Texas

In 2002, most of state of Texas was opened to competition for retail electricity. That means about 85% of Texans have the right to choose their own electricity provider.

These Texans live in what is known as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which covers areas including Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, Corpus Christi and much of West Texas.

If your local wires utility is one of these companies, you can choose your electric provider:

• Oncor (Dallas-Ft. Worth)
• CenterPoint (Houston)
• AEP Texas Central (Corpus Christi)
• AEP Texas North (Abilene area)
• Texas-New Mexico Power
• Sharyland

Here's how electric choice in Texas works. You get to choose your electric provider based on whatever criteria you like -- price, stability, green power, etc. Your electric provider sells you your power, and pays your local utility (Oncor, CenterPoint, etc.) to transmit the power to your home. You only pay one bill to your electricity provider; you no longer pay your wires utility. But if you ever need to report an outage or other emergency, you contact your utility (Oncor, CenterPoint, etc.) because they still own the lines and are responsible for maintenance.

What if you've never chosen an electric provider before? You're automatically on a 'legacy' provider, which used to be the old utility before Texas was opened to competition, but is now a separate company. For a while, these legacy providers, also called 'Affiliated Retail Electric Providers' or 'incumbents,' charged rates set by the Public Utility Commission, during a transition period. However, this transition period ended January 1, 2007, and the legacy providers can now charge a rate determined by the market. That means if you haven't shopped around yet, you should.

The legacy providers vary by utility area. For example, if you live in the Dallas area and are served by Oncor, your legacy provider is TXU Energy. For the Houston area, if you're served by CenterPoint, your legacy provider is Reliant Energy

Here's a list of all the legacy providers:

If you are still on your legacy energy provider, you may be paying more than you need to. It's a good idea to shop around and look for a lower rate, especially since switching your energy provider is free.

What about areas not open to competition?
If your utility is SWEPCO (AEP), El Paso Electric, Entergy, or Southwestern Public Service (Xcel), you cannot choose your electric provider at this time. The Public Utility Commission is still studying how to open those areas to electric competition.