Who runs the site
Rate & Roof is owned, written and maintained by Aidan Jones. Aidan is a Biology B.S. student at TCU and a software and data engineer who has built government data pipelines. That second part is why the site looks the way it does: the work is mostly collecting public data sets, checking them, and writing down in ordinary language what they say and what they do not.
Aidan is not a lawyer, a licensed electrician, a utility employee or a retail electricity provider, and the site does not claim to speak for any of them. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any government agency, laboratory, utility or retail electricity provider. The disclosures page lists every data source and the notice each one requires.
What the site covers
- Electricity prices. Residential average prices, five-year change and typical monthly bills for every state and for each utility in the federal EIA-861 survey, on the state pages and utility pages.
- Texas solar production. A modeled output per kilowatt of rooftop solar for each Texas city, from the federal PVWatts model, with the assumptions printed on the page.
- Guides. Plain explainers on reading an Electricity Facts Label, plan types, delivery charges, estimating a bill and sizing a roof, listed on the guides page.
- Tools. A payback calculator and a paid plan comparison workbook.
Why it exists
Most Texas households choose an electricity plan from a list and get a solar quote from a salesperson. Both decisions are made with numbers that are hard to compare. The goal here is to put the public numbers in one place, label each with its source and date, and leave out anything that could not be confirmed. Pages say "not verified" instead of guessing.
Where the numbers come from
Prices and customer counts come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Solar production comes from the PVWatts calculator run by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly NREL). Texas rules come from the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Texas statutes. Every page lists its sources at the bottom with the date they were read. The steps, with the model settings, are on the methodology page.
How the site is funded
The site is free to read. It may earn money in three ways, all disclosed where they appear: a one-time paid plan comparison workbook, labeled links to services, and display advertising if an ad network approves the site. Ads and links never decide what a page says or which numbers it shows, and the site does not rank or recommend electricity providers or installers.
Corrections
If a number is wrong or out of date, write to the address on the contact page. Corrections are checked against the primary source and fixed on the page, with the new check date.
This page is general information, not advice for your situation.