History
The company traces its history to the beginnings of electric service in northern Texas. Predecessor companies include Dallas Power & Light (DP&L), which served the city of Dallas; Texas Electric Service Company (TESCO), which served areas surrounding Fort Worth; and Texas Power and Light (TP&L), which served other areas of northern and west-central Texas.
Texas Utilities was formed in 1945 as a publicly owned holding company that owned DP&L, TP&L and TESCO. The three operating companies continued to operate separately until 1984, when they were merged into one operating company, called TU Electric ("TU" meaning "Texas Utilities"), in 1984. Following acquisitions of The Energy Group plc in 1998 in the United Kingdom and a power generator in Australia, Texas Utilities became TXU.
In 1996, TXU merged with the parent company of Lone Star Gas, allowing TXU to become the largest provider of electricity and natural gas in the state of Texas. In 2002, the state of Texas deregulated the Texas electric market, and TXU lost its monopoly on retail electric sales in northern Texas; TXU now competes statewide against other energy companies like Champion Energy, Dynowatt, Texas Power, Reliant Energy, Bounce Energy, Direct Energy, Stream Energy, Gexa Energy, Green Mountain Energy, Cirro Energy, and Commerce Energy. TXU divested itself of its European holdings in late 2002 mainly due to the collapse of its UK holdings and then its Australian holdings in 2004. Also, in October 2004, TXU sold its natural gas properties to Atmos Energy. TXU's former Australian assets were sold to Singapore Power and then split up, with Singapore Power retaining the distribution businesses (electricity and natural gas distribution networks) in the state of Victoria, while divesting the retail and generation businesses to Hong-Kong-based CLP Group, trading as TRUenergy. On May 18, 2004 TXU and Capgemini then entered a limited partnership to form Capgemini Energy Limited Partnership, a new company that will initially provide business process services and information technology solutions to TXU.
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