Texas actively deregulated about half its residential electricity market in 2002. 6.8 million households served within the ERCOT territory are required to choose from hundreds of retail suppliers that competed for their business. The incumbent utilities (Reliant and TXU, the biggest) were eliminated.

What most don’t hear about is that over 5+ million Texas families buy electricity from 62 co-ops, 4 Investor Owned Utilities, and 17 municipal aggregators. For these families, a government agency, or utility buys, and prices their electricity and gas. There is no retail energy option for these 5+ million accounts.

Similar to the Northeast states, rates are significantly higher for retail energy consumers. The chart to the right reports EIA861 data for the 4 types of markets. While the retail supplier industry touts Texas as the “competitive energy” gold standard, each of the 6.8 million retail energy families paid on average $440 more in 2023.