New this month! We analyzed indexed products offers on the Power to Choose website. These products are not the most common ones and we captured some variations in the number of offers and REPs offering such products.
Our team at EnergySavings.com has been capturing daily snapshots of electricity plans from the Power to Choose website. Data collected* are analyzed monthly to give you an understanding of the offers available and the market trends. Grouping the most common plans by category, we analyze the same plan categories every month to give you an apples-to-apples comparison.
TRENDS: AUGUST vs JULY
AEP Central Delivery Area – August 2021: Rates and Trends for Most Common Plans1
| Fixed Rate (cents/kWh) 12mo Plans |
Variable Rate (cents/kWh) | |||||
| July | August | Trends | July | August | Trends | |
| Lowest | 9.8 | 9.8 |  0% |
8.7 | 9.6 |  10% |
| Highest | 13.8 | 13.8 | 0% |
17.4 | 17.4 | 0% |
| Average | 11.4 | 11.5 | 1% |
12.6 | 12.1 |  -4% |
| Number of REPs | 31 | 32 |  3% |
10 | 10 | 0% |
1Trends show the percentage change in the rate from the previous month for the same category of products. This table compares the lowest price offered by each REP that offered the respective type of plan in each month. The “Highest” row above shows the highest price among all the lowest price plans offered by REPs offering that type of plan in this region for each month.
Good news for the first category that suffered from losing a player last month: PESO POWER has joined the game! This electricity provider was offering other plans on the Power to Choose website before. Their certification was given by the Public Utility Commission of Texas less than a year ago (certification here).
While trends are stable for the first category, there are more variations for the variable rate category: the lowest rate increased by 10% but the global picture is not the same as the average price decreased by 4%. The increasing trend is explained by 3 providers generally offering the lowest rates increasing their rates in August. Among those 3 providers RANCHERO POWER and SOUTHERN FEDERAL POWER LLC are owned by the same parent company, probably explaining the common trend (source: PUCT certification). SOUTHWEST POWER & LIGHT, YEP and TEXPO ENERGY are owned by the same parent company (source: PUCT certification) and did exactly the opposite and decreased their rates in August. This explains why the average rate is decreasing.
AEP Central Delivery Area – August 2021: Rates and Trends for Most Common 100% Green Plans1
| 100 % green, Fixed Rate (cents/kWh) 12mo Plans |
100 % green, Variable Rate (cents/kWh) | |||||
| July | August | Trends | July | August | Trends | |
| Lowest | 10.3 | 10.6 | 3% |
13.2 | 13.3 | 1% |
| Highest | 13.0 | 13.0 | 0% |
17.6 | 17.6 | 0% |
| Average | 11.3 | 11.7 | 3% |
15.2 | 15.3 | 0% |
| Number of REPs | 9 | 10 | >11% |
3 | 3 | 0% |
1Trends show the percentage change in the rate from the previous month for the same category of products. This table compares the lowest price offered by each REP that offered the respective type of plan in each month. The “Highest” row above shows the highest price among all the lowest price plans offered by REPs offering that type of plan in this region for each month.
The new player is AMPRA ENERGY for the 12-month 100% green plan category. This provider offered other 100% green plans before August on the Power to Choose website.
Looking at the fixed rate category, the lowest and the average rates increased by 3%. Four providers increased slightly their rates in August. The variable rate category was stable as only the lowest rate increased slightly by 1%.
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INDEXED RATE PLANS
- What is an indexed rate for electricity plan? It is the least common rate you may find on Power to Choose. Basically, your electricity price can vary substantially every month: the rate can increase or decrease.
- How is the rate calculated for an indexed rate plan? The price is directly tied to a pricing formula connected to a publicly available index such as ERCOT’s wholesale price of electricity, or NYMEX gas prices.
- What are the characteristics of an indexed rate electricity plan? When the contract term is fixed (commonly 6, 12, 18, 24 or 36 months), there’s usually a termination fee. In other cases, indexed rate products may be month-to-month and not have a termination fee.
You must consult the Energy Facts Label (EFL), Terms of Service (TOS), and Your Rights as a Customer (YRAC) of the plan you are interested in to make sure you understand those aspects as they may vary from one plan to another. To find out more about each kind of rate, consult this article or if you haven’t decided which kind of plan is the best for you, read our FAQ.
Overview of Indexed rate plans offered in 2021 in the AEP Texas Central delivery area2:
| Energy Providers | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
| CHARIOT ENERGY | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GRIDDY ENERGY LLC | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| RELIANT | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| VOLT ELECTRICITY PROVIDER LP | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
2This table shows providers that offered indexed rate plans since the beginning of 2021. The numbers show how many indexed plans the provider offered within the month. When no indexed plan was offered at all, we indicate it with a “0” in the table. When a plan is offered in both English and Spanish, we only counted this plan as one.
Offers decreased dramatically since the beginning of the year 2021.
In terms of the number of offers, we captured 8 plans offered at the beginning of the year versus only 1 last month (August 2021). After two months with no indexed offers at all on Power to Choose (March and April), the number of indexed plans offered went brutally down in May 2021 (from 8 to 1 plans). We can correlate this decrease with the winter storm that shook the entire industry mid-February. Our article here details how the most common plans were impacted by this storm.
Now, looking at the players in this niche market, all but one threw in the towel after the storm.
CHARIOT ENERGY, GRIDDY ENERGY LLC, RELIANT and VOLT ELECTRICITY PROVIDER LP were all offering indexed rate plans on the Power to Choose website at the beginning of the year. All but RELIANT stopped showing offers in May. Again here, we can assume that the storm is the reason for those losses. The 3 providers that stopped showing offers in May 2021 are no longer actively selling retail electricity plans in TX (observed on 9/10/2021).
RELIANT has been offering the same plans since January called “Reliant PowerTracker”. As this is a month-to-month contract, there is no cancellation fee, and their price formula uses the NYMEX natural gas futures contract. According to their special terms on Power to Choose, you can expect to see a price change on the 15th of every month.
NYMEX or New York Mercantile Exchange is an exchange where tradable commodities (such as contracts on natural gas) are bought and sold. NYMEX is an independent agency of the United States government and is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (Learn more about NYMEX.)
LIST OF ENERGY PROVIDERS/ PRICES
AEP Central Delivery Area – August 2021: List of Lowest Reported EFL Prices for an estimated 1000 kWh’s*
August 2021: Lowest Electricity Prices in Corpus Christi, Texas (or AEP Central TDU area): Non-100% Green 12mo-Fixed Rate Plans:
(lowest to highest rate)
| Energy Providers | Rate for 1000 kWh (¢/kWh) |
| EXPRESS ENERGY | 9.8 |
| THINK ENERGY | 10.2 |
| FRONTIER UTILITIES | 10.4 |
| SPARK ENERGY LLC | 10.4 |
| 4CHANGE ENERGY | 10.7 |
| VETERAN ENERGY | 10.8 |
| FIRST CHOICE POWER | 10.9 |
| POWERNEXT | 10.9 |
| WINDROSE ENERGY | 10.9 |
| DISCOUNT POWER | 11.0 |
| CIRRO ENERGY | 11.1 |
| SOUTHWEST POWER & LIGHT | 11.1 |
| YEP | 11.1 |
| TRIEAGLE ENERGY LP | 11.2 |
| INFUSE ENERGY LLC | 11.4 |
| DIRECT ENERGY | 11.5 |
| CPL RETAIL ENERGY | 11.6 |
| V247 POWER CORPORATION | 11.6 |
| PESO POWER | 11.7 |
| SUMMER ENERGY LLC | 11.7 |
| AMIGO ENERGY | 11.8 |
| JUST ENERGY | 11.8 |
| TARA ENERGY | 11.8 |
| RELIANT | 11.9 |
| RANCHERO POWER | 12.1 |
| CHAMPION ENERGY SERVICES LLC | 12.2 |
| PULSE POWER LLC | 12.2 |
| SOUTHERN FEDERAL POWER LLC | 12.2 |
| CONSTELLATION NEWENERGY INC | 12.4 |
| ENERGY TO GO | 12.6 |
| TXU ENERGY | 12.6 |
| AMBIT ENERGY | 13.8 |
EXPRESS ENERGY had the lowest price while AMBIT ENERGY offered the highest price in this category. 50% of these providers changed their prices and we can’t deduce a general trend as 10 increased it while 6 did the opposite.
August 2021: Lowest Electricity Prices in Corpus Christi, Texas (or AEP Central TDU area): Non-100% Green Variable Rate Plans:
(lowest to highest rate)
| Energy Providers | Rate for 1000 kWh (¢/kWh) |
| SOUTHERN FEDERAL POWER LLC | 9.6 |
| RANCHERO POWER | 10.8 |
| RELIANT | 10.9 |
| SOUTHWEST POWER & LIGHT | 10.9 |
| YEP | 10.9 |
| TEXPO ENERGY | 11.1 |
| NEC CO-OP ENERGY | 12.8 |
| INFUSE ENERGY LLC | 13.2 |
| TXU ENERGY | 13.6 |
| AMBIT ENERGY | 17.4 |
SOUTHERN FEDERAL POWER held the lowest price spot while AMBIT ENERGY held the highest price spot for variable plans in August. 6 out of 10 of those REPs decreased their prices. Providers that kept their prices the same are: RELIANT, NEC Co-op Energy, TXU ENERGY, and AMBIT ENERGY. This latter REP stopped showing variable rate offers during 11 consecutive days in August.
August 2021: Lowest Electricity Prices in Corpus Christi, Texas (or AEP Central TDU area): 100% Green 12mo-Fixed Rate Plans:
(lowest to highest rate)
| Energy Providers | Rate for 1000 kWh (¢/kWh) |
| GEXA ENERGY | 10.6 |
| CLEANSKY ENERGY | 10.9 |
| OCTOPUS ENERGY | 11.0 |
| 4CHANGE ENERGY | 11.2 |
| RHYTHM | 11.5 |
| TRIEAGLE ENERGY LP | 11.7 |
| GREEN MOUNTAIN ENERGY COMPANY | 12.0 |
| AMPRA ENERGY | 12.3 |
| PULSE POWER LLC | 12.6 |
| ENERGY TO GO | 13.0 |
GEXA ENERGY showed the lowest price and ENERGY TO GO offered the highest price in this category. Only 3 providers changed their prices within the month of August: TRIEAGLE ENERGY LP (increase), CLEANSKY ENERGY and OCTOPUS ENERGY (decrease).
August 2021: Lowest Electricity Prices in Corpus Christi, Texas (or AEP Central TDU area): 100% Green Variable Rate Plans:
(lowest to highest rate)
| Energy Providers | Rate for 1000 kWh (¢/kWh) |
| INFUSE ENERGY LLC | 13.3 |
| GREEN MOUNTAIN ENERGY COMPANY | 15.0 |
| AMBIT ENERGY | 17.6 |
Only INFUSE ENERGY changed their rates during the month and they decreased it.
* Data obtained from powertochoose.org (Power to Choose) for the days from 8/1/2021 to 8/31/2021. The tables above list the lowest price in cents/kWh offered by each retail electricity provider (REP) for a given type of plan for a monthly usage of 1000 kWh. If more than one product was available from the same REP for a given type of plan, EnergySavings.com only included the one with the lowest rate in its analysis. Please note that as products and rates may change at any time in the day on Power to Choose; EnergySavings.com’s analysis is based on information captured in its single daily snapshot, and therefore cannot guarantee that every product and rate made available in the month has been captured. Please reach out to [email protected] if you feel that any meaningful data has not been captured and EnergySavings.com may, at its sole discretion, issue a correction to the report. The analysis is performed by excluding plans that are marked as “Minimum usage fees/credits”, “Time of Use”, and “Prepaid” according to the data captured from Power to Choose. For more information about the electricity plans mentioned in this report, please consult both the Electricity Fact Label (EFL) and Terms of Service (TOS) for those plans. Those documents are available on the Power to Choose site if the plan is still currently offered. The rates listed may differ if the REP has changed its pricing.