Smart Meter Texas: see your real usage, then pick a plan (2026)

It’s a website and data store run by the companies that own the poles and wires. Your smart meter logs your use every 15 minutes. By the next day, those readings land on the site, where you can look at them and save them.

Four delivery utilities built it together: AEP Texas, CenterPoint, Oncor and TNMP. Their joint deal dates back to Dec. 31, 2008. The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), the state’s power regulator, set today’s ground rules in a 2018 order. Lubbock Power & Light came later. Lubbock homes moved to the open market in March 2024, and Lubbock first shows up in the site’s September 2025 report.

Who can see your readings? A state rule names three groups: you, the company that bills you, and anyone you approve. They get “read-only” access, so they can look but can’t change anything.

Is it free? A 2014 guide written for the utilities says the site is open “at no charge” to customers. The utilities cover the cost. They spent $5,819,541 to host it in 2025, they told the PUCT. Their filings don’t say how that cost is passed on.

What is a smart meter, exactly?

It’s an electric meter that reports on its own. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) defines these meters as ones that record use at least once an hour and send it to the utility at least once a day. The meters behind Smart Meter Texas go further: they count every 15 minutes. In each of the six Smart Meter Texas areas, more than 99.9% of home meters were smart meters in 2025, EIA data shows.

Here’s the odd part. Nearly every home has the meter, but few have signed up to see their data. Only 189,436 home accounts were registered in September 2026. In Oncor’s area, the 97,895 registered home accounts equal about 3% of the 3.4 million Oncor homes that EIA counts as able to see daily use (the dates differ, so treat that as rough). Use is climbing, though:

Source: the utilities’ monthly Smart Meter Texas reports to the PUCT (Project 49730), Oct. 2025 to Sept. 2026, and EIA’s 2025 meter data. Changes are our math. The reports don’t say why daily use of the usage screens jumped on July 16, 2026.

You need three facts from your bill, an email address and about five minutes. Here’s the whole path, from your bill to a file you can read.

Why so strict? The utilities don’t keep your name or billing address, the PUCT found in 2018. So SMT checks those three numbers instead. You can pick English or Spanish when you sign up. Not sure which utility you have? Your ESI ID tells you.

Can’t log in? Start here

Sign-up trouble is the biggest named reason people contact SMT’s help desk. It made up 139 of the 505 tickets in September 2026. Most fixes are quick:

The 2018 rules are the business requirements the PUCT approved for SMT 2.0; the utilities still report against them each month. The 2024 guides don’t list help-desk hours. The 2018 rules set 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central on utility work days, which Oncor’s tariff defines as every day but Sundays and six holidays.

Up to two years of your own use, SMT’s 2024 guide says. You choose how much detail you want, from every 15 minutes to one number per bill.

To save your data, click Export My Report. You get a CSV file that opens in any spreadsheet, and in our reader. Green Button Download My Data gives an XML file instead. If you pick more than 30 days, SMT emails that one to you. You can also set up subscriptions that send CSV, Green Button or JSON files by email, FTPS or API.

Why isn’t today’s use there yet?

The state rule only promises your data “no later than the day after it was created.” Each utility sends SMT a daily file. In September 2026, here’s when that file usually arrived:

Each reading is marked A for actual or E for estimated. An estimate gets swapped out when the real reading comes in. In AEP Texas’s area, a 2024 draft data document says the real data comes “typically within 3-5 days.” Utilities can also fix old readings later. So your newest few days may still change.

Have solar? SMT shows a Generation column for the extra power your panels send to the grid. That’s the number a solar buyback plan pays you for. And if you once used an in-home display that paired through SMT, that feature is gone. In 2018 the PUCT dropped it for SMT and pointed to on-demand reads instead.

Open the CSV file you saved from Smart Meter Texas. This page reads it inside your browser and does not upload, save or send it to us. No file yet? Try the sample, or type your monthly kWh from your bills.

Read your result in this order. Your average month is what most bills look like. Your peak month is your summer test: price every plan at that number too. And your night share tells you whether a free-nights plan has any chance.

Every plan’s fact label shows its price at just three monthly amounts: 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh. A state rule sets those three. Your real months move around far more than that.

In 2024, the average Texas home used 1,570 kWh in August and 762 in March. That’s more than twice as much. So test any plan at your lowest month and your highest month, not just at 1,000 kWh. Your two years of SMT data show both summers.

Watch for the 1,000 kWh cliff

Some plans add a bill credit once you reach a set amount, often 1,000 kWh. That makes their 1,000 kWh price look very low. In Oncor’s area on Oct 16, 2026, the five lowest 1,000 kWh prices on Power to Choose all came from credit plans. At 500 kWh, those same plans cost 18.3¢ to 20.3¢ per kWh.

We rebuilt one from its own label. AP Gas & Electric’s SimpleSaver 12 gives a “$125 credit when usage is >= 1,000 kWh in a billing cycle.” Add up the label’s parts, and 1,000 kWh costs $69.00. At 999 kWh there’s no credit, so the bill is $193.81 (our math). One kWh less costs $124.81 more.

The wording matters too. Spark Energy’s Sure Saver 12 label says its $100 credit applies when use is “greater than 1,000 kWh.” Its 7.9¢ price at 1,000 kWh only works out with that credit (our math from the label). Ask Spark how it treats exactly 1,000 kWh. And TXU’s Smart 1000 Select 12 adds a $25 credit only to bills that end in July, August or September. Read the credit line on any label before you trust the 1,000 kWh number.

The cheapest plan changes with your usage

Three usage levels, three different winners. That’s why your own numbers matter more than any “cheapest plan” list.

Free nights: check your night share first

A free-nights plan charges nothing for some hours but more for the rest. ERCOT, which runs the Texas grid, publishes model load shapes for homes. For 2025, they put about 32% to 33% of a day’s use between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. That’s less than the 37.5% you’d get if use were even all day, because evenings are busy.

A 15-minute file shows your real night share, and our reader works it out for you. Then see how free-nights plans compare or how bill credit plans work.

Have your average month and your peak month? Enter your ZIP to see the plans at your address. Then check each one at your low month, your high month and the credit line.

Want to know who sells power in Texas first? See every licensed electricity company, or how to read an Electricity Facts Label line by line.

The screen flips through a few numbers on a loop. Only one of them is your total kWh. A small code tells you which is which.

Texas law says your meter data belongs to you. Fifteen-minute readings show when you use power, so it’s worth knowing who sees them and how to cut someone off.

1. You

   State law says all meter data “shall belong to a customer.” You can see all of it and save it.

2. The company that bills you

   It gets your data without a separate deal, the PUCT found in 2018. A state rule bars it from releasing your private account details without your OK.

3. Your utility and ERCOT

   Your utility runs the system, and ERCOT gets the readings too. State law bars utilities from selling, sharing or disclosing them, except to serve you or for services you approve.

4. Companies you approve

   Brokers, apps and energy firms. They get access only after you click Accept in an email from SMT, for up to 12 months at a time for homes.

How a sharing request works

These steps come from the 2018 rules. A company sends SMT your ESI ID, meter number and electricity company. If they match, SMT emails you. One click accepts or rejects. No answer in five weekdays counts as a no. You don’t even need an SMT account to say yes.

Home deals end after 12 months unless you renew. SMT emails you 30 days and again 15 days before the end. If you move out, access to new readings stops right away, and access to your old ones ends within 45 days. In September 2026, 274,253 sharing deals were active, with 826 outside companies signed up to use SMT.

How to stop sharing

1. Log in at smartmetertexas.com.
2. Open Manage Agreements to see who has access.
3. Pick the company and choose Terminate Agreement.
4. Click Submit. Look for “Your Data Sharing Authorization Termination request is successful.”

No account? Under the 2018 rules, the email you got when you said yes also tells you how to end it: by making an SMT account, by calling the help desk, or by telling the company.

Only six utilities feed it. If another utility delivers your power, use that utility’s own website instead.

TNMP is a special case. It runs its own Data Viewer, and customers with smart meters can use it, SMT, or both. TNMP meters that can’t talk to the network are read by hand each month, and their 15-minute data won’t post to SMT.

Not sure which utility you have? Your ESI ID’s first seven digits tell you: 1044372 is Oncor, 1008901 is CenterPoint, 1003278 is AEP Texas Central, 1020404 is AEP Texas North, 1040051 is TNMP, 1011292 is Lubbock Power & Light and 1017699 is Oncor (the former SESCO area). Other prefixes, such as 1013830 for Nueces Electric Cooperative, belong to utilities that may not be on Smart Meter Texas. Renting? If your unit has its own meter, state law lets you pick your own electricity company. See how apartment power works.

Yes. Utilities that put in smart meters under a PUCT-approved plan must offer a “non-standard” meter instead, under state rule §25.133. But you pay for it: once to switch, then every month.

What else changes when you opt out

• You sign a written form and pay the one-time fee before anything happens.
• Someone reads your meter by hand each month, so the utility needs access to it.
• You may wait up to 45 days to switch electricity companies.
• Power may take longer to come back after an outage.
• Your company may move you to another plan if yours needs a smart meter.
• You lose the online 15-minute view. Oncor says opt-out customers can’t view their use “in almost real time.”
• When you move out, the utility puts a smart meter back.

To ask, contact your utility, not the company that bills you. It must send you the written notice within seven days. Its options: turn off the smart meter’s communications, keep your old meter if it’s accurate, or put in an analog or digital meter that doesn’t talk to the network. You can switch back by telling the utility, but you still owe what the service cost.

Short answers from state rules, PUCT filings and the utilities’ own pages, checked Oct 16, 2026.

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