Higher electric bills may be imminent as Oncor’s proposed rate increase moves closer to approval, according to documents filed Thursday with the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
Oncor and more than a dozen parties, including PUCT staff and local municipal groups, recently reached an agreement that resulted in a rate increase request that was less than the utility’s original request submitted last summer.
According to Oncor, the current proposed rate hike would be about a 3% increase on bills for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month on a plan charging 15 cents per kWh, equating to about $4.64 per month.
The previous rate increase request would have resulted in closer to a 4.7% monthly increase, or roughly $7.90 a month.
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Oncor submitted the settlement to the PUCT for approval, which the agency can accept, change or reject the agreement.
A decision is expected in the first half of 2026.
The new rates will go into effect once the PUCT issues a final order. If the rates are approved as is, Oncor will apply a temporary adjustment to cover the difference between current rates and new rates for the time between Jan. 1 of this year to when the new rates begin, the utility announced.
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The temporary adjustment will be spread out through the end of the year in an effort to reduce the monthly impact on customers.
“These updated rates will help strengthen safety, reliability and system resiliency and enable continued investments in Oncor’s transmission and distribution system to support Texas’ growing energy needs for years to come,” an Oncor announcement on the settlement read.
The initial rate hike request
Oncor — headquartered in Dallas and the largest energy delivery company in Texas — filed a rate review in June, saying it needed to increase rates because of several factors like explosive growth across the state, record levels of construction and the impact of extreme weather.
Initially, the proposed rate was 12.3% for residential and 51% for street lighting with those higher rates increasing Oncor’s revenue $834 million, a roughly 13% uptick.
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Officials from cities across Dallas-Forth Worth voted to reject this much of an increase to rates and residential bills, which is typical in cases like this.
The settlement resulted in an increase in total electric delivery revenues closer to 8.8%, according to documents filed with the PUCT.
One Oncor executive testified that the settlement led to “just and reasonable” rates.
State law allows that every four years an electric utility, like Oncor, can file a comprehensive rate case with the PUCT to increase customer rates and recover capital costs, such as costs to build transmission lines or other infrastructure improvements.
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The last time Oncor filed for a base rate adjustment similar to this was May 2022, with the final order authorizing that rate change being issued in April 2023.
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This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.
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