So, can we assume that you buy power at the retail market?
Yes and sell any excess power produced by my solar panels at the same rate.
Also, that seems to say that the builder of the homes in the community in Frisco that our youngest son lives in either set up such purchasing from the retail market, or that is a buyer's choice at closing. I need to ask him out of curiosity.
The home owner/purchaser chooses from among the dozens of energy suppliers available in the state and has the option of changing providers at any time. For example I buy my power from a small company in Houston specializing in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. I pay them for
energy and pay another firm, Oncor, to deliver the power to my home and pickup the excess power my solar panels produce. Oncor owns all the power lines in our part of the state, but there are any number of energy providers pumping energy into those lines. It was claimed when Texas withdrew from the national energy grids that competition among providers would result in lower prices, but that has never really worked out in practice. That decision that will be looked at very closely after this winter's debacle.
Our heating and air conditioning systems run on natural gas, and since it does not get too hot here in the summer (thus do not need to use the air conditioning either everyday or for long periods of time), our combined gas and electric bill is higher in the winter. This year, given that we are staying home more due to the pandemic, energy usage is higher, and thus our utility bill is accordingly somewhat higher than usual. Can't wait to spring arrives, so that I can be outside more and thus use less energy.
In an average year even those who use electric heat or heat pumps in Texas will have significantly higher energy bills in the summer, and thanks to climate change, summers are not getting any cooler. There are systems (geothermal) that can heat and cool well using extremely modest amounts of energy, but they are enormously expensive to install and can be even more costly to maintain so there are few of them around. I know of two of those installations and one is either in Frisco or within spiting distance, the other about a mile from our home in Fort Worth.
