Choosing the right utility company to handle your electricity can be extremely challenging in Texas. Depending on where you live, you will have dozens of companies and electricity plans to choose from. Picking the right one for you requires hours of research just to understand how exactly electricity works in Texas. Luckily, there’s an easier way to choose your power provider.

EnerGenie is a rising star in Texas, and our sole purpose is to save you money on your utility bill and make your life easier by choosing the best plan for you. This article will delve a little deeper into how this works and how utility companies operate in the Lone Star State.

We need to look at what exactly a utility company is and what they do. You must not confuse a utility company for a power company or retail electric provider. Utility companies are better known as Transmission And Distribution Utility companies (TDUs). They are the entities responsible for making sure that electricity gets delivered into your home for you to use.

They handle the power lines, electric poles, underground power lines, and electric meters outside your home. If there’s a power outage, your utility company is responsible for restoring power rather than the company you buy the electricity from. Here’s a breakdown of how electricity works in Texas, where energy is deregulated, and the market is competitive.

1. Power generating companies use coal, natural gas, oil, solar panels, wind turbines, or other measures to create electricity.
2. Power generating companies sell the electricity to REPs or retail electric providers.
3. You browse the internet for hours, trying to choose the right REP with the best plan to service your home. Or, you can use EnerGenie, who will find you the best rate and plan in minutes.
4. Once you have chosen your REP and plan, forces are set in motion to deliver electricity to your home.
5. Your REP works with the local utility company to ensure that electricity makes it to your residence.
6. Your utility company is responsible for maintaining and protecting the route and method by which electricity gets from the REP to you.
7. While you can choose your REP, you cannot choose your utility company. Your REP works with whoever is responsible for managing the local region.

While there are hundreds of retail electric providers in Texas, there are only five TDUs that operate in deregulated parts of Texas.

• Texas-New Mexico Power
• Oncor Electricity
• CenterPoint Energy
• AEP North
• AEP Central

Texas-New Mexico Power was founded in 1935 and delivers electricity to over 225,000 homes and businesses in Texas. If you happen to have a power outage in the areas operated by Texas-New Mexico Power, you should contact them rather than your REP. Or, if you sign up through EnerGenie, we take care of contacting your utility company on your behalf.

Texas-New Mexico Power serves three main areas in Texas, including Rural areas northeast, northwest, and southwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. They also serve Lewisville, Gatesville, Bryson, and Farmersville, as well as Gulf Coast areas southeast and southwest of Houston such as Friendswood, Texas City, and Angleton. Finally, they also service areas in West Texas such as Fort Stockton and Pecos.

While these aren’t the only cities that they service, it gives you an idea of the general areas they cover.

Oncor Electricity is the largest TDU in Texas and the sixth-largest in the nation. If you live in eastern, central, or western Texas, it’s a fair bet that Oncor is your utility company. They service over 7.5 million homes and businesses in over 400 different communities in Texas alone. Their main office is located in Dallas, and they service major cities such as Dallas, Fort Worth, Odessa, Killeen, Midland, Waco, Tyler, and Wichita Falls.

CenterPoint Energy is one of the oldest TDUs in America and was founded in 1882. They provide power to over 3.5 million residents in the Lone Star State, but they also serve other parts of the U.S. Minnesota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma all have parts of their state that receive electricity from CenterPoint Energy.

AEP Electricity is split into two major sections in Texas: AEP North and AEP Central. As you might’ve guessed, AEP North services northern Texas in cities such as Abilene, San Angelo, and Alpine. AEP Central services central and southern Texas, including Victoria, Corpus Christi, Laredo, McAllen, and the Rio Grande Valley. Aside from nearly 1 million customers in Texas, AEP also provides electricity to the states of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and several Appalachian states.

Regardless of who your TDU is, the quality of your electricity shouldn’t be affected. Each of the companies mentioned above is massive and consists of dozens of smaller offices servicing the local areas. If anything, your local office will have an impact on how soon power is restored after an outage, but not on the electricity in general.