Residential Rates

Thank you for being an Austin Energy customer. Austin Energy, a service of the City of Austin, structures rates into five billing components (Customer Charge, Energy Charge, Power Supply Adjustment, Community Benefit Charges, and Regulatory Charge). These charges are factored into your electric bill each month. Taken together, Austin Energy’s goal is to have average system rates in the lower 50% of similar utilities in Texas.

Inside City of Austin Rates: Four-Tier Rate Structure

Austin Energy has a four-tier rate structure that allows those with lower use to have lower rates — and thus lower bills. You can conserve electricity by modifying your energy use or by making energy efficiency improvements to your home.

• Community Benefit Charges — These charges help fund City services like customer assistance, street lighting, and energy efficiency programs. 
  
  
• Customer Charge — This charge helps cover the fixed costs of billing, metering, collections, customer service, and other account management services.
  
  
• Power Supply Adjustment — The Power Supply Adjustment is a dollar-for-dollar recovery that includes the cost of fuel for our power plants, the cost of electricity purchased from the grid and any net charges experienced as Austin Energy sells power to the grid. Austin Energy adjusts the Power Supply Adjustment annually to reflect the current price of fuel, projected Austin Energy power purchases, and any existing over/under recovery of those expenses. The utility can make small adjustments to this charge throughout the year, as conditions require.
  
  
• PSA Administrative Adjustment — As conditions require throughout the year, Austin Energy can make small changes to the Power Supply Adjustment. These changes allow the utility to better manage its financial health by responding to changing market conditions faster.
  
  
• Regulatory Charge — The Regulatory Charge recovers Austin Energy’s costs for using the ERCOT wholesale transmission system and other regulatory fees and charges. Transmission costs are based on Austin Energy’s roughly 4% share of the ERCOT market and determined by the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
  
  
• Energy Charge — Austin Energy sells electricity to residential customers in kilowatt-hours. A kilowatt-hour is equal to the energy needed to run one 1,000-watt electric heater or ten 100-watt lights for one hour. A typical residential user consumes 860 kWh per month.
  
  Electric rates for residential customers inside the City of Austin (approximately 85% of residential customers) are organized into four tiers. When a customer’s energy usage increases from tier to tier, the rate per kilowatt-hour also increases for consumption in that tier.

Residential electric bills from Austin Energy tend to be lower when compared to most other utilities in Texas as a result of lower kilowatt-hour use. The lower use comes from energy efficiency tools, higher building standards, and other initiatives supported by Austin Energy.

Browse our many energy efficiency tips, tools, and rebates

Renewable Energy Options

Many customers are concerned about the carbon impact of their electric power. Those who want to reduce their carbon footprint can choose these additional green power options from Austin Energy:

• GreenChoice® 100% Texas wind power
• Community Solar option
• Value of Solar rate on installed on-site solar systems

Learn More

• Learn about the other line items on your residential electric bill
• View all approved electric rates schedules for the City of Austin