Company type | Public company |
---|---|
Industry | Electricity Retailer |
Founded | 2002, Dallas, Texas |
Headquarters | Irving, Texas |
Area served | Deregulated regions of Texas |
Products | Retail electricity plans and products |
Number of employees | 1,000 |
Parent | Vistra Corp |
TXU Energy is an American retail electricity provider headquartered in Irving, Texas, serving residential and business customers in deregulated regions of Texas since the deregulation of the Texas electricity market in 2002. A subsidiary of Vistra Corp, it is one of the largest retail electricity providers in Texas. [1]
The first instance of electricity generation in North Texas dates to 1882 when Dallas Electric Lighting Company, an indirect TXU Energy predecessor, began providing electric light service to the city of Dallas. [2] A few years later, in 1885, Fort Worth Electric Light and Power Company, another indirect TXU Energy predecessor, was founded and began servicing areas west of Dallas. [3]
A number of electric companies formed in the years that followed: TXU Energy's direct forerunners, the Texas Power & Light Company (TP&L); Dallas Power & Light (DP&L), to serve the Dallas area; and Texas Electric Service Company (TESCO) to serve Fort Worth and areas west of Abilene. [4]
In 1984, DP&L, TESCO, and TP&L merged as divisions of a new principal subsidiary, Texas Utilities Electric Company.
In 1999, the company was renamed TXU Corp., positioning itself as a multinational energy company, eventually competing in electricity markets on three continents: Australia, Europe and North America. [5] It eventually discontinued all operations outside of North America in 2002. [6]
On May 21, 1999, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 7 (SB 7), which required the creation of a competitive retail electricity market. TXU Energy was one of the first certified retail electricity providers to begin offering service at market open in 2002. TXU Corporation’s three main entities during the first several years of deregulation were TXU Energy, a retail electricity provider (REP), TXU Electric Delivery, a transmission and distribution utility (TDU) and TXU Power, a wholesale electricity generation provider.
In 2007, through a private-equity acquisition led by KKR, TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs, TXU Corporation was acquired by Energy Future Holdings Corp. (EFH). [7] TXU Energy retained its name, while TXU Power was renamed Luminant, and TXU Electric Delivery was renamed Oncor.
On April 29, 2014, Energy Future Holdings (EFH), TXU Energy’s parent company at the time, entered bankruptcy. [8] In October 2016, certain subsidiaries of EFH, including TXU Energy, Luminant and EFH’s corporate services department, emerged from reorganization in a court-approved spin-off under parent company Texas Competitive Electric Holdings (TCEH), and a new CEO, Curt Morgan, was announced. Later in 2016, TCEH changed its name to Vistra Energy. [9]
TXU Energy's parent company, Vistra Energy, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on May 10, 2017.
TXU Energy participates in a variety of community initiatives and environmental conservation efforts in Texas.
TXU Energy Aid began in 1983 to help customers who don’t have the means to pay for electricity service. Since its inception, TXU Energy Aid has aided 455,000 customers, totaling more than $84 million in assistance. [10] Funds are raised from employee and customer donations. [11]
Through its Committed to Community Growth program, TXU Energy partners with the Texas Trees Foundation to plant trees in communities across Texas. [12] Located at Richland College, the TXU Energy Urban Tree Farm and Education Center is the largest nonprofit urban tree farm in the nation. The tree farm produces trees for the community and allows volunteers to log hours by planting, mulching and pruning. Through its partnership with the Texas Trees Foundation, over 240,000 trees have been planted across the state. [12]
TXU Energy in 2014 passed the $1 million mark in donations to the Houston Zoo. [13] The company has been the presenting sponsor of the Houston Zoo's Chill Out program since 2011 and Zoo Lights since its inception. [14] In addition, TXU Energy has sponsored other events such as the zoo's annual Gift of Grub campaign, which matches donations up to $50,000. [15]
GenOn Energy, Inc., based in Houston, Texas, United States, is an energy company that provides electricity to wholesale customers in the United States. The company is one of the largest independent power producers in the nation with more than 7,000 megawatts of power generation capacity across the United States using natural gas, fuel oil and coal. GenOn Energy was headquartered in the Reliant Energy Plaza in Downtown Houston. The company, formerly known as RRI Energy, acquired Mirant on December 3, 2010. The corporate names and logos of both RRI Energy and Mirant were retired.
Energy Future Holdings Corporation is an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The majority of the company's power generation is through coal and nuclear power plants. From 1998 to 2007, the company was known as TXU Corporation until its $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. That purchase was the largest leveraged buyout in history. As of 2019, TXU Energy is a subsidiary of publicly traded Vistra Energy.
Constellation Energy Corporation is an American energy company headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The company provides electric power, natural gas, and energy management services. It has approximately two million customers across the continental United States.
NRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company, headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was formerly the wholesale arm of Northern States Power Company (NSP), which became Xcel Energy, but became independent in 2000. NRG Energy is involved in energy generation and retail electricity. Their portfolio includes natural gas generation, coal generation, oil generation, nuclear generation, wind generation, utility-scale generation, and distributed solar generation. NRG serves over 7 million retail customers in 24 US states including Texas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio; the District of Columbia, and eight provinces in Canada.
Calpine Corporation is the largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources in the United States, with operations in competitive power markets.
The Texas electricity market is deregulated, meaning that there is competition in the generation and distribution of electricity. Power generators in the Texas Interconnection, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, participate in an energy-only electricity market and are compensated only for the electricity they produce. The wholesale generation market was deregulated in 1995 and the distribution market in 1999, with Texas Senate Bill 7. This replaced the prior system in which power was generated and consumed locally by the same utility with one in which retail providers contracted with generators across the state.
Gexa Energy, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a retail electricity provider which sells electricity service to residential and commercial customers in all deregulated markets in Texas.
Eastern Electricity plc was an electricity supply and distribution utility serving Eastern England, including East Anglia and part of Greater London. It was renamed Eastern Group under which name it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Hanson plc in 1995, before being purchased by Texas Utilities in 1998.
Griddy was an American power retailer that formerly sold energy to people in the state of Texas at wholesale prices for a $10 monthly membership fee and had approximately 29,000 members. The company itself was based in California.
Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant is located in Somervell County, Texas. The nuclear power plant is located 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Ft. Worth and about 60 miles (97 km) southwest of Dallas. It relies on nearby Comanche Creek Reservoir for cooling water. The plant has about 1,300 employees and is operated by Luminant Generation, a subsidiary of Vistra Corp.
The Monticello Steam Electric Station was a 1.8-gigawatt coal-fired power plant located southwest of Mount Pleasant, Texas, in Titus County, Texas. It operated from 1974 to 2018.
Luminant is a Texas-based electric utility. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corporation. Luminant's operations include electricity generation and wholesaling, mining, construction, and development. The company has capacity for the generation of 18,300 megawatts (MW) of electricity in 20 power plants spread across Texas, of which 2,300 MW come from nuclear power generated at the company's Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, 5,800 MW from coal-fired power plants, and the remainder from natural gas-fired plants. Luminant is also a major purchaser of wind power.
Oncor Electric Delivery Company is the largest transmission and distribution electric utility in the state of Texas and the 5th largest utility company in the US. Their service territory includes east, west, and north-central Texas, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Irving, Plano, Arlington, Beeville, Midland, Odessa, Killeen, Waco, Wichita Falls, Tyler, and other cities throughout Texas. In 2018, Sempra Energy acquired a majority stake in Oncor for US$9.45 billion.
Reliant Energy Retail Holding, LLC is an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. It serves the state of Texas.
Sandow Power Plant was a 1.1-gigawatt coal power plant located southwest of Rockdale, Texas in Milam County, Texas. It was operated by Luminant, a subsidiary of Vistra Corp. The plant closed in 2018.
Big Brown Power Plant was a 1.15-gigawatt coal power plant located northeast of Fairfield near Fairfield Lake State Park in Freestone County, Texas. It was operated by Vistra Corp's subsidiary, Luminant. The plant operated from 1971 to 2018.
Oak Grove Power Plant is a 1.79-gigawatt, coal power plant located north of Franklin, Texas in Robertson County, Texas. The plant is operated by Luminant, a subsidiary of Vistra Energy. It began operations in 2010.
The Electric Bond and Share Company (Ebasco) was a United States electric utility holding company organized by General Electric. It was forced to divest its holding companies and reorganize due to the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Following the passage of the Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) selected the largest of the U.S. holding companies, Ebasco to be the test case of the law before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court case known as Securities and Exchange Commission v. Electric Bond and Share company was settled in favor of the SEC on March 28, 1938. It took twenty-five years of legal action by the SEC to break up Ebasco and the other major U.S. electric holding companies until they conformed with the 1935 act. It was allowed to retain control of its foreign electric power holding company known as the American & Foreign Power Company (A&FP). After its reorganization, it became an investment company, but soon turned into a major designer and engineer of both fossil fuel and nuclear power electric generation facilities. Its involvement in the 1983 financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System's five nuclear reactors led to Ebasco's demise because of the suspension of nuclear power orders and lawsuits that included numerous asbestos claims. The U.S. nuclear industry stopped all construction of new facilities following the 1979 nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, going into decline because of radiation safety concerns and major construction cost overruns.
Vistra is a Fortune 500 integrated retail electricity and power generation company based in Irving, Texas.