Electric Supply Complaints Down in Texas

A report compiled by the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power revealed that for the 2017 fiscal year, the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) received 4,175 complaints from retail choice customers about their electric supply service.

The report indicates that 2017 marked the third straight year of decreasing numbers of complaints and a drop of almost 14% from 2016 levels. While a significant decline, the coalition indicated that it was not as great a reduction as was experienced from 2015 to 2016, when the number of complaints went down by more than 30%.

According to the report, the highest number of complaints ever registered in a single year was 17,250. Those filings occurred in 2003, the year after Texas opted to deregulate and restructure its electric service industry. The coalition attributed the continuing drop in complaints to two primary factors: electric rates that have steadily decreased since 2009 and a better understanding by consumers of how the retail electricity market functions.

As to that second factor, the report credits the PUC with improving the metrics and information available on the price-to-compare and power-tochoose page of the PUC’s web site. Despite the strides made in familiarizing customers with how the shopping experience works, and even though complaints continue to fall year over year, the report notes that current complaint levels still far surpass those from pre-deregulation days.

The report says that the largest number of inquiries addressed by the PUC in a single year before restructuring had been in 2001, when 2,062 complaints were processed. A deregulation pilot began on July 31 of that year.