A Customer's Guide to TDU Delivery Charges in Texas

When you pay your electricity bill, only part of it goes to the retail provider whose name is on the plan. A large share — roughly 40% of a typical bill — goes to your Transmission & Distribution Utility (TDU): the regulated company that owns the poles, wires, transformers, and meter that physically deliver power to your home. In Texas that's one of six utilities, set entirely by where you live: Oncor (Dallas–Fort Worth and much of North/West Texas), CenterPoint (the Houston area), AEP Texas Central and AEP Texas North, Texas–New Mexico Power (TNMP), and Lubbock Power & Light (LP&L). You don't choose your TDU and you can't switch it — it comes with your address.

Here's the part that trips people up: TDU charges are regulated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and are a pass-through. Your retail provider collects them and remits them to the utility with no markup, which means they're identical for every provider in your territory. No plan is genuinely “cheaper on delivery” — the delivery cost of two plans in the same area is exactly the same. Where plans actually differ is the energy charge; for how the pieces fit together, see our Guide to Texas electricity rates.

A delivery charge has two parts: a small fixed monthly charge (about $3–$9, no matter how much you use) plus a per-kWh delivery rate (roughly 4.5–7.3¢ per kWh). At around 1,000 kWh a month, delivery typically adds $55–$80 to your bill, varying by territory — CenterPoint has tended toward the lower end and TNMP toward the higher end, with Oncor in between. Treat those figures as approximate and time-sensitive: they reset twice a year, which is where the next section comes in.

TDUs don't set their own rates freely — they file them with the PUCT, which reviews and approves them. Standard adjustments take effect on a fixed cadence: March 1 and September 1 every year. On top of that, a utility can win an off-cycle change through a separate rate case — for example, both Oncor and CenterPoint pushed delivery increases through on June 1, 2026, outside the usual cycle. As of mid-2026 the next standard adjustment is September 1, 2026 — but always confirm current figures, because PUCT filings move.

What drives the increases is grid investment. Since Winter Storm Uri in 2021, utilities have been spending heavily on storm hardening and resiliency — CenterPoint's multi-billion-dollar resiliency plan alone phases in over several years — plus new transformers, substations, and transmission lines to serve fast-rising demand from population growth and large new loads like data centers. Those costs flow straight through to the delivery line on every bill in the territory, which is why your delivery charge can climb even in a year when energy prices are flat.