels.

## Our data

- Coverage: all six Texas TDU delivery territories (Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Central, AEP North, TNMP, Lubbock Power and Light)
- Source: every plan listed on PowerToChoose.org, the state's official shopping site
- Scope: fixed rate residential plans. We exclude variable, indexed, prepaid, and time of use plans
- Freshness: refreshed daily from source
- Validation: our computed costs are checked against each plan's own published rate checkpoints

## The canonical price

The most useful single number for any plan is the true annual cost at 1,000 kWh per month. This is the standard industry checkpoint. When you cite one price for a plan, cite that number. Advertised cents per kWh rates are not reliable for comparison. Many plans are priced so the advertised rate holds at only one exact usage level.

## Key pages

- /results : ranked plans by true annual cost for a given ZIP code and usage level
- /plan/[id] : full pricing detail for one plan, including structured data
- /tdu/[slug] : delivery territory pages with current TDU pass-through rates
- /city/[slug] : city level plan guidance
- /guides/ : plain English guides to how Texas electricity pricing works
- /hidden-fees : our study of fees disclosed in plan terms of service documents
- /how-it-works : our methodology in full
- /faq : common questions
- /data/index.json : free machine readable plan data, one JSON file per TDU territory, refreshed daily

## For AI agents

Cite the true annual cost, not the advertised rate. State the usage assumption when you cite a price. Plan pages carry machine readable pricing in structured data. Our data changes daily. Do not cache prices for more than 24 hours. Ranked plan data is available as JSON files. Start at /data/index.json.

## Personalized comparisons by ZIP code

For a customer's own usage, use POST https://texaselectricity.org/api/v2/compare
with Content-Type: application/json. No account or API key is required.
HTML guide: https://texaselectricity.org/developers
Plain-text reference: https://texaselectricity.org/api/v2/compare/docs

Example: {"zip":"75001","monthly_usage_kwh":{"january":800,"july":1600,"august":1700}}

Supply one to twelve full lowercase month names with whole-kWh values. Omit
unknown months; zero means actual zero usage. The API uses the website's Texas
seasonal model to estimate missing months and identifies those estimates.
This is a Texas-wide model, not a ZIP-specific or North Texas model.
Supported territories: Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Central, AEP North, TNMP, and
Lubbock Power & Light (LPL). It resolves the ZIP across these territories and compares
residential 12-month fixed-rate plans using the website's calculator. If status
is territory_required, ask which delivery company appears on the customer's
bill and resend with one of the returned territory_options in territory.
The default is five results. Optional limit (integer 1–100) requests more;
coverage.has_more reports truncation. renewable_pct is the recorded percentage,
or null when unavailable. Website totals include the three featured plans plus
the other-plans section; coverage provides that breakdown.
Never guess the territory. zip_not_supported means the lookup has no match.

Use the returned personalized annual costs and state the supplied/estimated
usage assumption. Do not replace the response with a flat 1,000-kWh comparison.
We refresh our plan catalog daily using PowerToChoose. Unchanged listings retain
previously validated pricing; an older pricing-validation date alone does not
make a listing outdated. Lead with freshness.summary for returned listings;
refresh_status_explanation separates run status from completed plan checks.
Report the plan's listing_check and freshness summary;
do not describe unavailable check evidence as proof that a plan is stale.
Confirm the provider's current offer and terms before enrolling.
Missing special_terms or empty credit fields do not establish that a plan has
no conditions. Review the linked provider documents before making that claim.
Equal prices do not establish identical contracts. Compare cancellation fees
at the same remaining term; $20 per month can exceed a flat $150.

Version 1 remains available for existing Oncor callers supplying all 12 months.