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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. Time-of-use plans were priced as if a home used electricity evenly all day

    Corrected

    What was wrong: A monthly total was spread evenly over every hour, so a time-of-use plan's dear afternoon and evening hours carried less use than real homes put in them, and its price read low. Time-of-use plans were named the cheapest on many utility pages partly for that reason.

    What changed: Time-of-use plans are priced on the typical hour-by-hour pattern of homes in the tariff's state, from NREL's ResStock, by month and weekday or weekend.

    Pages: What a plan charges by the hour, and what moving a kilowatt-hour is worth

    Records: NREL/NLR ResStock 2025 Release 1, timeseries aggregates by state (OEDI submission 4520)

  2. A plan for homes with solar headlined Southern California Edison

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Southern California Edison's headline plan was a time-of-use schedule filed for net energy metering (NEM 2.0), which only homes that generate their own power can take. Its name says "NEM" rather than "net metering" or "solar", so the check for such schedules missed it.

    What changed: Schedules named for net energy metering are labelled as needing on-site generation and are not ranked.

    Pages: Southern California Edison Co

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Southern California Edison Co "Time-of-use Tiered Domestic (NEM 2.0): TOU-D-B"

  3. Critical-peak event prices were priced as if they applied every day

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Critical-peak plans charge a much higher price on a handful of event days a year. The rate database files that price in the everyday schedule, so these plans were priced as if every summer afternoon were an event, and the time-of-use guide opened on one of them as the dearest hour at Southern California Edison.

    What changed: Critical-peak plans are labelled as such, are not ranked, and are left out of the time-of-use guide's figures.

    Pages: What a plan charges by the hour, and what moving a kilowatt-hour is worth

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Southern California Edison Co "Time-of-use Tiered Domestic (NEM 2.0): TOU-D-A-CPP"

  4. Business and public-building schedules were ranked as household plans

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Schedules for public buildings, commercial customers and a plain general-service class were filed under residential and ranked beside household plans. On the Texas page a public-building rate ranked ninth.

    What changed: Schedules named for commercial, public-building or general-service customers are labelled as not residential and are not ranked.

    Pages: Texas

    Records: NREL/OpenEI Utility Rate Database, Denton County Elec Coop, Inc "Public Buildings Rate (Under 35 kW)"

  5. Time-of-use plans with a baseline allowance were priced too low

    Corrected

    What was wrong: On tiered time-of-use schedules such as PG&E's E-TOU-C, the rate engine gave each time-of-use period the whole monthly baseline allowance. The schedule shares one allowance between the periods in proportion to the use in each, so a household took the baseline credit on more electricity than it is allowed, and the annual cost came out lower than the utility's own sheet gives. The same fault lowered Austin Energy's time-of-use plans, whose base energy charge steps on the month's total use.

    What changed: Tier allowances are shared between time-of-use periods in proportion to the use in each. PG&E's E-TOU-C now matches its own sheet, and bills worked out by hand from the utilities' documents are checked on every release.

    Pages: Pacific Gas & Electric Co, Austin Energy, California

    Records: PG&E Electric Schedule E-TOU-C, sheets 1-3, effective June 1, 2026

  6. Plans billed on peak demand were named the cheapest

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Pages price a household's monthly use, which says nothing about its peak demand in kilowatts. Plans with a demand charge were priced as if the household drew the same power every hour, a peak far below a real home's, and on many pages one of them was named the cheapest plan: among them Georgia Power's TOU-RD-11 and Con Edison's optional demand-based Rate IV.

    What changed: A plan billed on peak demand is priced and labelled but never ranked or named the cheapest, on the pages and in the Rate Plan Comparator.

    Pages: Georgia Power Co, Consolidated Edison Co-NY Inc, Georgia, New York, Alabama, Colorado, Virginia

  7. Plan prices well under what customers pay were quoted as bills

    Corrected

    What was wrong: For some utilities the published schedules, priced as recorded, come to far less than the utility's own customers were billed. CPS Energy's record carries the fuel cost already inside its base rate as its fuel adjustment, and leaves out the fuel and regulatory adjustment CPS adds every month. These pages quoted the schedule's price as what a household pays.

    What changed: Where a utility's open plans come to well under what EIA-861 reports its customers paid, the page leads with that billed price, says how far the schedules fall short, and ranks none of them; state pages leave them out of their ranking too.

    Pages: City of San Antonio, Texas (Utility Company), Berkeley Electric Coop Inc, Entergy Louisiana Inc, Minnesota Power Inc, Sawnee Electric Membership Corporation, Westar Energy Inc

    Records: CPS Energy, Residential Electric Rate (RE); CPS Energy, retail fuel adjustment factors, 13 months; U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 2024

  8. A plan for homes that generate their own power was ranked as open to all

    Corrected

    What was wrong: Salt River Project's E-27 Customer Generation price plan is for homes with their own generation, but its name does not say solar or net metering, and it was ranked as a plan any household could take.

    What changed: Plans named for customer generation are marked as needing on-site generation and are not ranked.

    Pages: Salt River Project, Arizona

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  14. 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

  15. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. 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"

  21. 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.