What YEnergy is for
Most Texas households make four energy decisions without much help: which retail electricity plan to sign, whether rooftop solar pays at their utility, how to ride out an outage, and whether a smart thermostat is worth buying. YEnergy has one guide for each, written by our team in plain English, with the rules of the utility or agency that decides the answer. It is run by Spicewood Secure Storage LLC in Spicewood, Texas.
YEnergy is not an electricity provider, solar installer, utility, retailer or government agency. We do not sell electricity or equipment and we do not handle enrollments, quotes or orders; anything you complete happens on another company's site.
Where the facts come from
We start from the primary document: the Public Utility Commission of Texas and its Power to Choose site for retail plans, utility tariffs and program pages for solar credits and rebates, the IRS for federal tax rules, and manufacturer specification pages for equipment. Pages carry a date, and when a rule or price changes we update the page. Two examples of how this plays out: the solar page sets out each utility's own credit and rebate side by side, and our backup power guide hands the arithmetic to a separate runtime calculator, Texas Home Backup Power.
We cannot list every plan, product or company, and a comparison partner may not include every Texas provider. For plans, also check the state's own site, powertochoose.org.
How YEnergy makes money
In plain terms: right now YEnergy has no live affiliate or referral links and earns nothing. We are applying to the Amazon Associates program. If it accepts us, some links to products on Amazon.com, such as home energy monitors, will be affiliate links. If you click one and buy, Amazon may pay us a commission. It costs you nothing extra and never changes the price you pay.
Following the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's guidance on endorsements, we disclose these relationships near the top of every page that has affiliate links and mark the links with rel="sponsored".
The kinds of company that could pay us:
- electricity comparison services that pay when a visitor enrolls with a Texas retail electricity provider;
- solar marketplaces and installers that pay for qualified leads or completed projects;
- retailers and makers of batteries, power stations, generators, energy monitors and thermostats that pay a commission on sales, including through the Amazon Associates program.
Because we are paid when readers act, we have a reason to favor partners that pay. Our guard against that: partners cannot buy changes to a guide or review it before it is published, and when an option is a poor fit for most Texans we say so.
Advice and corrections
These guides are general information, not financial, tax, legal, engineering or safety advice. Confirm prices, incentives and rules with the company, your utility or the agency before you decide. If something is out of date, email [email protected]. The privacy policy explains what data we handle.