What is a Texas Retail Electricity Provider (REP)?

In the 10 years that Texas consumers have reaped the benefits of deregulation, there remains some confusion over the terminology and details of what it means to have a deregulated energy market. Not everyone understands the difference between who provides the energy, who delivers the energy, and how that relationship works. Bounce Energy stands on the side of the consumer: since each customer can choose the Texas Retail Electricity Provider that suits his/her needs, we feel that it's a great idea to educate those customers.

A company like Bounce Energy is defined as a Texas Retail Electricity Provider (REP). In a deregulated energy market, we are one of several companies from which you can buy the electricity that you use for your home or business. We compete with other REP's like Reliant Energy, TXU Energy, or Direct Energy (to name a few) to buy, sell, and broker electricity in order to provide the best possible energy rates for our customers, both new and old.

A Texas Retail Electricity Provider is different from a Transmission and Delivery Service Provider (TDSP). The TDSP is the company that owns, maintains, and reads the lines, poles, and meters in a given service area. This is the company that a customer should to call if there is an outage (non-payment related) in his/her area. There are 5 different TDSP's that service the deregulated areas of Texas: Oncor, Centerpoint, Texas-New Mexico Power, AEP North, and AEP Central.

Here is the best way to tell the difference between the two:

• A customer buys electricity for his/her home or business from a Texas Retail Electricity Provider.
• The TDSP charges a customer to provide service for the electricity used. "Service" includes delivering energy to the customer's home or business, reading the meter to determine energy usage, fixing a downed pole or power line to correct an outage, and other such operations.

In short, deregulation means that you - the customer - choose the Texas REP that you want from a wide spectrum of competing companies (though we hope you choose Bounce Energy), but you do not choose your TDSP. All of the REP's compete in all of the TDSP service areas, but a customer will only have 1 specific TDSP transmit and deliver that electricity.

For more information on these terms, please visit the following links:

• PUC REP Overview
• ERCOT TDSP Overview
• Power To Choose Electricity Basics