Texas Dental Office Power Plans: How to Compare Commercial Rates

If you run a dental practice in Texas, electricity is not a household bill with a nicer logo. Compressors, autoclaves, vacuum systems, imaging, and an HVAC system that has to keep operatories comfortable all day push you into commercial service—and in choice areas of the state, you pick who sells you the energy. That choice can shave costs, or it can leave you paying a “teaser” price that looks great until delivery fees, base charges, and midsummer peaks show up.

This guide is for practice owners, office managers, and multi-location groups who are starting, switching, or renewing service. It focuses on competitive Texas, explains how commercial rates are built, and shows how to compare offers with the same paperwork the Public Utility Commission of Texas expects retailers to show you. Where your market is still regulated, the playbook still helps—you will just optimize inside a published tariff instead of shopping Retail Electric Providers (REPs).

Why a dental office needs a commercial power plan

A dental clinic is a classic “small commercial” load: not a factory, but far from a desk with a laptop. Chairs rarely run at night the way a server room does, yet your daytime coincidence of HVAC, compressors, and sterilization creates a usage shape that rewards the wrong plan (or the wrong meter class) with surprises.

Commercial electricity prices generally sit between residential and industrial prices because it costs more to distribute power to many smaller accounts than to a few large plants. The ¹ notes that retail prices are usually highest for residential and commercial customers for that reason, and it reported a 2025 U.S. annual average commercial price of 13.41¢ per kilowatt-hour (kWh), versus 17.30¢ residential and 8.62¢ industrial.

Texas as a whole has tended to post relatively low average retail prices. EIA’s ² listed the state’s average retail price at 9.79¢/kWh, ranking Texas 42nd among the states (lower rank number would mean a higher price). That statewide blend is a useful headline, not your clinic’s quote—your bill blends energy, delivery, and fees that track your meter and your usage pattern.

For a dental office, the commercial plan decision is less about chasing the absolute lowest teaser rate and more about locking an all-in cost you can underwrite against hygiene and doctor production. If your lease renewal, imaging upgrade, or second operatory is coming, the power contract has to survive those load steps.

How Texas electricity choice actually works

In 1999, the Texas Legislature opened most of the state’s retail market so customers in competitive areas could choose their electric company, ³—the Public Utility Commission of Texas’ official shopping site. What changed is who sells you energy. What did not change is who owns the poles and wires: the Transmission and Distribution Utility (TDU), sometimes called the wires company, still delivers electricity, reads meters, and restores outages.

That split is the mental model you need when you compare “power plans.” In competitive areas:

• A Retail Electric Provider (REP) sells you a plan (fixed, variable, indexed, prepaid, etc.).
• A TDU delivers the electrons and bills delivery charges that flow through your retail statement.
• ERCOT—the Electric Reliability Council of Texas—operates the grid that serves more than 27 million Texas customers, about 90% of the state’s electric load, and administers retail switching for about 8 million premises in competitive-choice areas, according to ⁴.

⁵ describes itself as the official, unbiased electric-choice website of the PUCT and notes that providers can list offers there for free so customers can compare plans. Wires companies point shoppers the same direction: ⁶, for example, steers customers starting new electric service to PowertoChoose.org to pick a REP.

Not every Texas ZIP code has choice. Municipal utilities and cooperatives were not required to deregulate under the 1999 framework, so clinics in those territories may only see one provider, ³. The Public Utility Commission still regulates key parts of the market and offers consumer-help resources through its ⁷.

For a dental practice, the implication is simple: first confirm whether your address is in competitive territory. If it is, you are shopping REPs and watching TDU delivery fees. If it is not, you are studying your utility’s commercial rate classes—more on that later.

What really drives a dental clinic bill

Strip a commercial electric bill down to the pieces that move money:

1. Energy (kWh) – how much electricity you consume. Autoclaves, compressors, lighting, computers, and cooling dominate daytime clinics.
2. Demand (kW) – how hard you pull power at once. ⁸ defines demand in retail terms as the highest 15- or 30-minute demand period recorded during a 12-month period. Even when a REP’s energy rate is simple, utility delivery rates and some commercial tariffs price demand separately.
3. Base or customer charges – flat monthly fees that do not care how carefully you shut lights off. The glossary defines a ⁸ as a flat fee applied each month regardless of kWh used.
4. Pass-throughs – TDU delivery charges, ERCOT or Texas Regional Entity administrative fees, and other nonbypassable items that can still move even on a “fixed” energy rate.

Dental-specific equipment rarely shows up in national averages with a neat “orthodontics kWh” line item you can cite, but clinic operations create a recognizable shape: weekday peaks when multiple operatories, HVAC, and compressors overlap; lower nights and Sundays; and short sterilization surges. That matters when:

• A low advertised rate assumes 1,000 or 2,000 kWh/month residential-style usage bands that do not match a multi-chair practice.
• A minimum-usage fee punishes a lightly used satellite office.
• Demand charges appear once summer HVAC plus compressors push you over a tariff threshold.

Municipal examples make the demand math concrete. ⁹ explains that demand is the maximum flow of power used at one time, measured in kilowatts, and that demand charges recover system costs while giving customers a reason to level load. Austin applies demand charges to commercial customers with average summer (June–September) peak demand of 10 kW and higher, with secondary-voltage demand charges listed around $9.83/kW for the 10–300 kW class (as published on that rate sheet). A growing clinic that adds chairs or a powerful imaging suite can tip across those thresholds even if its REP energy rate never changes.

Nationally, EIA’s ¹⁰ is the federal program that measures how offices and other commercial buildings use energy. Use it as background on commercial intensity, not as a dental load study—your best forecast is still your own 12-month interval or bill history.

Fixed, variable, indexed, and green: comparing plan types

⁸ spells out the main structures you will see:

• Fixed-rate plan – a set energy rate that does not change throughout the contract period, with defined exceptions such as changes in Transmission and Distribution fees or ERCOT/Texas Regional Entity administrative fees.
• Variable-rate plan – typically no long contract or cancellation fee, but the price per kWh can move month to month with the market and the retailer’s discretion. You can benefit when prices fall, and you can get hurt when they spike in extreme weather or tight markets.
• Indexed (market) rate plan – also moves monthly, but according to a published index formula rather than opaque retailer discretion.
• Time-of-use – incentives to shift usage into nights or weekends—often a weak fit for a dentistry schedule that is concentrated in daytime chair hours unless you can move sterilization or lab work off-peak.
• Prepaid – pay-as-you-go service calculated daily through a smart meter or similar device. Most established clinics prefer post-paid commercial billing, but satellite or temporary locations sometimes see prepaid offers.

“Green” or renewable-content plans change the fuel mix disclosed on the Electricity Facts Label rather than inventing a separate physics of delivery. The ⁸ explicitly includes the percentage of renewable energy offered as part of the standardized fact sheet. If your practice markets sustainability to patients, confirm whether the renewable percentage is backed by Renewable Energy Credits and how that affects the all-in price—not just the marketing badge.

For dental offices with steady weekday volume, fixed rates are often the boring winner: you can forecast hygiene-day production against a known energy component. Variable and indexed plans can make sense if you have cash cushion, someone watching market levels, and a willingness to switch quickly when the rate climbs. Variable and indexed products carry real weather and market risk—⁴ itself surfaces extreme-weather materials alongside its grid role—so floating rates need an owner, not a hope.

How to read a commercial quote without getting blindsided

Texas retail competition only helps if you compare apples to apples. Retailers must provide an ⁸—a fact sheet with standardized information on contract terms, pricing, fees, and renewable content—so customers can compare offers. The same FAQ stack notes that companies must also provide a Terms of Service agreement and a “Your Rights as a Customer” disclosure.

Before you celebrate a ¢/kWh number, walk the quote like an auditor:

Identify the premises correctly. In competitive markets, service points are identified by an ESI ID—a 17- or 22-digit number that uniquely identifies a delivery point, per the ⁸. Get it from a prior bill or your TDU; mixed ESI IDs are how multi-suite medical buildings end up shopping the wrong meter.

Separate energy price from delivery. Fixed energy rates can still move when TDU fees change, ⁸. Your “locked” plan locks the REP’s energy component, not the wires company’s tariff forever.

Watch minimum-usage and bill-credit designs. ³ explains that many plans charge a fee if you use less than a set kWh amount—sometimes around 500 or 1,000 kWh—and that the fee may not sit as a clearly labeled line item. A quiet hygienist-only day schedule or a partly vacant building can trigger those fees.

Read term length and exit costs. There is no government switching fee simply for changing providers at a normal meter read, the FAQ notes, but breaking a contract can still trigger retailer penalties. After you sign, ERCOT mails a confirmation and you generally have three business days to change your mind; the switch then completes automatically within seven business days with no intentional service lapse, according to the same ³.

Confirm bill format and dispute path. PUC rules require easy-to-read bills with required components even though companies design their own layouts. Billing fights start with the retailer; if unresolved, the FAQ points consumers to the PUCT Customer Hotline at 1-888-782-8477.

Do not ignore outage reality. Reliability questions belong with the TDU, not the marketing site of the REP. The FAQ is blunt: call the local wires company for outages; that number is on your bill, and delivery remains regulated for safety and reliability.

Whether you collect offers from retailer websites or through a commercial advisor, the discipline is the same: demand the EFL (or its commercial equivalent), model your actual kWh, and add delivery.

Benchmarking Texas commercial rates against the U.S.

To know whether a quote is good, you need outdoor context and indoor history.

Outdoor context (state and national averages). EIA’s monthly Table 5.6.A, ¹¹, showed Texas commercial customers averaging 8.35¢/kWh in April 2026, compared with 8.66¢/kWh in April 2025. The U.S. commercial average in the same table was 13.51¢/kWh in April 2026 (12.89¢ a year earlier). In other words, Texas commercial averages sat far below the national commercial average in that snapshot—even while Texas residential in the same table was 16.99¢/kWh in April 2026.

For a longer calendar-year view, EIA’s ¹ put the 2025 U.S. commercial annual average at 13.41¢/kWh and the all-sector U.S. average at about 13.63¢/kWh. Texas’s 2024 all-sector average of 9.79¢/kWh on the ² is another reminder that the Texas market has often been cheaper in the aggregate—without promising your suite will match the average.

Indoor history (your effective rate). Pull 12 months of bills and compute:

effective ¢/kWh = total dollars paid ÷ total kWh

Include everything you actually paid the retailer. Then compare a new EFL’s modeled bill at your real monthly kWh—not at the marketing sample of 500/1,000/2,000 kWh if those bands do not match a multi-chair office.

If a “commercial” offer is only a few tenths of a cent below your effective rate before early-termination fees, it may not be worth the staff time. If it is a full cent or more lower on the energy component after delivery is held constant, run the annual math against hygiene-day volume; that is usually when switching pays.

Choice areas versus municipal and coop service

Competitive ERCOT choice is not the whole map. Clinics in Austin, San Antonio, and various coop territories often buy from a single municipally owned utility or cooperative.

⁹ is a clear case study of regulated commercial design. The utility groups customers into rate classes with similar energy-use characteristics, listing ten commercial classes by demand and voltage—from Commercial Secondary Voltage 1 under 10 kW up through primary and transmission classes. Published pieces include:

• Customer charges (for example, $38.23/month for Secondary Voltage 1 under 10 kW and $60.08/month for Secondary Voltage 2 from 10 to under 300 kW, as shown on the page).
• Demand charges that begin once average summer peak demand reaches 10 kW.
• Energy charges in ¢/kWh that differ by class (Secondary Voltage 1 energy charge listed at 3.129¢/kWh, Secondary Voltage 2 at 1.932¢/kWh on the same schedule).
• Separate Power Supply Adjustment and Regulatory Charges that also vary by class.

The lesson for dental offices outside Austin is not “copy these numbers onto a Houston bill.” It is that regulated utilities price the same physical realities—customer service costs, peak demand, and energy—through published classes. Your move is to understand which class you are in, whether a new CBCT machine or evening hours could push you across a demand threshold, and which efficiency or load-leveling steps the tariff rewards.

In competitive territories, ⁶ and other TDUs still matter for metering, ESI ID, critical-care designation, and energy-efficiency program access even after you pick a REP. Treat the wires company and the retailer as two vendors on one bill.

A practical shopping playbook for practice managers

Use this sequence whether you are opening a startup suite or renewing a mature practice.

1. Confirm market type. Enter your ZIP on ⁵. If the site says your area is not open to competition, stop shopping REPs and request your utility’s commercial rate schedule instead.
2. Pull documents. Last 12 bills, ESI ID, TDU name, contract end date, and any demand or interval data your meter provides.
3. Build a simple load profile. Monthly kWh, peak kW if shown, and notes for unusual months (construction, flood restoration, new imaging).
4. Collect offers the boring way. Export or screenshot EFLs for at least three REPs (or three broker proposals) serving your TDU. Tag each with term length, whether the energy rate is fixed/variable/indexed, base charges, bill credits, and early-termination language—using the standardized fields the ⁸ was designed to surface.
5. Model bills at your kWh, not theirs. Recalculate each offer at your July and your February volume. Clinics sometimes look cheap in a mild month and expensive under simultaneous HVAC and sterilization load.
6. Check operational constraints. Automatic payments, deposit rules, paperless invoices that your accountant can ingest, and whether a multi-location group can align terms across sites.
7. Decide risk posture. Fixed for forecastability, variable/indexed only if someone owns the monitoring.
8. Switch with calendar discipline. Mind the three-business-day cancel window and seven-business-day switch timing described by ³. Put the next expiration on a shared office calendar 90 days out so you are never rolled to an unfavorable month-to-month variable product by accident—the FAQ specifically warns about watching for contract-end transitions onto variable rates.
9. Know your escalation path. Retailer first; if needed, PUCT consumer assistance via the numbers published on ³ and the ⁷.

Brokers can help when meter count or annual kWh crosses into mid-market territory. Keep them honest by insisting you still see the EFL mathematics and by refusing opaque “management fees” that erase the rate win.

Cut kilowatt-hours before you renegotiate

Procurement does not fix waste. Federal commercial-efficiency programs keep repeating the same uncomfortable statistic: a large share of commercial building energy is wasted. The U.S. Department of Energy’s ¹² cites EPA figures that, on average, 30% of energy used in commercial buildings is wasted, and ENERGY STAR’s ¹³ frames a path to cut building energy use by up to 30% through benchmarking and upgrades.

For dental offices, high-yield moves usually look like operations, not slogans:

• Commission HVAC so operatories are not fighting thermostats all afternoon.
• Replace aging lighting with efficient fixtures and use vacancy controls in offices and labs.
• Maintain compressors and vacuum systems; leaks are silent kWh.
• Stagger sterilization cycles so demand spikes do not stack on top of midday cooling.
• Ask your TDU about commercial efficiency programs—⁶, for example, publishes energy-efficiency program portals for businesses and contractors.

Shaving peak demand can matter as much as shaving kWh if you are near a 10 kW tariff cliff like the one ⁹, or if your competitive delivery rate includes demand ratchets. Efficiency before procurement means you negotiate for fewer kilowatt-hours—and sometimes for a lower demand class.

A decision framework you can reuse at renewal

When the next EFL hits your inbox, run the same five questions:

1. Territory: Choice or single-utility? (⁵ answer that in minutes.)
2. Baseline: What is my trailing-12 effective ¢/kWh, and what did July cost?
3. Structure: Fixed, variable, or indexed—and who on staff owns the risk if it is not fixed? (Definitions live in the ⁸.)
4. All-in: After base charges, TDU fees, and any minimum-usage logic, does the offer still beat my baseline?
5. Fit: Does the term length match my lease, equipment financing, and expansion timeline?

Texas dental offices that treat electricity like cotton rolls—grab whatever is on the counter—leave money on the table. The ones that treat it like a repeatable sourcing process use public benchmarks from ¹¹, standardized disclosures from ⁵, and their own interval history. That combination is how you compare commercial rates without getting dazzled by a number that was never meant for a four-chair clinic on a 103°F Tuesday.