Smart Meter Texas: How to Sign Up, Read Your Usage Data and Use It to Pick a Plan

by

Last updated: October 27, 2026. Smart Meter Texas user guide, PUCT rules and Power to Choose checked October 27, 2026.

Your electricity bill gives you one number a month. Your smart meter records 96 a day, and Smart Meter Texas is where they live, free. If you’re picking a plan or trying to figure out why a bill jumped, your own usage history beats any average.

I write GridPenny from Fort Bend County, in CenterPoint’s delivery area, where my family moved in 2025, so the delivery charges in the example below are CenterPoint’s. This guide covers getting into Smart Meter Texas and what each report means. Then it shows how to export the data and use it to pick a better plan.

Quick answer

  • Smart Meter Texas (SMT) is the usage portal run by AEP Texas Central, AEP Texas North, CenterPoint, Oncor and TNMP, and endorsed by the PUCT (SMT).
  • To sign up you need your ESI ID, your meter number and your retail electric provider’s name or certificate number, plus your name and email (SMT residential user guide).
  • There are three reports: “Energy Data 15 Min Interval,” “Daily Meter Reads” and “Monthly Billing Information,” with up to two years of history.
  • “Export My Report” downloads a CSV. “Green Button Download My Data” gives XML and is emailed to you if the range is over 30 days.
  • Nobody but you and your current provider sees your data without your OK. Other companies need your authorization (16 TAC §25.130(j)), and you can end it in “Manage Agreements.”

What Smart Meter Texas is (and what it isn’t)

SMT is a shared website run by the five wires companies in Texas’s competitive market: AEP Texas Central, AEP Texas North, CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, Oncor and Texas-New Mexico Power. It stores daily, monthly and 15-minute usage recorded by your smart meter. The PUCT says those meters record usage in 15-minute intervals instead of once a month (PUCT), and its rule requires the interval data to reach the portal on a “day-after basis” (§25.130(g)(1)(E)). So you’ll see yesterday’s data, not this minute’s.

SMT isn’t your bill. It shows kWh, not dollars, and its monthly numbers are what the utility reported to your provider, which the site says may not match your bill exactly. SMT only covers meters on those five companies’ systems. If a city utility or co-op serves you, ask it what it offers instead.

Before you start: find your ESI ID and meter number

Have your latest electricity bill open. You’ll need three things from it:

WhatWhere to find itWatch out for
ESI ID (Electric Service Identifier)On your bill. PUCT rules require every bill to show “the service address, electric service identifier (ESI), and account number” (§25.479(c)(1)(D)).It isn’t your account number. SMT’s glossary calls it a 17-digit number, but CenterPoint describes its ESI IDs as 22 digits (CenterPoint). Type every digit exactly as printed.
Meter numberSMT says the security information is “typically found on your electric bill.”Copy it exactly, including any letters.
Retail electric provider (REP)The company that bills you. Bills must show its name and the license number the PUCT issued it.SMT lets you search by name or certificate number. Pick the one tied to this ESI ID and meter.
Field names from the SMT Residential User Guide; bill rules from 16 TAC §25.479.

Just moved in? The ESI ID is tied to the address, not to you. SMT calls it “unique to a property address.” Our move-in guide to setting up electricity in Texas explains how to find it before your first bill arrives.

How to sign up, step by step

These steps follow SMT’s own residential user guide (dated February 26, 2024). Layouts change, so treat the button names as approximate.

  1. Go to smartmetertexas.com and click “Sign Up.”
  2. Under “Select Account Type,” choose “Residential.”
  3. Fill in your first name, last name and email (phone is optional).
  4. Under Security Information, enter your full ESIID and meter number.
  5. Click the “Retail Electric Provider” link, search by name or certificate number (or browse by letter), and select your provider.
  6. Create a User ID, choose English or Spanish, tick the terms box and click “Sign Up.”
  7. SMT emails you a temporary password. Follow the email to finish. If it doesn’t arrive, check spam, then call SMT’s help desk at 1-844-217-8595.

Reading your usage: the three reports

Once you’re logged in, the Dashboard has a “Report Type” menu, start and end dates, and a “Submit Update” button. You get a chart and a table. The start date can’t be more than 24 months back.

Report typeWhat each row isBest for
Energy Data 15 Min IntervalkWh used in one 15-minute slot; 96 rows per dayTime-of-day patterns, free-nights math, spotting what runs overnight
Daily Meter ReadskWh per dayWhich days spiked: heat waves, guests, a pool pump left on
Monthly Billing InformationkWh per billing periodChoosing a plan: this is your 12-month profile
Report names from the SMT Residential User Guide. Up to two years of data.

Making sense of 15-minute numbers

Each interval is energy, in kWh, used over a quarter of an hour. Multiply it by 4 and you get your average power draw in kW during that slot. That makes the chart much easier to read:

kWh in one 15-minute intervalAverage draw in that interval
0.10 kWh0.4 kW
0.25 kWh1.0 kW
0.50 kWh2.0 kW
0.75 kWh3.0 kW
1.00 kWh4.0 kW
Plain arithmetic: kWh ÷ 0.25 hours = kW.

Look at the quietest intervals between about 2 and 5 a.m. That floor is your always-on load: fridge, freezer, routers, anything on standby. Then look at the peaks. In summer, big blocks that start and stop through the afternoon are often the AC cycling. (Here’s what central AC costs to run in Texas.)

There’s also a “Get Current Meter Read” button. It pings your meter and shows the reading plus the kWh used since the last end-of-day read.

How to export a CSV (or Green Button file)

  1. On the Dashboard, pick the report type and dates, then click “Submit Update.”
  2. Click “Export My Report” for a CSV file, or “Green Button Download My Data” for XML. Green Button files covering more than 30 days are emailed to the address on your profile.
  3. Open the CSV in Excel or Google Sheets. Expect a row per interval (or day, or billing period) with the date, the time and the kWh. Some rows can be estimates, so look for an estimated/actual marker before you trust one odd reading.

The “Smart Meters” page has an “Export Energy Data” option that can send a report by email, and “Manage Subscriptions” can email you the same reports daily, weekly or monthly, in CSV, Green Button or JSON. A 30-day interval export runs to 2,880 rows. Use SUMIFS or a pivot table rather than scrolling.

Using your own usage to compare plans on Power to Choose

Power to Choose asks for one number, your estimated average monthly usage, and its user guide reminds you that usage “follows seasonal patterns with higher consumption in months like August and February.” A single average hides that. I’d do it this way instead:

  1. Export Monthly Billing Information for the last 12 months.
  2. Enter the 12-month average in Power to Choose’s usage box to narrow the list.
  3. For each plan you like, open the Electricity Facts Label (EFL) and price your 12 months: delivery charges plus the plan’s energy and base charges, month by month.
  4. Count how many months fall under 1,000 kWh. That’s where bill-credit plans miss their credit and minimum-usage fees kick in.

I don’t have your history, of course, so here’s the average Texas home in 2025 as an example, from EIA (statewide, includes city utilities and co-ops):

Month (2025)Average Texas useUsage bandEFL price column closest to it
Jan1,186 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Feb1,043 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Mar853 kWh500–9991,000 kWh
Apr826 kWh500–9991,000 kWh
May1,018 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Jun1,284 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Jul1,479 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Aug1,508 kWh1,000–1,9992,000 kWh
Sep1,297 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Oct1,080 kWh1,000–1,9991,000 kWh
Nov807 kWh500–9991,000 kWh
Dec936 kWh500–9991,000 kWh
GridPenny calculation (retail sales ÷ customers) from the EIA Open Data API, fetched Oct 27, 2026. Average: 1,110 kWh a month.

An average of 1,110 kWh looks safely over 1,000, yet 4 of the 12 months came in under it. A plan that only looks good at exactly 1,000 kWh would have disappointed for a third of the year. That’s the trap explained in our guide to reading an Electricity Facts Label.

Now price a year. Take a plain fixed-rate plan with an energy charge of about 5.93¢ (5.927¢ before rounding) and no base charge. It’s a made-up example that reproduces today’s 12.95¢ median for plain 12-month CenterPoint plans at 1,000 kWh (Power to Choose export, Oct 27, 2026). Add CenterPoint delivery of $4.90 a month plus 6.5333¢/kWh (CenterPoint rate report) and run the 2025 months through it. You get $1,718.11 for the year, from $105.45 in the mildest month to $192.80 in August. Using 1,110 kWh × 12 instead gives $1,718.47, nearly the same, because a plain plan is linear. Run a bill-credit plan through the same months and the gap opens fast. Our Power to Choose guide shows which filters keep those plans out of your results.

Looking at time-of-use or free-nights plans? Then the 15-minute export is the one you need, because it tells you what share of your use falls in the free hours. See free nights and weekends plans in Texas for the break-even math.

Sharing your data with a provider: consent and privacy

Two parties can see your SMT data automatically: you, and your current provider (the “REP of record”). Any other company offering energy-usage services, which SMT calls a Competitive Service Provider, needs your permission. The PUCT rule is one sentence long: “A customer may authorize its meter data to be available to an entity other than its REP” (§25.130(j)(1)). The same rule requires secure access and an independent security audit of the portal.

Here’s how it works, according to SMT’s own site text:

  • The company sends a data-sharing request through SMT, and you get an email to approve or decline it. There’s also a “Did Not Request” option, which reports it as spam.
  • An unanswered request expires after 5 days.
  • For residential customers, an agreement can last up to 12 months. SMT emails renewal reminders 30 days and again 15 days before it ends.
  • After an agreement ends, the company keeps access to historical data, including revisions, for up to 45 more days.
  • You can see every agreement, and end any of them, under “Manage Agreements” → “Terminate Agreement.”

My advice? Approve only requests you started yourself and pick the shortest term that does the job. Read that company’s own privacy policy too. SMT’s rules cover the portal, not what the company does with the data afterward. SMT points users to the privacy section of its Terms of Use for its own practices.

When something doesn’t work

  • “No data available”: check the dates. Data arrives a day late, and nothing older than 24 months is kept.
  • Registration rejected: re-check the ESI ID, meter number and provider against your newest bill.
  • Numbers don’t match your bill: billing periods often don’t line up with calendar months, and SMT notes its monthly figure may differ from what your provider billed.

Still stuck? SMT support: 1-844-217-8595 or Support@SmartMeterTexas.com.

My take

Ten minutes on Smart Meter Texas does more for your next plan choice than hours of comparing advertised prices. Pull the monthly report before you shop. Pull the 15-minute report before you even consider a time-of-use plan. And be stingy with data-sharing approvals.

Once you have your numbers, compare them with the average electric bill in Texas. If you’re in the Houston area, CenterPoint’s delivery charges explain a big part of each bill, and electricity prices by state shows how Texas compares nationally.

FAQ

Is Smart Meter Texas free?

Yes. There’s no charge to register or download your data.

How far back does Smart Meter Texas go?

Up to two years. Reports can’t start more than 24 months back.

Where do I find my ESI ID?

On your electricity bill; PUCT rules require it to be printed there. It identifies your address, not your account.

Can my electricity provider see my Smart Meter Texas data?

Your current provider already has access. Other companies need your approval, which you can end at any time in “Manage Agreements.”

Why is today’s usage missing?

Interval data reaches SMT the day after it’s recorded. For a reading right now, use “Get Current Meter Read.”

Sources