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New Braunfels Utilities launched its redesigned website on June 16, 2026, giving residential, commercial, and industrial customers a clearer, faster way to access essential utility services. The new site modernizes NBU’s digital experience with improved navigation, mobile-friendly design, and easier access to account tools, outage information, conservation resources, and community updates.

About the Client

New Braunfels Utilities is a community-owned utility providing electric, water, and wastewater services to New Braunfels and surrounding areas. Since 1942, NBU has grown alongside one of Texas’s fastest-growing communities, reinvesting rate dollars into infrastructure, reliability, and long-term planning. Guided by its mission of strengthening the community through resilient essential services, NBU serves as both a utility provider and a trusted local partner.

Project Goals

• Create a more customer-friendly website experience that reduces friction for common tasks such as paying a bill, starting or stopping service, reporting outages, finding conservation resources, and understanding rates, programs, and service updates.
• Improve content organization so customers can find information quickly without needing to understand NBU’s internal structure, while giving staff a more sustainable framework for managing pages, resources, news, events, and service information.
• Build a scalable, secure, and accessible platform that supports NBU’s continued growth, future integrations, mobile users, Spanish-language access, ADA/WCAG expectations, and long-term utility communication needs.
• Strengthen transparency and real-time communication by making outages, water conservation status, capital projects, board meetings, community programs, and service resources more visible across the website.

Planeteria’s Solution

Planeteria delivered a modern, mobile-responsive website built around customer needs and long-term staff usability. The site uses WordPress on Pantheon hosting, giving NBU a non-proprietary CMS, secure infrastructure, role-based content management, and a flexible foundation for future growth. The redesign emphasizes accessibility, intuitive navigation, consistent visual design, prominent service pathways, search, news, events, forms, and integrations with essential customer tools.

Key Features & Functionality

• Prominent customer actions for Start, Stop, Transfer Service, Quick Pay, My Account, and Report or View Outages.
• Improved navigation organized around customer service, savings, community resources, construction, development, and organizational information.
• Interactive electric and water outage access, including outage maps, reporting tools, and text notification instructions.
• Dedicated conservation messaging, including current water status, water resources, rebates, irrigation guidance, and leak detection support.
• Newsroom and events sections that keep customers informed about utility updates, board meetings, awards, and community programs.
• Customer tools for rate breakdowns, residential rate calculations, utility consumption reports, bill explanations, and assistance resources.
• Capital projects and water supply content that explain infrastructure investments, long-term planning, and community impact.
• Newsletter signup, social media links, contact information, public information requests, bid opportunities, and accessible customer support pathways.

Project Highlights

A standout feature of the new NBU website is how it brings essential customer actions to the surface while still supporting deeper educational content. Visitors can quickly pay a bill, access their account, view outages, explore rebates, understand their bill, and learn about infrastructure investments. The homepage also highlights NBU’s water future, community impact, news, events, and “by the numbers” data in a clear, public-facing format.

Looking Ahead

The new website gives NBU a stronger platform for serving a growing community with clearer communication, better self-service, and more flexible content management. As customer expectations and utility technologies continue to evolve, the site is positioned to support future integrations, expanded service tools, ongoing accessibility improvements, and long-term Planeteria support for hosting, maintenance, training, and continuous enhancement.

Visit the new New Braunfels Utilities website: https://www.nbutexas.com/

Sources used: NBU RFP goals and background, Planeteria proposal scope, and the live website review.