Find your utility
Who supplies my electricity?
Two companies can appear on one electricity bill. The utility owns the wires into your building and delivers the power — assigned by geography, and not something you can change. The supplier sells you the electricity itself, and in a deregulated state that half is yours to shop.
Ohio, Texas and New York. Elsewhere we can still read a bill, but we cannot price it against a tariff yet.
Why the answer is sometimes two utilities
A ZIP code is a mail route, not a service territory. The two are drawn by different organisations for different reasons, and they do not line up. It is common for a municipal utility to serve part of a city while an investor-owned one serves the rest, with both inside the same five digits.
Columbus is the clearest case. The public crosswalk lists sixty of its postal codes under the city’s own municipal utility, which does serve part of Columbus — but AEP Ohio serves most of it. We show both rather than pick, because picking would mean telling a business in downtown Columbus something false about its own bill.
Whichever utility your bill names is the one that serves you. If two come back, that is the tiebreaker — and about three quarters of ZIP codes here return only one.
Delivered by one company, sold by another
In a deregulated market your bill covers two jobs. Delivery is regulated, set by your utility in a tariff filed with the state commission, and no amount of shopping changes it. Supply is the electricity itself, and that is the half brokers call you about.
The distinction matters because on many commercial accounts delivery is the larger half — it carries the demand charges and the fixed monthly charges, while supply is purely per kilowatt-hour. What a delivery charge is works through what sits in it.
The utilities we can price
For these 7 we have read the tariff filed with the state commission and can say what a bill should look like. For the rest we can still read a bill; we cannot yet check it against a schedule.
| Utility | State | Tariff read |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio Edison | Ohio | Yes |
| Duke Energy Ohio | Ohio | Yes |
| AES Ohio | Ohio | Not yet |
| AEP Ohio | Ohio | Yes |
| Oncor Electric Delivery | Texas | Yes |
| CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric | Texas | Yes |
| AEP Texas | Texas | Not yet |
| Texas-New Mexico Power | Texas | Not yet |
| Con Edison | New York | Yes |
| National Grid | New York | Yes |
| NYSEG | New York | Not yet |
| Central Hudson | New York | Not yet |
Source: OpenEI ZIP-to-utility crosswalk, EIA Form 861 (2024). Texas territories mapped by hand.
Common questions
Who is my electric company?
The utility that owns the poles, wires and meter serving your address. It is assigned by geography — you do not choose it and cannot switch it. In a deregulated state you may separately buy the electricity itself from a retail supplier, which is why two company names can appear on one bill.
Why does the lookup show two utilities for my ZIP code?
Because a postal code is not a service territory. A municipal utility and an investor-owned one routinely serve different streets inside the same five digits, and the public crosswalk reflects that rather than resolving it. Your bill names which one serves you; about three quarters of ZIP codes here resolve to a single utility anyway.
What is the difference between my utility and my supplier?
The utility delivers electricity over its wires and bills you for that, which is regulated and cannot be shopped. A supplier sells you the electricity itself, and in a deregulated market you can change that half. Switching supplier does not change your utility or its delivery charge.
Can I change which utility delivers my power?
No. There is one set of wires into your building and one company that owns them. What you can change, in a deregulated state, is who sells you the electricity that travels over them.
What is a TDU or TDSP?
The Texas terms for the delivery utility — transmission and distribution utility, or transmission and distribution service provider. They mean the same thing. Four operate in the deregulated parts of Texas: Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas and Texas-New Mexico Power. Your retailer passes their charges straight through onto your bill.
Where does this data come from?
The OpenEI ZIP-to-utility crosswalk, built on EIA Form 861 for 2024. It only covers utilities that sell power as well as deliver it, so Texas — where those were separated by deregulation — is mapped by metro area instead and is approximate near territory boundaries.