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Corrections

Errors found in what WattClear published, newest first: what a page said, what was changed, and the records that show what is right. The figures a page showed before a fix are not repeated here; the pages linked below show the corrected ones.

If a figure looks wrong, the contact page says what to send so it can be checked against the utility’s own filing.

  1. Pages counted Washington, DC as a state

    Corrected

    What was wrong: After Washington, DC gained its own rates page, the home page said the site covered utilities across 51 states and headed its list of state pages "Rates in 51 states", and the About page counted 51 states. Several guides counted DC among the states in the same way, and the home-use guide printed the survey's name for it, District of Columbia, where every other page prints Washington, DC. DC has a state page, but it is not a state.

    What changed: Every count names the states and DC apart, and every page prints DC's name the same way.

    Pages: Home page, About, What published electricity plans cost, state by state, How much electricity a home uses, state by state, and what it pays

  2. Pepco's page gave the wrong reason for its placement, and Maryland addresses were sent to DC schedules

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Potomac Electric Power Co's page said EIA-861 lists it serving homes in one place and no other. EIA-861 lists it in both Maryland and Washington, DC. The ZIP lookup also offered that page, whose schedules are all District of Columbia schedules, to Pepco's Maryland ZIP codes.

    What changed: The page names both places and says every schedule on it cites Pepco's District of Columbia tariff. The lookup offers it for DC ZIP codes only, and DC has a rates page of its own.

    Pages: Potomac Electric Power Co, Washington, DC

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Pepco "Residential - Schedule R", citing Pepco's DC tariff; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 2024

  3. Central Maine Power and Ohio Power headlined the delivery half of a price

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Both utilities' pages, and the Maine and Ohio pages, ranked records that carry only the charge for delivering electricity as if they were whole prices, so the headline plan looked much cheaper than a household's bill. URDB types each record by what its price covers, and the site did not read that field.

    What changed: Records are ranked by what URDB says they cover. Whole prices lead; delivery-only records are labelled and left out of the ranking.

    Pages: Central Maine Power Co, Ohio Power Co, Maine, Ohio

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Central Maine Power "A Residential Standard Offer Service", typed Delivery; NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Ohio Power "Residential Service Bundled (RS)", typed Delivery

  4. Mississippi Power's page priced a charge its own schedule contradicts

    Corrected

    What was wrong: The page priced Residential Service R-60 with a daily charge that disagrees with the rate schedule the record cites, which put the bill far above what EIA-861 says the utility's customers paid.

    What changed: Both R-60 records are withheld, with the reason shown, and the page is kept out of search results until a consistent record is available.

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Mississippi Power "Residential Electric Service (R-60) Single-Phase"; Mississippi Power, Rate Schedule R-62

  6. A state's figure was the median of whatever plans had been indexed

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Each state page led with the median of the plans the site had indexed, however few. Ohio's came from two municipal schedules serving a small share of its homes, and the home page called Ohio the cheapest state.

    What changed: Every state page sets its plans beside EIA's own average price for the state. A state's plans lead only when their utilities serve at least half of its homes and their median sits close to EIA's figure, and the home page compares states on EIA's figures.

    Pages: Ohio, Home page

    Records: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly retail sales, Ohio residential

  7. Plans no household can take were headlined as the cheapest

    Corrected

    What was wrong: The Texas page headlined a City of Lubbock schedule, although Lubbock moved to retail choice in 2024, and Sharyland's schedules were priced for customers who became Oncor's in 2017. Other pages headlined schedules years out of date, and the rate comparator ranked closed schedules first.

    What changed: A plan is ranked only if any household can take it, it took effect within the last three years, its utility still sells it, and its record is not withheld. Older plans stay listed with their start date but never lead. Lubbock and Sharyland each carry a sourced note.

    Pages: Texas, Rate Plan Comparator

    Records: KCBD, Lubbock's move to the retail electric market; TCGA, Sharyland's retail customers moving to Oncor

  9. The structured data licensed the site's figures as CC0

    Corrected

    What was wrong: The machine-readable data on every rates page declared its figures public domain under CC0, while the terms say the site's analysis is not public domain.

    What changed: The structured data points to the terms. The source records' own CC0 licence is still credited on every page.

    Pages: Terms of use

  10. Delivery-only records were ranked as whole prices

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Where a household can buy its supply from someone else, utilities publish the delivery charge and the full price as separate records under similar names. The site read only the names, so delivery-only records headlined the New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Michigan pages. Two naming rules also hid whole prices in New York and Illinois.

    What changed: Each record is judged by its own notes. Delivery-only records are labelled and not ranked.

    Pages: New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Illinois

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, PSE&G "RS-TOU-3P", delivery record

  11. Electric heating counted homes heated mainly by gas

    Corrected

    What was wrong: The electric-heating figures counted every surveyed home that used any electricity for heating, including homes heated mainly by gas that also run a portable electric heater. A note elsewhere blamed furnace fans, which the survey counts separately.

    What changed: A home is counted as electrically heated when the survey records electricity as its main heating fuel.

    Pages: Cost to run an appliance, What electric heating adds to a bill, state by state

    Records: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey 2020

  12. Four state pages headlined a plan from another state

    Corrected

    What was wrong: A rate database query at one place returns a utility's filings for neighbouring states too. The North Carolina page headlined a South Carolina filing, Minnesota a North Dakota one, Virginia a North Carolina one, and Texas a New Mexico one.

    What changed: A rate is placed in the state its utility's record names.

    Pages: North Carolina, Minnesota, Virginia, Texas

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, El Paso Electric Co (New Mexico) "RS - TOD"; NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Progress Energy Carolinas Inc (South Carolina) "RES-55"

  13. A price range covered plans that had not been ranked

    Corrected

    What was wrong: The sentence giving a range of annual costs counted every priced plan but measured only the ones open to everyone. Where a single plan was open, it printed a range whose two ends were the same.

    What changed: The range covers the plans the page ranks, and a page with one open plan says so instead.