How to Report a Texas Power Outage: TDU Service Areas and Maps

TL;DR: In most Texas retail-choice areas, report a neighborhood outage to the poles-and-wires utility for your address, not to the billing brand on your plan, according to HowTexas.

Who fixes the wires in Texas

In most Texas retail-choice areas, the company to call for a neighborhood outage is the transmission and distribution utility that maintains the poles, wires and meter at the house, according to HowTexas. That company may be labeled a TDU or TDSP on paperwork.

The retail electric provider named on an energy plan usually handles billing, plan terms and account service rather than field repairs, according to HowTexas. Municipal utilities and electric cooperatives may handle both delivery and account roles.

Texas split the electricity business when it deregulated, with the retail provider buying power and sending the bill while the transmission and distribution utility moves power to the house, according to EnergyOutlet's TDU Delivery Charges in Texas: 2026 Rates by Utility. That delivery charge covers building and maintaining local poles, lines and substations, a share of high-voltage transmission lines, reading and maintaining meters, and restoring power after storms and outages.

That division explains why residents call the TDU, not the provider, when lights go out, according to EnergyOutlet's TDU Delivery Charges in Texas: 2026 Rates by Utility. The TDU is a regulated monopoly, and the Public Utility Commission of Texas sets what it may charge.

Treat electrical danger as an emergency first

Call 911 for fire, electric shock, a life-threatening medical event, or an immediate public safety threat, according to HowTexas. Never touch a fallen line, a damaged pole, or an object touching electrical equipment, and keep children and pets away.

Do not drive or walk through standing water when a power line may be in or near the water, according to HowTexas. If electrical equipment is wet, sparking, smoking, or producing a burning odor, do not approach the panel or meter to investigate.

In CenterPoint Energy territory, the utility instructs people to stay at least 35 feet from a downed line and call 713-207-2222, according to HowTexas. Recent Houston storm coverage described street flooding, damaging wind gusts and hail as concurrent threats during outage events, with a Flood Watch in place until 7 PM Monday, according to Houston Power Outage Update: CenterPoint & Entergy Maps, Storm Alerts, and How to Report Outages (2026).

Call the organization that owns the problem

Several electricity organizations may appear on a Texas bill or news report, but they do not perform the same work, according to HowTexas. The correct contact depends on whether the problem involves the local delivery system, the customer account, the building, or the wider grid.

For a neighborhood outage, damaged pole, transformer problem, or fallen line, contact the TDU, municipal utility, or electric cooperative, because that local utility owns or operates delivery equipment and dispatches repair crews, according to HowTexas. For a billing question, rate plan, payment arrangement, or account disconnection, contact the retail electric provider or municipal billing office, because the company managing the account determines billing and plan status.

For a grid-wide alert or conservation request, HowTexas points to ERCOT information channels where applicable, noting that ERCOT manages the bulk grid for most of Texas but does not repair a residential service line. If only one room, circuit, apartment, or building is affected, contact the property manager, landlord, or licensed electrician, because the fault may be on customer-owned or building-owned equipment rather than the utility system.

Find the utility assigned to your service address

Do not select an outage company from the electricity brand on an advertisement or from the name of the retail plan, according to HowTexas. A retail provider may sell plans across several delivery territories.

Check the latest electric bill and look for “delivery company,” “TDU,” “TDSP,” “electric utility,” or an outage and emergency contact, according to HowTexas. Use the service address for verification, because city limits, county boundaries, ZIP codes, and utility boundaries do not always match, and parts of the same city or ZIP code may be served by different utilities.

Keep account identifiers available because an outage system may request the service address, account telephone number, meter number, house number, or Electric Service Identifier, commonly called an ESI ID, according to HowTexas. When the bill is unavailable, use the Public Utility Commission of Texas locator; the PUCT Storm Resources area directs users to utility outage maps and contact information.

A utility map should be treated as an address-verification aid, not as proof that every property inside a city uses the same company, according to HowTexas. That caution is especially relevant in metropolitan edges, annexed areas, unincorporated communities, and places where municipal, cooperative, and investor-owned systems meet.

Your TDU is set by address, and in a deregulated area it is almost always one of five systems, according to EnergyOutlet's TDU Delivery Charges in Texas: 2026 Rates by Utility. CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric covers the Houston area, while Oncor Electric Delivery covers Dallas-Fort Worth plus much of North, Central, and West Texas.

AEP Texas Central covers Corpus Christi and much of the Rio Grande Valley, while AEP Texas North covers Abilene, San Angelo, and much of West Central Texas, according to EnergyOutlet's TDU Delivery Charges in Texas: 2026 Rates by Utility. Texas-New Mexico Power covers pockets of the Gulf Coast, North-Central Texas, and West Texas.

Lubbock is the exception, having opened to retail choice in 2024 with Lubbock Power & Light staying on as the wires company, so LP&L sets the delivery charge there, according to EnergyOutlet's TDU Delivery Charges in Texas: 2026 Rates by Utility. If power comes from a city utility like Austin Energy or CPS Energy, or from an electric cooperative, there is no separate TDU charge to shop around because delivery is baked into that utility's own rates and customers do not choose a provider.

Outage contacts and maps by delivery territory

The following main delivery utilities cover Texas retail-choice areas and Lubbock's local delivery system, according to HowTexas. The list does not represent every municipal utility, cooperative, or utility operating outside the competitive retail market.

Oncor Electric Delivery serves more than 400 communities across parts of North, Central, East, and West Texas, including much of the Dallas–Fort Worth area, although its territory is not defined by Metroplex or city boundaries alone, according to HowTexas. Report Oncor outages at 888-313-4747, and customers enrolled in MyOncor Alerts may text OUT to 66267. The map and status tool is the Oncor Storm Center with online outage reporting.

CenterPoint Energy serves Greater Houston and surrounding portions of the Upper Gulf Coast, maintaining electric delivery infrastructure in its certificated territory rather than every address described broadly as the Houston metropolitan area, according to HowTexas. Report CenterPoint outages at 713-207-2222 or through the Action Center online report form. The map and status tools are the CenterPoint Outage Tracker and Power Alert Service.

AEP Texas serves separate service areas spread across South Texas and West Texas, including parts of the Coastal Bend, Rio Grande Valley, and inland western regions, according to HowTexas. Report AEP Texas outages at 866-223-8508 or through the AEP Texas online reporting system. The map and status tools are the AEP Texas Outage Map and outage-status search.

Texas-New Mexico Power serves disconnected territories in North-Central Texas, the Gulf Coast, and West Texas, where a nearby Oncor or CenterPoint address does not establish that a TNMP address uses the same utility, according to HowTexas. Report TNMP outages at 888-866-7456, selecting option 1 for an outage or estimate and option 2 for an equipment hazard. The map and status tools are the TNMP Power Outage Map and online report button.

During late-September 2026 storms around Houston, CenterPoint Energy reported 719 outages affecting nearly 10,000 customers at 6:05 p.m., while Entergy Texas reported 1,474 affected customers, according to Houston Power Outage Update: CenterPoint & Entergy Maps, Storm Alerts, and How to Report Outages (2026). That update pointed residents to the Entergy outage map and CenterPoint Energy's outage tracker for affected-area information and to direct outage-reporting options.

What Texas outage history says about planning

In an ordinary year, the average customer of a Texas delivery utility loses power about once, for one to two hours in total, according to Texas Power Outages by Utility: How Often and How Long. That analysis found Oncor had the fewest outages in 2025 and AEP Texas the longest, based on utility reports to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and federal data.

Every Texas delivery utility files a Service Quality Report with the Public Utility Commission each February, counting how many times the average customer lost power and for how many minutes in total while keeping catastrophic storms in a separate column, according to Texas Power Outages by Utility: How Often and How Long. For 2025 forced interruptions outside major events, planned work and outages caused outside the utility's own lines, the filings showed Oncor at 0.72 times and 67 minutes, TNMP at 1.03 times and 90 minutes, CenterPoint at 1.13 times and 101 minutes, and AEP Texas at 1.21 times and 118 minutes.

The state judges each utility on ordinary outages against a standard set from that utility's own past, according to Texas Power Outages by Utility: How Often and How Long. The 2025 state standards cited were 0.88 times and 87 minutes for Oncor, 1.24 times and 126 minutes for CenterPoint, and 1.25 times and 135 minutes for AEP Texas, with Oncor, CenterPoint and AEP Texas coming in better than those standards.

Storm years operate on a different scale, according to Texas Power Outages by Utility: How Often and How Long. In 2024 the average CenterPoint customer went about 72 hours without power including major storms, and in 2021, the year of Winter Storm Uri, the average was about 39 hours, with federal Energy Information Administration data showing 71.9 hours for CenterPoint in 2024 and 39.4 hours in 2021.

Households using outage maps should therefore confirm the correct TDU before a storm, keep the service address and ESI ID with emergency contacts, and use the designated phone, text, or online reporting channel rather than calling the billing provider for wire problems.