Darla Jackson of Coppell, north of Dallas, wanted to change to her retail electricity company, but couldn't face the prospect of using the state's comparison shopping site, Powertochoose.org. Like many Texans, she felt overwhelmed by the number of companies, variety of plans and mind-numbing terms and conditions which, even after hours of study, left her confused, overwhelmed and uncertain of the best deal.

Then, through Facebook connections, Jackson, 50, came across a website, Awesomepowertexas.com. After providing her monthly electricity consumption, the site's algorithm surveyed retail plans and data collected by the state, sifted through fine print and considered factors such as customer reviews and Better Business Bureau ratings. Ten minutes later, the site gave her a list of recommendations and she picked the one with the lowest cost.

"It's the easiest process that I've ever used," said Jackson.

Awesomepowertexas.com, launched in December by high school friends Zack Korman and Mike Hays, both 24, aims to unfog the murky process that is shopping for electricity in Texas' deregulated power markets. The site's guiding principle: find the best deals based on individual customers' actual energy use rather than the average prices based on theoretical consumption found on the state's website.

One of the problems with Powertochoose.org, which compares average costs at average consumptions of 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kilowatts a month, is the estimates don't consider seasonal variations in electricity consumption and miss the nuances of the various plans. For example in some plans, exceeding 1,000 kilowatts by a single kilowatt might completely change the rates that consumers pay.

"We live in Texas, you couldn't possibly use the same amount of electricity every month," said Korman. "It's fundamentally flawed."

The state Public Utility Commission defended the Power to Choose website, saying it allows customers to shop for all available plans, which are ranked only by cost. Some for-profit sites filter and rank plans based on the commission retail electric companies pay, state officials said, and don't disclose it.

Terry Hadley, a spokesman for the Public Utilities Commission, said the agency would not endorse a site like Awesomepowertexas.com.

"We don't know precisely what customer data he uses, so we cannot verify, nor approve, nor recommend his service," said Hadley.

The Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a consumer advocacy group, supports Powertochoose.org because it is backed by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which can respond to customers complaints and fine companies that violate state regulations, said Jake Dyer, a spokesman.

Since Texas adopted a deregulated power market in 2002, critics have complained that it is very difficult for customers to make informed choices about their electricity plans, given the large number of retail electricity companies and the hundreds of plans they offer. Even though the Public Utilities Commission has improved the site - listing the lowest cost plans first, for example - it remains difficult for consumers to make comparisons since terms can vary widely.

Korman said he realized the complexities of shopping for power in Texas after graduating from University of Edinburgh in 2015, when he was living with his parents before moving to back to the United Kingdom to get a graduate degree from Oxford University. His father was using a spreadsheet to help calculate the family's power costs, and Korman decided to peruse plans on Powertochoose.org.

But Korman was stunned by how misleading some plans were, promoting low prices up front, but obscuring provisions, such as minimum use requirements, that could significantly boost costs. Retail electric companies, Korman thought, had every incentive to confuse their customers.

After getting his graduate degree, Korman returned to Texas last summer and hooked up with Hays, a mechanical engineer, to build a startup based on helping Texans shop for power.

For a few dollars a year, they bought a web domain. Hays already knew programming and Korman taught himself, and from July to December, they built the website. Since launching in December, they have refined their algorithm - teaching it to read PDFs, for instance, to get the fine-print details on power plans. As word spread through their hometown of Coppell, the website attracted a following.

The website tries to make shopping for electricity as individual as possible. Customers provide access to electricity usage data available from Smart Meter Texas, a utility-run site backed by the state that catalogues individual energy use data for all Texans. Awesomepower.com's algorithm analyzes that usage data along with information on Texas power plans, downloaded from Powertochoose.org, and provides a list of the lowest cost plans for each customer.

The math is not hard, Korman said, and the idea is not original. Bernd Braun, a mechanical engineer and a user of Awesomepowertexas.com, created his own algorithm in 2008 to tell him which plans would be the cheapest for him. Braun, 77, of Dallas, figured he saved hundreds of dollars a year.

Now, Braun said, he just uses Awesomepower.com, although not before he pointed out a flaw in the Korman and Hays algorithm, which had overstated the costs of some plans.

"I'm retired so I have lots of time, but not much money to spare," he said. "I have told friends, try it. It doesn't cost anything."

Korman and Hays said they want to keep the site free to consumers, but are still trying to figure out how to make money. The possibilities include selling ads, selling data, and finding companies to pay commissions for referring customers to their electricity plans.

Korman said that the site has about 200 users who, on average, save $400 a year by going with a plan generated by his site, rather than picking the top plan selected by Powertochoose.org.

"I take it kind of personally at this point," he said, " because I know how much people are overpaying for electricity."