Deregulated Electricity Company
Serving Dallas, Houston and beyond
In 2002, Texas made the switch to deregulated electricity. This move affected almost every Texas resident, from Dallas all the way down to Houston. Before this point, the state was serviced by co-ops, municipalities and incumbent providers. There weren’t multiple providers for customers to choose from and therefore, no choice in the matter. If their rates went up, your rates went up. If they were conducting in a manner that was unsuitable to you, you had one option. Move. Deregulation provided choice for those who were seeking it and did it with caution.
While planning the deregulated electricity market, Texas had California to review and to plan for any pitfalls or catastrophic failures like the situation that took place in California when they attempted to deregulate their electricity. It is not as if the Texas state government just passed deregulation with no rules or means of protection for its citizens. The PUCT, (Public Utility Commission of Texas), monitors the market ensuring that customers are treated fairly and that deregulation has the best chance for survival.
As soon as deregulation was announced, dozens upon dozens of electricity companies rushed the market looking for their piece of the pie. One such electric company was Texas Power. Today, Texas Power remains in the market and is one of the few REPs (Retail Electricity Provider) to maintain the core values they began with.
At the heart of deregulation is the idea of competition. It is for this reason that the state officials decided to institute it. The creation of a wide choice of providers competing for customers means they must strive to differentiate themselves. In retail electricity there are two key ways to do this. One is exceptional customer service and the other is the obvious factor of price. This proves that deregulation creates competition and competition creates the benefit of offering lower prices, therefore deregulation is intended to create low rates.
Texas Power realized what they had to do and took it upon themselves to create a customer service staff that outshines any other in all of Texas, even those in bigger cities like Dallas and Houston. They did this while maintaining the low overhead required to provide their lowest rate. There are those out there who look unfavorably on deregulation because they correlate the rising energy costs amongst power companies with the inception of deregulation. The fact is, there are almost an infinite amount of factors that lead to the rise in monthly electricity bills and that deregulation provides the best chance for seeing the low rates we were used to seeing not too long ago. Deregulation is still in relative infancy, but if given the time, it will grow into what the law makers who put it into place thought it could be.