Small Business Electricity Texas

You’re looking for the best business electricity plans in Texas – but there are so many plans to sift through.

It’s like trying to buy chocolate ice cream, but a bunch of vendors keeps coming up to you with weird hipster ice cream flavors that you just do not want. Who came up with chicken-fried steak ice cream, anyway?

What you need is Power Wizard’s Shopping Tool!

Do you want the best business electricity plan? The Power Wizard algorithm will look through the options for you and tell you which plan suits your needs the best. No need to waste your time sorting through every option to get to the good stuff.

Let us find you the best plan in seconds and start saving.

Find the Best Plan

 

This guide gives you all the information you need to understand electricity for small businesses and then choose the right rate and plan for your business. The guide walks you through how to find the best electricity plan for your small business so you can save money, time, confusion, and frustration.

What are small business electricity rates?

On average, Texas businesses pay 8.15¢ per kWh for electricity (October 2019). The U.S. average for commercial electricity is 10.74¢ per kWh. One of the reasons commercial electricity rates for Texas small businesses are so much lower is because of state deregulation (more about this later).

Texas’ business electricity rates vary from electricity company to electricity company. These rates also vary by electricity plan.

One electricity company and one electricity plan is NOT a one-size-fits-all option when it comes to small business energy plans.

What’s considered a small business in Texas?

The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business in Texas as any business that employs fewer than 500 employees. Some Texans, however, consider this more of a medium-size business and define small businesses as those that employ fewer than 100 employees.

Many small businesses have as few as one employee (the business owner themselves) or only employee one to a dozen other people.

Additionally, Texas divides small businesses by industry.

For example, an industrial business falls into a different category than a small retail business. Electricity rates for a small industrial business (so one that has fewer than 500 employees) pay a different electricity rate in Texas than a retail boutique or a CPA office, for example.

The transportation sector is another sector that pays a different electricity rate than other small business industries. So even if a transportation company (such as a limousine service) has fewer than 500 employees, its electricity rate is different than small businesses that operate in other business sectors.

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How do business electricity rates work?

Business electricity rates are composed of three different costs: wholesale, supply, and delivery.

Wholesale

Wholesale costs include setting up electricity plants, as well as the poles and wires used to deliver the electricity from the plants to the location of the small businesses.

The wholesale component of small business electricity rates also includes operating costs.

Operating costs are the expenses associated with:

• Operating the electricity plants and equipment
• Maintaining the electricity plants and equipment
• Repairing the electricity plants and equipment

Supply

The supply cost component relates to the commercial energy Texas costs associated with creating electricity. Other costs related to supply are the movement of electricity to the poles and then through the wires. The supply fees show up on your electric bill as your usage in kilowatt-hours (kWh).

Delivery

Customer service and local distribution make up the delivery fees portion of electricity rates for small businesses in Texas.

When you receive your commercial electricity bill, you’re likely to see each of these charges show up on its own line on the bill. An electric company sums up all of these fees, adds their profit to the sum of these fees, and taxes in order for the company to come up with the total amount due on your electricity bill.

Deregulated electricity for businesses in Texas:

At one time, utility companies in Texas controlled all three cost components of the electricity pricing for small businesses. Now, however, electricity in Texas is deregulated in most cities (but not all cities).

This gives the power (pun intended) to small business owners. This gives small business owners the power to choose an electricity provider and an electricity plan that works best for them and their business.

Deregulation created hundreds of Retail Electricity Providers (REPs). Each of these REPs offers multiple small business electricity plans — so many plans that it’s probably somewhere in the neighborhood of hundreds of electricity plans for you to choose which one is right for your small business.

Hundreds of electricity plans.

Don’t let this send you running and screaming out of your office.

The good news is that you have a lot of choices — a lot of choices when it comes to picking an electricity company and an electricity plan for your small business.

The bad news is that you have choices — a lot of choices when it comes to picking an electricity company and an electricity plan for your small business.

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Small business electricity rates Texas – the cheapest rate might not be the best for your business.

Here’s the thing when you are shopping around for an electricity plan for your small business, going after the cheapest rate (the lowest price per kilowatt-hour) might not be the best plan for your business.

When you’re shopping around for an electricity plan, there are a lot more factors to consider than just the kilowatt-hour your business is paying.

Essentially, if you’re only looking at the kilowatt-hour, you’re only measuring your business usage of electricity. Usage is only one of the many factors that you have to consider to truly find the best plan for your business.

It’s really, really hard to choose the best electricity plan based on your usage.

Consider the electricity plans:

• Charge cancellation fees
• Offer a free gift (such as Google Home) if you sign up
• Can be prepaid
• Can have a fixed rate
• Can charge more if you opt to use renewable electricity
• Can automatically increase your rate after you renew your contract. You might be paying 8.7¢ per kilowatt-hour now, but after you renew, they’ll automatically sign you up (without notifying you) for a plan that’s 10.7¢ per kilowatt-hour.
• Have very technical Terms of Service that are hard to understand
• May offer Free Nights and Weekends, but only during certain hours
• May include 1,000 kWh per month while others are for 2,000 kWh per month
• Can have minimum usage fees – meaning that if you have a 1,000 kWh plan and only use 987 kWh, you’ll pay a higher rate since you didn’t meet the minimum usage

Wow.

That is a ton of information to have to consider when doing a comparative analysis of the hundreds of plans that might be available to your small business in your area.

It can quickly become a full-time job to find an electricity plan that is the best one for your business.

You already have a full-time job running your small business. You don’t want another full-time job looking for the best electricity plan for your small business.

Here is some more good news, though. It doesn’t have to become your full-time job.

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Cheap doesn’t equal best – we can prove it.

Earlier, we talked about all of the factors that you would have to consider to decide which electricity plan is the best one for your small business. The cheapest plan isn’t always the best plan, and we can prove it.

Enters Power Wizard.

Power Wizard provides technology that helps small business owners save money on their electricity bills.

Power Wizard is NOT an electricity company.

We are an unbiased third party that competes directly with Retail Electric Providers (REPs – aka electricity companies) and brokers.

Power Wizard uses modern and streamlined technology. Its algorithm considers more factors than the kilowatt per hour rate.

It considers factors such as:

• Zip Code/Location of your business
• Square footage of your business office/warehouse/location
• Age of the building (to determine energy efficiency)
• Historical energy usage (you can even submit your previous electricity bills)
• And more

First, you input relevant information into the Power Wizard Shopping tool.

The Power Wizard algorithm then looks through EVERY available plan in your zip code to determine which plan is best for you, your usage, and your small business.

Power Wizard makes it easy to sign up for a new electricity plan or to switch from your current plan to a new plan that is a better choice for your business.

Once you sign up, Power Wizard continues to monitor plans (because new plans pop up all the time and current plans change all the time) to make sure that you continue to use the electricity plan that is the best for your small business.

Small business electricity providers in Texas:

The electricity companies in Texas are Retail Electricity Providers (REPs). REPs are simply individual companies that sell electricity directly to consumers.

REPs all came about because of deregulation in Texas. Deregulation is what gives small business electricity consumers, like you, the option to choose which company they buy electricity from.

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How many electricity companies are there that supply small business electricity plans?

Right now, there are 160+ electricity companies in Texas providing small business electricity plans. With each having multiple electricity plans to choose from, the number of plans you have to analyze quickly spirals out of control.

Too many options is not always a good thing because it’s humanly impossible to analyze all of them:

• Companies
• Plans
• Rates
• And other factors

Remember that you really have to consider all of these factors to make the best choice for your small business electricity plan.

Average small business electricity prices in Texas:

The average electricity rate for small businesses in Texas is 8.15¢ per kWh (October 2019). The U.S. average for commercial electricity is 10.74 cents per kWh.

Small business electricity rates in Texas vary from electricity company to electricity company. These rates also vary by electricity plan.

Why are small business electricity prices cheaper than residential electricity prices?

Small business electric rates Texas, commercial, and industrial electricity rates tend to be cheaper than residential electricity prices.

Business energy plans tend to be cheaper because:

• Businesses tend to use much more energy than residential consumers
• Businesses tend to use more energy on a steady basis

Energy experts argue that if commercial rates were the same as residential rates then businesses would end up subsidizing the residential electricity market.