Power to Choose Star Ratings: What They Mean in 2026

A Dallas homeowner pulls up powertochoose.org on a Tuesday night, ready to lock in a new electricity plan before her current contract expires. She finds a rate that looks great, maybe the lowest on the page, then notices the provider has one star out of five. She hovers over it, second-guesses herself, and ends up picking a pricier plan from a company with four stars, unsure whether she just made a smart call or left money on the table.

That moment of uncertainty happens thousands of times a month across Texas. The star rating system on Power to Choose is a genuine consumer tool, but it measures one specific thing, and that thing is not what most shoppers assume.

The stars on powertochoose.org come directly from the PUCT complaint scorecard, a metric the Public Utility Commission of Texas publishes for every licensed Retail Electric Provider. The scorecard divides the number of verified, closed complaints a REP received in a given period by the REP's total customer count, producing a complaint rate. That rate is then compared against the statewide average.

The result maps to a five-point scale:

5 stars: complaint rate significantly below the statewide average
4 stars: complaint rate somewhat below average
3 stars: complaint rate near the statewide average
2 stars: complaint rate somewhat above average
1 star: complaint rate significantly above average

The PUCT updates the scorecard periodically, so a company's rating can change from one shopping session to the next. The stars you see today reflect a recent historical window, not a permanent verdict.

Importantly, only verified complaints count. A customer who calls their REP, gets the issue resolved, and never contacts the PUCT does not move the needle. Complaints that are investigated and found to be unfounded are also excluded. What the scorecard captures is the share of customers who had a problem serious enough to escalate to the state regulator and were found to have a legitimate grievance.

Safe is a loaded word, but the short answer is: a 1-star REP is not an unlicensed or rogue operator. Every company that appears on Power to Choose holds a current REP license from the PUCT. Licensing requires meeting financial, operational, and disclosure standards. A 1-star rating means the company has a higher-than-average verified complaint rate, not that it is fraudulent or in danger of losing its license.

That said, a higher complaint rate is a real signal worth weighing. The most common complaint categories the PUCT tracks include billing errors, failure to switch service promptly, misleading sales practices, and problems with contract disclosures. If a REP scores poorly on the scorecard, some subset of its customers found the experience frustrating enough to file a formal complaint with the state.

A practical way to think about it: a 1-star rating raises a question worth investigating, not a stop sign. Check the REP's Better Business Bureau profile, search for recent reviews on independent sites, and read the Electricity Facts Label carefully before committing. If the price difference between a 1-star and a 4-star provider is small, the 4-star option is probably the easier choice. If the gap is substantial, the extra research may be worth the time.

Here is where many shoppers get tripped up. The star rating on Power to Choose carries no information about price. A 5-star REP can have one of the highest rates in the market. A 1-star REP can have one of the lowest. The two variables are independent.

As of August 2026, the lowest all-in advertised rate in the Oncor territory (Dallas area) at 1,000 kWh sits around 6.8 cents per kWh, while the median across roughly 127 active plans is about 16.1 cents per kWh. That spread, nearly 10 cents per kWh, dwarfs any premium a shopper might pay to trade up in star rating. Paying the median rate at a 5-star company instead of the lowest rate at a 1-star company could cost hundreds of dollars over a contract term.

The right approach is to use the star rating as one input among several, not as a proxy for the overall quality of a deal. Check the Electricity Facts Label (EFL) for every plan you consider. The EFL is a standardized disclosure the PUCT requires every REP to publish, showing the all-in average price at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh. It also discloses contract length, early termination fees, and any pricing tiers that could push your actual bill above the headline rate. The EFL is the authority on what you will actually pay.

Think of the star rating as a quick triage tool, not a final filter. Here is a practical workflow:

1. Sort by price first. On powertochoose.org, filter by your TDU territory (Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas, or TNMP depending on where you live) and enter your typical monthly usage. Sort by rate to see the competitive end of the market.

2. Pull the EFL on any plan you like. Confirm the all-in price at your actual usage level, the contract term, and the cancellation fee. Some plans have usage-tier credits that make the 1,000-kWh rate look low but penalize you at 900 kWh or 1,100 kWh.

3. Then check the star rating. If two plans are similarly priced and one REP has significantly more stars, that is a meaningful tiebreaker. If one plan is considerably cheaper and the REP has fewer stars, decide whether the savings justify the added research.

4. Look up the REP's complaint history. The PUCT website publishes individual complaint counts, not just the scorecard summary. Searching for a specific company name can reveal whether its complaints cluster around a particular issue, like a billing system problem from a year ago, or reflect a persistent pattern.

5. Compare at ElectricRates.org. Our Texas electricity rates page surfaces live plan data so you can see current options across the major TDU territories without jumping between multiple tools.

The PUCT complaint scorecard methodology is published on the commission's website. The agency counts complaints that were opened, investigated, and closed in the provider's disfavor or resolved to the customer's benefit within the measurement window. It then divides that count by an estimate of the provider's residential customer base.

Small REPs can have noisy scores. A company serving a few thousand customers that receives a handful of legitimate complaints may land at 1 star simply because the math amplifies a small absolute number. A large REP serving hundreds of thousands of customers would need far more complaints to move its ratio. This does not mean a small company's low score is unfair, but it is context worth keeping in mind when you see a very small provider rated poorly alongside a major one.

The PUCT refreshes scores on a rolling basis. If a company fixes a systemic problem, its rating can climb over the following measurement period. Conversely, a REP that was 5 stars last year can drop if it acquires a poorly run competitor or changes billing platforms and creates a backlog of errors.

The scorecard is narrowly focused on complaint volume relative to customer count. It does not reflect:

Price competitiveness. As noted above, a 5-star REP may charge well above the market median.

Customer service quality beyond complaints. A REP with long hold times, unhelpful agents, or a clunky online portal may still score well if customers give up before filing a formal PUCT complaint.

Renewable energy sourcing. Some REPs offer plans backed by wind or solar power. The star rating has nothing to do with how green a plan is.

Contract terms. A provider could have excellent complaint scores and still offer contracts with steep early termination fees or confusing pricing tiers. The EFL covers those details; the star rating does not.

Delivery reliability. Outages and line repairs fall under the TDU (Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas, or TNMP), not the REP. No REP star rating will tell you anything about how quickly your power gets restored after a storm, because your REP has no role in that process.

Power to Choose star ratings are a useful, state-backed signal about verified customer complaints. They belong in your shopping process, but they are one lens among several, not the deciding factor.

A 5-star REP with an inflated rate is not a good deal. A 1-star REP with a low rate and a clean EFL may be worth the extra five minutes of research. The Electricity Facts Label, the PUCT complaint scorecard, and a current rate comparison together give you a complete picture.

For live plan data across all Texas TDU territories, visit our Texas electricity comparison page. Rates change frequently, so checking current figures at ElectricRates.org before you sign anything is always worth doing. As of August 2026, the spread between the lowest available rates and the market median in the Oncor territory is wide enough that the shopping effort pays for itself many times over.