Understand Your Electricity Usage

Your usage is one of the most important pieces of data to get the best Dallas Electricity rate. Guessing can cost you if you get it wrong. The first step is to look at previous bills from the highest and the lowest months of your usage. Generally those will be August - September for the high months and December or January for the lowest usage months. If you use electricity for heat, use March or April as your lowest month for usage.

Other options are to log into your current providers web site to view usage, or use your electricity companies APP (if they have one) Another option is to use SmartmeterTexas.com, where you can pull your usage from Oncor utility data.

Dallas Electricity Companies use 500, 1000 and 2000 kWh usage levels to display rates to potential customers. These arbitrary numbers are often gamed by providers to appear to have the lowest prices on the Texas Power to Choose web site.

Ways Rates are Manipulated

There are a number of ways these usage “bands” can be manipulated. Then, add in bill credits, where Dallas energy companies provide credits at usage levels. Bill credits are primarily used to drive down the price to appear to be the lowest cost on Dallas Electricity Comparison websites. You should be wary of them.

Sample Dallas Electricity Usage Examples

Dallas Electricity Bill Examples

So in our example Tiered Price with $50 Conditional Bill Credit at 1000-1500 kWh, you would pay 64% more than a flat rate plan, because the conditions of the credit were that you had to "use up to x". In this worse case scenario - you lose the bill credit because you went over the usage cap.

So what plan do you buy? We recommend you buy a plan that has the best rate at your Maximum Usage. It's that simple. If you use 3500 kWh in August. Buy a plan that has a stable rate at 3500 kWh year round.