Opening a Business in Texas: The Electricity Setup Timeline Nobody Hands You

Say a new restaurant opening in Frisco budgets for roughly 12,000 kWh a month once the kitchen line is running full service, and its plan charges 9 cents per kWh under a locked supply contract versus 13 cents per kWh on a default rollover rate. That works out to about $1,080 versus $1,560 a month, a difference of roughly $5,760 a year on one account, depending on whether the contract was locked before opening day or the account fell onto a rollover rate near the ribbon-cutting. Example numbers to show the math, not a live quote. This timeline is easy to miss until it's already too late to fix cheaply.

Every build-out runs on two separate electricity relationships, not one. Construction power, sometimes called temporary service, is what runs the saws, the HVAC testing, and the lighting while the general contractor is finishing the space. That account is opened by the contractor, tied to the job, and closed out once the build-out wraps. It is not the account your business will operate on, and it is not something you can just keep running past opening day. Permanent service is a separate account tied to the ESI ID for the space, and it doesn't get activated until the site is closer to occupancy-ready. The TDU serving that address, Oncor in most of DFW, CenterPoint around Houston, AEP Texas Central or North across the south and west, or TNMP in scattered pockets, has to physically set or verify the meter before a retail electric provider can start service on it. Confusing the two timelines can leave new businesses scrambling in the final two weeks before opening.

This question is easy to get wrong for first-time operators. In a standalone building or an end-cap with its own service drop, the tenant usually holds the ESI ID directly and shops the electricity contract themselves, exactly like a homeowner would shop a residential plan. That's most standalone restaurants, most auto shops, most single-tenant retail. In a multi-tenant office building or strip center, it's a coin flip. Some landlords master-meter the whole building and bill tenants back through common area maintenance charges, in which case you have zero control over the electricity rate and it's baked into your lease economics. Others require each tenant to open its own ESI ID and shop its own contract, which is common in office parks in places like Plano, where a single tenant might occupy two or three suites, each with a separate ESI ID that a broker can bundle into one competitive bid instead of three separate contracts at three separate rates. Read the utilities section of the lease before you assume either way. If it's silent, ask the landlord directly before signing.

Retail electric providers price risk based on payment history, and a brand-new LLC has none. That means almost every new business in ERCOT territory gets asked for a deposit, usually calculated as a multiple of your estimated monthly bill based on projected kWh usage. For context, the average commercial account in Texas uses around 9,701 kWh/month (EIA, through 2026), but that average blends corner stores with hospitals, so it tells you nothing about your specific location. A restaurant kitchen, a fitness studio, and a professional office all carry wildly different load profiles even at the same square footage. On timing: don't lock a supply contract the day you sign the lease, and don't wait until the week before opening either. Lock it once you have a real usage estimate, meaning your kitchen equipment list, your HVAC tonnage, or your square footage and hours are firm, which is usually 30 to 45 days out from opening. Lock too early and you're negotiating off a guess, say your usage estimate turns out to be off by 30% in either direction, which can leave you locked into the wrong pricing tier for the term of the contract. Lock too late and you risk falling onto a default or index rate the moment the meter goes live, which on a commercial account can run well above a negotiated fixed rate during summer months.

• Bank letter of credit in place of a cash security deposit, often the cleanest option for a well-capitalized new location
• Personal guarantee from an owner with strong personal credit, common for single-location independent operators
• Parent company or franchisor guarantee, standard for franchise locations opening under an established brand
• Prepayment or budget billing arrangement instead of a deposit, offered by some REPs for smaller accounts
• Shopping multiple REPs through a broker, since underwriting standards and deposit requirements vary supplier to supplier for identical accounts

• 90 days before opening: confirm which TDU serves the address and submit the construction/temporary power request through the general contractor
• 60 days before opening: confirm in the lease who holds the ESI ID, tenant or landlord, and get that in writing
• 45 days before opening: finalize the equipment list and hours of operation to build a real monthly kWh estimate
• 30 to 45 days before opening: request competitive supply quotes and lock the permanent contract, submitting deposit or guarantee paperwork with it
• 10 to 14 days before opening: confirm the permanent meter set date with the TDU and the service start date with the REP
• Opening day: verify the account is billing under the permanent commercial contract, not still on the contractor's temporary account