Texas Commercial Electricity Rates, August 2026: The Average Jumped 36%. The Market Didn't.

Market Pulse

Across the 1,000 active commercial plan listings from 29 Texas REPs tracked in the texascommercialplans.com database for the week of August 4 through August 10, 2026, the median Texas commercial electricity rate fell to 6.96 cents per kWh, down 4.0 percent from 7.25 cents a week earlier. Among the 155 plans that matched one to one against the prior snapshot, rates fell 2.3 percent on average, and decreases outnumbered increases four to one (20 down, 5 up).

The headline average moved the other way, and it should be ignored this week. Our tracked mean jumped 36 percent to 10.94 cents. Every bit of that move traces to 23 listings, all from a single provider's product family, that were re-quoted on August 9 at levels more than sixteen times the market median. No commercial supply product prices there, so this is a source formatting problem, not a market event. Strip those 23 out and the average across the remaining 974 priced listings is 8.16 cents, effectively flat against the prior week's 8.15 cents. Texas commercial electricity rates in August 2026 are drifting lower on a like for like basis, even with ERCOT setting demand records.

What's Moving the Market

• ERCOT hit an all-time peak of 91.1 GW on July 22, about 6 percent above the prior record. ERCOT carried it without emergency alerts and with operating reserves above 10 GW, so this is a demand-growth story rather than a reliability scare. August is a 4CP month, which means the coincident peak intervals being set right now will price your 2027 transmission charges. Confirm your curtailment triggers before the next heat event. (GCN, ERCOT market dashboards)
• Texas is on track to add 12.9 GW of utility-scale battery storage in 2026, 53 percent of all U.S. additions. The EIA counts 24 GW of planned national additions, with three of the four largest projects sited in Texas. Storage absorbs the evening ramp that used to price scarcity into forward curves, which is one reason multi-year commercial offers have not repriced upward alongside record peaks. (EIA)
• The state's data center audit could delay 49.8 GW of new load, at a cost of $8 billion to $15 billion to those projects. BloombergNEF put those figures on Governor Abbott's pause, which arrives with hyperscale computing already drawing roughly 12 GW in Texas. For buyers, slower large-load interconnection means the demand curve REPs hedge against gets pushed out, which is mildly supportive of current pricing. (POWER, Forbes)
• An independent benchmark landed within a tenth of a cent of our cleaned average. ComparePower's August 2026 figures put the Texas commercial average at 8.26 cents per kWh against a U.S. commercial average of 13.54 cents. Our cleaned tracked average is 8.16 cents. When two datasets built from different samples agree that closely, treat that band as the real market and treat anything materially above it as a quote worth challenging. (ComparePower)
• Every rate in this report is supply only, and delivery is set separately. TDSP delivery charges are approved through the PUCT and vary by territory, so identical supply quotes in Oncor and CenterPoint produce different all-in bills. If a broker shows you an all-in number, ask which delivery assumptions are in it. (AEP Texas)

Pricing Trend Analysis: Texas Commercial Electricity Rates in August 2026

This week we are reporting on medians rather than averages, and the reason matters. A cluster of 23 listings re-quoted at levels more than sixteen times the market median is enough, on its own, to move a 997-plan average by nearly three cents. Medians are immune to that. They are also the better negotiating reference in a market where a thin tail of short-dated variable products has always dragged the mean upward.

On medians, the term curve is much flatter than mean-based reads have suggested. Plans in the 1 to 12 month band carry a median of 7.02 cents across 440 listings. The 13 to 24 month band sits at 6.60 cents across 206 listings. The 25 to 36 month band is at 6.96 cents across 112 listings, and terms beyond 36 months are the most expensive band at 7.24 cents across 203 listings.

Two things follow. First, the curve bottoms at 13 to 24 months and rises on either side, so the discount for signing long stops paying at the two-year mark and reverses past three years. Second, the typical short contract is only about 6 percent above the typical two-year contract, not the 40 to 50 percent gap that average-based comparisons produce. That gap was always a handful of extreme month-to-month products distorting the mean, and buyers who deferred a short bridge contract on the strength of it were reacting to arithmetic rather than to the market.

Territory spreads compressed to almost nothing. Oncor carries the lowest median at 6.71 cents across 253 listings, CenterPoint the highest at 7.63 cents across 120, and the other three sit inside a 0.2 cent band between them. Under a cent separates the cheapest territory from the most expensive on a typical quote. Our rate trend chart plots the weekly median against the weekly mean over the past four weeks, and the two lines separated sharply for the first time this week. See the full pricing breakdown, including every plan behind these medians, in our data download.

REP Spotlight: Just Energy

Just Energy appears in our tracking this week with 40 commercial listings, and the shape of that book is unusual. Every one of the 40 is a one-month term, and every one is variable rate. There are no fixed-price products and no green-designated products in the set we track.

Coverage is complete on geography. Just Energy lists commercial product in all five deregulated TDU territories we monitor: Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP North, AEP Central, and TNMP. Few providers in our database cover all five, and fewer still with a single product structure.

Rate positioning sits above the tracked market average, which is what a book of month-to-month variable product should look like. Read this as a bridge, not a destination. If you are between contracts or holding a site you may exit, month-to-month variable has real option value, and Just Energy is one of the few providers offering it statewide. If you are settling in for a term, this pricing tier is the one you are trying to leave. Get this REP's full plan data in our data download.

Buyer Intelligence

The practical situation for a Texas commercial buyer right now is a soft supply market sitting underneath a loud demand story. Record ERCOT peaks and a data center pipeline measured in tens of gigawatts dominate the headlines, but retail offers have eased for a second week and the term curve has flattened, so structure now matters more than timing. Act on contract shape rather than waiting for a better print.

One caution specific to this week. If you pulled a market average from any source after August 9, check whether it jumped. Bad quotes propagate through comparison sites quickly, and an average that moves a third in a week is nearly always a data problem. Ask any broker quoting you a benchmark whether it is a mean or a median, and on what sample size.

Should Texas commercial buyers lock in rates now or wait?

Buyers with contracts expiring in the next 60 to 90 days should be quoting now rather than waiting. The median tracked rate has fallen 4.0 percent this week to 6.96 cents per kWh and matched plans fell 2.3 percent, which is a mild easing, not a trend steep enough to reward another month of delay. With ERCOT peaks setting records and 49.8 GW of new load in the interconnection queue, the risk is asymmetric: the downside to locking now is a few tenths of a cent, and the upside to waiting is capped by the same tight forward market.

What contract length gives Texas commercial buyers the best rate right now?

The 13 to 24 month band is the cheapest tier this week at a median of 6.60 cents per kWh across 206 tracked listings, roughly 6 percent below the 1 to 12 month band and about 9 percent below terms of 37 months or longer. The curve bottoms there and rises in both directions, so a two-year term captures essentially all of the available term discount. Signing past three years costs more per kWh than signing for two and adds duration risk on top.

Data Snapshot

• Tracked REPs this week: 29
• Active commercial plan listings: 1,000 (unchanged week over week)
• Priced listings used for medians: 974 (23 excluded as invalid quotes, 3 without a rate)
• Plans matched week over week: 155
• Plans with a rate change: 25 (20 lower, 5 higher)
• Plans removed this week: 3
• Median rate: 6.96 cents per kWh, down 4.0 percent
• Average contract term: 21.6 months

Full rate data, plan comparisons, and historical trends are in our data download. Prior editions are indexed under Weekly Market Insights, including last week's report and the July 21 to 27 edition. Daily coverage runs in Daily Market News, and offers are browsable by territory in the plan browser.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average commercial electricity rate in Texas right now?

The median tracked commercial supply rate in Texas is 6.96 cents per kWh as of August 10, 2026, across 1,000 active plan listings from 29 REPs. The cleaned average is 8.16 cents, which sits within a tenth of a cent of ComparePower's independent August 2026 figure of 8.26 cents. All of these are supply-only rates and exclude TDSP delivery charges, which are set by territory through the PUCT.

Which Texas TDU territory has the lowest commercial electricity rates this week?

Oncor carries the lowest median commercial rate this week at 6.71 cents per kWh across 253 tracked listings, and CenterPoint the highest at 7.63 cents across 120 listings. AEP Central, TNMP, and AEP North sit between them within a 0.2 cent band. The total spread from cheapest to most expensive territory is under one cent per kWh on supply, so territory is a smaller lever than contract term for most commercial buyers.

How did the ERCOT peak demand record affect Texas commercial electricity rates?

It did not move retail commercial offers this week. ERCOT's 91.1 GW record on July 22 was met without emergency alerts and with over 10 GW of operating reserves, and tracked commercial rates have fallen in each of the two weeks since. The more direct effect on a commercial bill is transmission cost allocation: July and August are 4CP months, so this summer's coincident peaks will set transmission charges in 2027.