5 Things You Should Know About Texas Energy Deregulation

As a consumer of energy in Texas, energy deregulation will directly affect you. However, before choosing or falling into specific energy plans, it is important that you are fully aware of what energy deregulation is and how it will benefit you as an energy consumer.

Energy Deregulation

Energy deregulation is the process of opening up the market for competition and allowing consumers to choose their own energy service providers. Prior to energy deregulation, Texans had only one choice when it came to electricity. They were forced to buy their electricity from one provider, who would set the rates based on costs.

This meant that you had no choice but to pay whatever the energy company wanted for your energy service. Some providers even cheated Texans by charging higher prices than they should have been and pocketing the difference. In essence, Texans had little or no choice when it came to how much they would have to pay for their energy service.

Efforts to Deregulate Texas Electricity

In the 1990s, decades after the oil crisis in the 70s, state legislators were looking into ways that they could help lower prices for consumers. With this goal in mind, they came up with a plan called deregulation. This plan would open the market to competition and allow consumers to choose their own providers.

To do this, one of two things needed to happen:

Either legislate price controls or deregulate the electricity market.

With both options presenting problems for legislators, they ended up passing a bill that created an electric utility restructuring committee (EUC) within the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT). This restructuring committee would examine the effects of price controls and deregulation on electric cooperatives, municipals, large utilities, and consumers.

After evaluating the options, this committee decided to move forward with a plan for full deregulation which was implemented in 2002-2003.

What Deregulation Means for Texans

The main advantage of deregulation is choice. Since 2002, Texans have had the option to choose their own providers for electric service. This means that you no longer have to buy your energy from one company or pay whatever they want for rates.

You now have the power to choose between several different companies that will compete for your business. As long as you are willing to shop around and research what different companies have to offer, you should be able to find the best rates for your energy service.