Oncor delivery fees, explained.

Oncor's delivery charge is the line item on a Texas electricity bill that pays Oncor for transmitting and distributing electricity to your home. Oncor owns the poles, wires, transformers, and meters across north and east Texas. Every Oncor-territory homeowner pays this charge regardless of which retail provider (Reliant, TXU, Green Mountain, Gexa, etc.) they buy power from. The retail provider sells you the electrons; Oncor delivers them. The charge typically appears as a per-kWh rate plus a fixed monthly customer charge.

For a typical Oncor-territory home, delivery charges run approximately 30 to 45 percent of the total monthly electric bill. The rest is the energy charge (what you pay your retail provider for the electricity itself), plus taxes and small surcharges. As delivery fees have risen, this share has grown.

No. Texas deregulated the retail electricity market in 2002, but distribution remained a regulated monopoly. Oncor is the sole distributor in its territory. You can switch your retail provider every month if you want, but the delivery charge stays. This is the part of the bill you cannot shop on.

Three main drivers. First, infrastructure investment: Oncor is funding a multi-billion-dollar grid expansion to handle growing load and to improve resilience after Winter Storm Uri (2021) and Hurricane Beryl (2024). Second, rising costs of materials, labor, and capital. Third, PUCT-approved rate cases that allow Oncor to recover those costs from ratepayers. Each new approved rate case adds to the per-kWh delivery charge.

Most analysts expect upward pressure to continue. Texas is adding electrical load faster than generation capacity, driven heavily by AI and data center buildout (Stargate, Meta, Microsoft) plus population growth. Oncor has filed and continues to file rate cases to fund grid expansion. Past rate cases have generally been approved by the PUCT, often at slightly reduced rates from what Oncor requested but still net-up. Plan for continued increases over the next 3 to 7 years.

Partially, yes. The delivery charge is per-kWh delivered through Oncor's wires. If your home pulls fewer kWh from the grid (because solar + battery is supplying most of your usage), the delivery component of your bill drops proportionally. There's also a fixed monthly customer charge that doesn't disappear unless you fully disconnect (which most homeowners shouldn't — the grid is useful for cloudy weeks and edge cases). A well-sized solar + battery system can reduce a homeowner's total bill by 60 to 90 percent, with the delivery portion shrinking in line with grid usage.

A utility swap is when a homeowner replaces their primary power source from the grid utility to an on-site solar + battery system. The provider installs and owns the equipment; the homeowner pays per kWh for the energy produced, instead of the full grid bill. Because the home pulls less from the grid, the Oncor delivery component of the bill shrinks. Full explainer here.