Last updated: October 27, 2026. Power to Choose listings, delivery rates and PUCT rules checked October 27, 2026.
Power to Choose is the Public Utility Commission of Texas’s own shopping site, and it’s the best place to compare electricity plans if you live in the competitive part of the state. It’s free and open to every provider, and each listing links to the plan’s contract documents.
It’s also easy to use badly. Providers post their own offers, the PUCT doesn’t verify them, and the obvious way to shop (sorting by the price at 1,000 kWh) floats the trickiest plans to the top. This guide shows how to use it properly, using what the listings looked like today.
Quick answer
- Use the real site: powertochoose.org, linked from the PUCT’s own pages. You only need a ZIP code to see plans.
- Turn off the noise first. Filter out minimum-usage fees and credits, time-of-use and prepaid plans, then choose fixed rate and a 12-month or longer term.
- Don’t trust the top of the 1,000 kWh sort. In CenterPoint’s area today, 8 of the 10 cheapest-looking plans at 1,000 kWh were bill-credit plans; the other two were month-to-month variable rates.
- Price your own 12 months from Smart Meter Texas against each plan’s Electricity Facts Label (EFL), not the single 1,000 kWh number.
- Time the switch. There’s no cancellation fee in the last 14 days before your contract’s expiration date, and you get three federal business days to cancel a switch after you receive the terms of service.
Step 0: make sure you’re on the official site
The official address is powertochoose.org. The PUCT’s Choosing an Electric Plan page and its electricity FAQ both link there, and the site’s home page calls itself “the official and unbiased electric choice website of the Public Utility Commission of Texas.” When I checked today, powertochoose.com simply redirected there.
Search results also turn up commercial comparison sites with similar names. They aren’t run by the PUCT, so treat them as marketing. A few quick checks:
- The address bar says exactly powertochoose.org, nothing more.
- The footer reads “Public Utility Commission of Texas” and links to puc.texas.gov.
- You see plans with just a ZIP code. Enrollment happens later, on the provider’s own site or phone line.
Before you search: pull your last 12 months of usage
Bring your own usage history. Past bills work, but Smart Meter Texas is quicker. Sign up as a residential user with your ESI ID (it’s on your bill), your meter number and your current provider’s name, and the dashboard shows up to two years of data (SMT residential user guide).
Choose the “Monthly Billing Information” report, set the dates, and click “Export My Report” for a CSV file. Smart meters record usage in 15-minute intervals (PUCT), which matters later if you look at time-of-use plans. Our Smart Meter Texas guide covers signup and export screen by screen.
Next, sort your months into bands. Credits and minimum-usage fees usually switch on at 1,000 kWh, sometimes at 500. Here’s how a typical 2025 Texas year falls:
| Monthly usage | Months in a typical 2025 Texas year | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Under 500 kWh | 0 | Minimum-usage fees bite here |
| 500 to 999 kWh | 4 | Credit plans miss their credit |
| 1,000 to 1,999 kWh | 8 | Credit plans pay out, but extra kWh cost more |
| 2,000 kWh or more | 0 | Large homes; check the 2,000 kWh price |
Usage dipped under 1,000 kWh in March, April, November and December and peaked at 1,508 kWh in August. Yours will be different, and that’s exactly why you need your own numbers. (For the statewide month-by-month figures, see the average electric bill in Texas.)
Step by step: running a search
1. Enter your ZIP code and pick your delivery utility
If your ZIP code spans more than one delivery utility (TDU), the site asks you to choose. That’s the company you call in an outage, which around Houston means CenterPoint. If no plans show up at all, your address usually isn’t in a competitive area. Our guide to setting up electricity in Texas explains what to do in that case.
2. Use the filters before you look at a single plan
The Power to Choose user guide lists the filters: estimated monthly usage, a price range, contract length, an option to exclude plans with minimum-usage fees or credits and tiered rates, fixed versus variable, prepaid, time-of-use, a customer-complaint rating, renewable share, and a specific provider. Click Refresh Results after setting them. Here’s what I’d pick:
| Filter | Suggested setting | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum usage fees/credits | Exclude | Removes most of the plans that only look cheap at 1,000 kWh |
| Rate type | Fixed | A residential variable plan can only be month-to-month; its price can change every bill |
| Contract length | 12 months or longer | Short terms run out fast and roll you onto a month-to-month rate |
| Prepaid | Exclude (unless you need no deposit) | Prepaid plans cost more per kWh today |
| Time of use | Exclude, unless your 15-minute data backs it up | Free-nights pricing pays off only if enough of your usage shifts |
| Rating | Use it as a tiebreaker | Based on complaints to the PUCT |
| Renewable % | Your call | The EFL shows the exact share |
3. Sort, then read all three prices
Each listing shows the average price at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh, the same three numbers as the EFL. On a plain plan they sit close together. If the 1,000 kWh price is far below both neighbors, there’s a bill credit. If the 500 kWh price is far above the rest, look for a base charge or a minimum-usage fee. Our walkthrough of how to read an Electricity Facts Label goes line by line.
4. Open the Fact Sheet (EFL) and the Terms of Service
The user guide calls reading the Fact Sheet “critical,” and it’s right. Check the energy charge, the base charge, any credit and the exact wording of its threshold, plus the term and cancellation fee. Then price your 12 months against it. A simple spreadsheet does the job.
5. Enroll with the provider
After you sign up, ERCOT mails a confirmation, and the Power to Choose FAQ says the switch itself happens within seven business days with no gap in service.
What the listings looked like today
I write GridPenny from Fort Bend County, in CenterPoint territory, so I pulled the full Power to Choose offer export on October 27, 2026 and looked at the 179 English-language residential listings for CenterPoint. Sorted by the 1,000 kWh price, the top 10 looked like this:
| Rank | 500 kWh | 1,000 kWh | 2,000 kWh | Term | What’s behind the price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 19.2¢ | 6.2¢ | 12.2¢ | 3 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
| 2 | 19.8¢ | 6.8¢ | 12.8¢ | 12 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
| 3 | 19.9¢ | 6.9¢ | 12.9¢ | 12 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
| 4 | 20.6¢ | 7.6¢ | 13.6¢ | 12 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
| 5 | 18.9¢ | 8.4¢ | 13.2¢ | 12 months | $100 credit above 1,000 kWh |
| 6 | 10.7¢ | 9.7¢ | 9.3¢ | Month-to-month | Variable rate, month-to-month |
| 7 | 10.7¢ | 9.7¢ | 9.3¢ | Month-to-month | Variable rate, month-to-month |
| 8 | 22.9¢ | 9.9¢ | 15.9¢ | 12 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
| 9 | 22.9¢ | 9.9¢ | 15.9¢ | 12 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
| 10 | 22.9¢ | 9.9¢ | 15.9¢ | 12 months | $125 credit from 1,000 kWh |
Now look at the 500 kWh column. Every credit plan in the top 10 charged 18.9¢ to 22.9¢ at 500 kWh, two to three times its 1,000 kWh price. The cheapest plain fixed-rate plans showed 10.3¢ at 1,000 kWh, but every plain plan at 10.5¢ or less had a three-month term. The cheapest plain 12-month plan was 11.8¢.
| Plan type (CenterPoint, today) | Listings | Price at 1,000 kWh |
|---|---|---|
| Plain fixed rate (no credits or fees, not prepaid, not time-of-use) | 139 | 10.3¢–16.1¢; median 13.1¢ |
| Flagged for minimum-usage fees or credits | 13 | 6.2¢–17.9¢ |
| Variable rate (month-to-month) | 16 | 9.7¢–18.9¢ |
| Time-of-use | 10 | 10.3¢–17.9¢ |
| Prepaid | 5 | 15.9¢–18.9¢ |
For a reality check, remember that CenterPoint’s delivery charges alone are $70.23 at 1,000 kWh ($2.11 + $2.79 a month plus 6.5333¢ per kWh, effective Oct 1, 2026, per the CenterPoint rate report). A plan showing 10.3¢ bills about $103 at 1,000 kWh, leaving about $32.77 for the electricity itself. Anything much lower usually means a credit. (See how CenterPoint delivery charges break down.)
The traps, one by one
Bill credits
A fixed dollar amount comes off any month you reach the threshold. Miss it by 1 kWh and you pay the full energy charge with nothing off. Count how many of your 12 months clear the line. For the 2025 statewide average it was 8, which means a credit plan would have missed its credit a third of the year.
Minimum-usage fees
This is the reverse: a fee when you use less than a set amount. The Power to Choose FAQ says common cut-offs are 500 or 1,000 kWh and that the fee “may or may not be listed separately” on the bill.
Teaser terms
Short fixed terms often post lower prices. Among plain fixed-rate CenterPoint plans today, terms of six months or less had a median of 10.85¢ at 1,000 kWh, against 12.95¢ for 12-month plans. The gap lasts only until the term ends. Do nothing and you roll onto a month-to-month default plan at whatever it costs by then. That’s fine if you’ll actually shop again, so put the end date in your calendar.
Variable rates
For residential customers, a variable price plan can only be month-to-month (16 TAC §25.475(b)), so its price can change from bill to bill. The one upside is that there’s no termination fee. Plans passing through real-time wholesale prices can’t be offered to homes at all (since September 1, 2021).
Prepaid plans
You pay first and draw the balance down. Prepaid plans can’t require a deposit and cap the starting balance at $75 (§25.498), which helps if you have no credit history. On the other hand, service can be cut once the balance falls below a set level of no more than $10, and the 5 CenterPoint prepaid listings today ran 15.9¢–18.9¢ at 1,000 kWh, against the 13.1¢ median for plain fixed plans.
When to switch, and what it costs to leave early
Fixed-rate customers get at least three written expiration notices in the last third of the contract. On contracts of 12 months or longer the first can come up to three months before the end date, and on contracts longer than four months the final notice must arrive at least 30 days ahead (§25.475(e)). Start shopping at the first notice.
| Situation | Early termination fee? |
|---|---|
| Switching in the last 14 days before the expiration date in your notice | No |
| On a month-to-month plan, including the default plan after expiry | No |
| Moving out, with a forwarding address (and proof if asked) | No |
| Leaving a fixed contract any earlier | Yes, whatever the EFL and Terms of Service say |
Among today’s CenterPoint listings the most common flat fees were $150 (32 plans) and $175 (22), 19 listed $0, and 34 charged per remaining month, often $20. On a $20-a-month plan with four months left, leaving costs $80. A flat $150 stays $150 until the 14-day window opens. Weigh the fee against what the new plan would save over the months you have left.
After a switch you get three federal business days after you receive the terms of service to cancel without penalty (16 TAC §25.474(j)). That right covers switches, not move-ins. You can also ask for a specific switch date, which helps you land inside the 14-day window. Switching itself is free, except for an off-cycle meter read for a chosen date at a home without a working smart meter (§25.474(k) and (n)).
FAQ
Is Power to Choose run by the state?
Yes, the Public Utility Commission of Texas runs it. Providers post their own offers, though, so the EFL is the document that counts.
Why is the cheapest plan on Power to Choose often a bad deal?
Because the default comparison point is 1,000 kWh, and bill credits are usually set to start right there. Check the 500 and 2,000 kWh prices and your own monthly usage.
Can I switch before my contract ends?
Yes, any time, but you’ll owe the early termination fee unless you’re within 14 days of the expiration date in your notice, you’re on a month-to-month plan, or you’re moving.
What if my ZIP code shows no plans?
Your address may be served by a city-owned utility or co-op that hasn’t opted into competition, or by a utility outside the ERCOT grid. Contact that utility directly.
Sources
- Power to Choose (PUCT): home page, user guide, FAQ and offer export (179 English-language CenterPoint listings), downloaded Oct 27, 2026.
- PUCT, Choosing an Electric Plan and Electricity FAQs; PUCT news release on Power to Choose and Lubbock (Jan. 2024). Checked Oct 27, 2026.
- 16 TAC §25.474, Selection of Retail Electric Provider (effective 3/08/17), 16 TAC §25.475, General Retail Electric Provider Requirements and Information Disclosures (effective 01/06/2022) and 16 TAC §25.498, Prepaid Service (effective 01/06/2022). Checked Oct 27, 2026.
- CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric Rates Report, 10/1/2026 and PUCT residential TDU delivery charges, as of Oct 1, 2026. Checked Oct 27, 2026.
- Smart Meter Texas Residential User Guide (Feb. 26, 2024) and PUCT, Electric Metering and Smart Meters. Checked Oct 27, 2026.
- U.S. EIA, electricity retail sales data: Texas residential sales and customers by month, 2025. Fetched Oct 27, 2026.