Plano is one of the most commercially dense cities in North Texas. The Legacy Business District, the Dallas North Tollway corridor, the Shops at Legacy, and hundreds of office parks, medical facilities, restaurant groups, and retail chains across 72 square miles of Collin County generate an enormous volume of commercial electricity demand. All of it flows through Oncor’s distribution infrastructure. And most of those businesses are paying above-market electricity rates.
The reason is straightforward: Texas’s deregulated electricity market gives every business the ability to choose their retail electricity provider from 100+ licensed suppliers. But most businesses in Plano — like most businesses across the state — sign a contract with one provider and then renew passively when that contract expires, often with the same provider at whatever rate they offer, without ever running a competitive process. The result is above-market supply rates that compound over years into tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary electricity expense.
A PUCT-licensed commercial energy broker runs a competitive reverse auction with 25+ suppliers competing simultaneously for your account. The auction produces the market’s best available rate for your specific load profile. The broker earns a commission from the winning supplier — you pay nothing directly. The process takes less time than a single meeting.
This guide covers how the Plano commercial electricity market works, what current rates look like for the most common Plano business types, and how to evaluate whether your current contract is competitive.
Plano sits entirely within Oncor Electric Delivery’s service territory. Oncor owns and operates the physical distribution infrastructure — the poles, wires, transformers, and meters that deliver electricity to every commercial building in the city. Oncor is a regulated monopoly: their delivery charges are set by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and are identical for every business on the same rate class, regardless of which retail electricity provider supplies their account.
This is the foundational distinction in the deregulated market: your TDU is fixed (Oncor, in Plano’s case), and your retail electricity provider is your choice. Switching providers does not change your delivery charges, does not change your service, and does not involve Oncor at all beyond processing the switch request. Your electricity flows through the same infrastructure, from the same grid, through the same meter. The only thing that changes is who bills you for the supply component and at what rate.
For most Plano commercial accounts, the supply charge represents 45-55% of total electricity cost. The delivery charge represents 35-45%. Taxes and regulatory fees make up the remainder. A competitive procurement process drives down the supply component — the only variable in your bill that responds to competitive pressure.
For a detailed breakdown of what the TDU delivery charge covers and why it can’t be negotiated, see our guide on what is a TDSP charge on a Texas electricity bill.
Supply rates in competitive reverse auctions vary by account size, contract term, and load profile. These are current benchmarks from competitive auctions in Oncor North territory as of June 2026:
Small commercial accounts (1,000-10,000 kWh/month — small offices, small retail, professional services):
12-month fixed supply rates: 6.3-7.5¢/kWh
24-month fixed supply rates: 6.5-7.8¢/kWh
36-month fixed supply rates: 6.7-8.0¢/kWh
Mid-size commercial accounts (10,000-100,000 kWh/month — restaurants, medical offices, fitness centers, mid-size retail):
12-month fixed supply rates: 6.2-7.2¢/kWh
24-month fixed supply rates: 6.4-7.4¢/kWh
36-month fixed supply rates: 6.6-7.6¢/kWh
Large commercial accounts (100,000-500,000 kWh/month — large office buildings, manufacturing, data centers, CRE portfolios):
12-month fixed supply rates: 6.0-7.0¢/kWh
24-month fixed supply rates: 6.2-7.2¢/kWh
36-month fixed supply rates: 6.4-7.4¢/kWh
If your current all-in rate — supply plus Oncor delivery — is above 12¢/kWh, you are almost certainly paying above-market on the supply side. For context on what all-in rates look like across account types, see our Texas commercial electricity rates guide.
Plano’s commercial electricity market has several structural characteristics that make above-market passive renewal rates particularly common.
High concentration of corporate and professional accounts. The Legacy District and surrounding corridors contain thousands of corporate office accounts — regional headquarters, financial services firms, technology companies, and professional services organizations. These accounts are frequently managed at the corporate level with centralized facilities teams that handle lease, insurance, and vendor procurement, but rarely include electricity procurement in their competitive review cycle. Electricity is treated as a utility bill rather than a procurement opportunity. The result is years of passive renewal at above-market rates on accounts that could easily save $2,000-10,000+ annually through a single competitive auction.
Medical and dental office cluster. The medical corridor along Alma Road, Jupiter Road, and Preston Road contains hundreds of dental practices, medical offices, imaging centers, urgent care facilities, and specialist clinics. These businesses typically consume 5,000-30,000 kWh/month, have consistent load profiles that attract competitive bids, and almost universally procure electricity passively. Our guide on reducing electricity costs for Texas dental and medical offices covers the specific procurement approach for this vertical.
Retail and restaurant density. Legacy West, The Shops at Legacy, Willow Bend Mall, and the hundreds of restaurant and retail locations along US-75 and the Tollway represent substantial commercial electricity volume. Retail and restaurant accounts have predictable load profiles — consistent operating hours, known equipment loads — that produce competitive bids from most Texas REPs. These accounts benefit significantly from multi-location portfolio aggregation when operators have several Plano locations.
Churches and nonprofit organizations. Plano’s residential density has produced a large number of commercial-sized churches, private schools, and nonprofit organizations. Many of these organizations qualify for the Texas electricity sales tax exemption under Tax Code Section 151.310 and are either not filing the exemption or not running competitive procurement. The combination of above-market supply rates and an unfiled tax exemption frequently adds up to $5,000-15,000 per year in avoidable costs.
Many of the most commercially active businesses in Plano — restaurant groups, dental service organizations, retail chains, medical practice groups — operate multiple locations across Plano, Frisco, Allen, McKinney, and greater DFW. These multi-location operators have a procurement advantage that most never use.
When all commercial-classified meters across a portfolio are submitted to a competitive reverse auction simultaneously, suppliers compete for the full portfolio volume rather than individual locations. The result is lower per-kWh supply rates across all locations than any individual location would receive independently. A three-location dental practice group with 12,000 kWh/month per location — 36,000 kWh/month combined — receives meaningfully more competitive bids as a unified portfolio than as three separate auctions.
Portfolio aggregation also produces operational benefits: unified contract expiration dates eliminate the risk of individual locations lapsing onto holdover variable rates, and a single procurement process covers all locations rather than three separate processes three years apart.
For the full explanation of how portfolio aggregation works and the savings it typically produces, see our guide on how to compare commercial electricity providers in Texas.
The most common mistake Plano businesses make when evaluating electricity contracts isn’t choosing the wrong supplier — it’s choosing the wrong contract structure or the wrong term length for their specific situation.
Fixed vs. variable rate: Fixed-rate contracts lock your supply rate for the entire contract term regardless of ERCOT market movements. Variable-rate contracts reprice monthly or quarterly based on market conditions. For most Plano commercial accounts, fixed-rate contracts are the appropriate structure — they eliminate electricity cost as a budget variable and protect against ERCOT price spikes like the February 2021 Winter Storm Uri event, which drove variable-rate accounts to thousands of dollars per day in exposure. Variable or indexed products are appropriate only for sophisticated commercial buyers with energy management expertise and risk tolerance.
Auto-renewal clauses: Most Texas commercial electricity contracts include auto-renewal provisions that lock the account into a new contract term — sometimes at above-market rates — if the customer doesn’t provide notice within a specific window before expiration. These windows are typically 30-90 days before the contract end date. Missing the window means your account auto-renews at whatever rate the current provider offers. A competitive process must be initiated before the notification window closes. For a full explanation of how auto-renewal works and what it costs, see our guide on Texas commercial electricity contract auto-renewal.
Term length and current market conditions: ERCOT forward pricing as of June 2026 reflects elevated demand driven by data center buildout in North Texas and continued industrial load growth. Forward curves are more likely to move upward than downward in the near term. For Plano businesses that own their location or have long lease terms, locking a 36-48 month fixed rate now captures current pricing before anticipated market price increases. The premium for additional contract years is small relative to the certainty value. For the ERCOT market context, see our ERCOT summer 2026 commercial electricity outlook.
Getting a competitive electricity quote through a PUCT-licensed broker requires minimal time and produces results that direct procurement cannot match. Here is the complete process:
Step 1 — Submit your most recent electricity bill. Your bill contains your ESI ID (your meter’s unique identifier), your current usage, your current supply rate, and your current provider. The broker uses the ESI ID to pull 12 months of usage history directly from Oncor, which provides the load profile suppliers need to price competitively.
Step 2 — The broker submits your account to 25+ suppliers simultaneously. Every qualifying licensed REP in Texas receives your load profile and submits a blind competitive bid. No supplier knows what others are bidding. The rational response to a blind auction is to price as aggressively as possible.
Step 3 — You review every bid in a standardized comparison. The broker presents all bids in a side-by-side format showing supplier, rate, term, and total estimated cost. You see the full competitive market for your account — not a pre-selected subset.
Step 4 — You select the winning bid and sign the contract. The broker submits the contract to the supplier for acceptance. The supplier submits a switch request to Oncor. Your service transitions at the next meter read boundary with zero operational disruption.
Total time investment from your organization: 20-30 minutes for a standard single-location commercial account. No cost to you. No disruption to service. The broker earns a per-kWh commission from the winning supplier, embedded in the supply rate. For a complete explanation of how broker compensation works, see our guide on how a Texas commercial energy broker gets paid.
Depends on your lease structure. Triple-net (NNN) leases make tenants responsible for their own electricity — you receive your own Oncor meter and your own electricity bill and are responsible for your own REP selection. Gross leases include electricity in the rent, meaning the landlord manages procurement and the cost is embedded in your rent. Modified gross leases vary. Confirm your lease type with your property manager if you’re unsure whether you have independent electricity procurement responsibility.
Yes — if you have a standalone Oncor meter. National corporate accounts sometimes have Texas deregulated locations with independent meters that aren’t covered by corporate energy procurement programs (which often focus on regulated utility states). These locations are frequently on whatever default rate was established when the office opened. Independent procurement for a single Plano corporate office is straightforward and doesn’t require corporate approval in most cases — you’re simply selecting your retail electricity provider within the deregulated market.
The Plano/Allen corridor has significant data center density driven by the Legacy and Telecom corridor infrastructure. Data center electricity procurement involves additional complexity — higher load factors, potential demand charge optimization, possible critical load considerations — that warrants a dedicated procurement approach. Our guide on Texas data center electricity cost savings covers the specific procurement considerations for high-density computing facilities.
Submit your most recent electricity bill to EnergyBrokerTX for a free competitive rate analysis. We’ll identify your current supply rate, run a reverse auction with 25+ licensed Texas providers, and present every bid in a standardized comparison — at no cost to your business. PUCT License #BR260054.
We serve Plano businesses across all commercial categories — office, medical, restaurant, retail, church, nonprofit, industrial, and CRE portfolio. We also serve businesses across the broader DFW market including Dallas, Fort Worth, Frisco, and Houston.
