No choice here except to be cold and in the dark! LOL A little competition would probably make difference in our cost.

I guess your choice is a no-brainer, Cathy! LOL

We have received calls and letters about alternate energy suppliers, but we have never pursued it. I didn't trust it. Good for you for trying it.

I tried putting "alternate electric suppliers" and my hometown. It gave me names of a solar power installer. And similar. Guess all we have is all we gots!

The alternate power here is the generator for when the main supplier fails. LOL

We have multiple electricity companies that sell the power that is provided by Centerpoint energy. There's a website for the state of Texas that list all of them and list all of their various plans and has a comparison option. I generally sign up for a one or two year contract with a set price per kwh which remains the same for the contract period. When the contract time is close to ending the company will provide offers for continuing with them but you can easily change to a different provider if they have a better option plan or services. The last company I had been with since we moved here was sold to a new company that had to honor all existing contracts but at renewal time their offers were not what I wanted so I chose a different company that has been in business long term and had great customer service reviews and a very competitive price. I am happy with them. The state has it set up so it's very easy to make the switch from one to another.

To find what is available in your area a great resource is the whitefence website. Enter your zip code for the area and it searches for you and presents the options, for various utilities.
I have used when moving to a new area.

Here in Texas we have http://www.powertochoose.org

Here is a link that might be useful: Whitefence

I'm in Texas too and have been using Reliant Energy for about 6 years and had always had some percentage of my power from wind until my last contract. They're not offering wind power any more. Thanks Ravencajun for that link! I found Green Mountain Energy, a 100% renewable resource energy company!

you are welcome, I am now with Frontier. I really like them they send me an email showing my weekly usage and lots of neat info. I have it set up for auto pay with a credit card which is so easy on me not to have to worry about paying it and making sure it is on time.

Green Mountain is a good company too. I have a few friends that have been with them for a long time.

No choices available here. My heat, fireplace are natural gas, everything else in the house is electric. With two refrigerators and a freezer, two hot water tanks, washer/dryer, all the outside lighting and everything else it takes to run this house, it can add up.

I could adapt to running my clothes dryer mostly in the evening, and I typically turn on my dishwasher as I'm going to bed anyway. I like to be able to get that very last glass in, and it's not the strong, silent type either....a bit on the noisy side ;) But different rates for different time periods isn't an option offered to us.

My home is 9 years old and is very energy efficient when it comes to elec. My living area is on the south side and the first thing I do in the morning is open all the blinds. I have elec and solar heat from the windows, the savings is great. My thermostat is set at 72 and some days when it is below freezing It will be 74 in my home. I set crystals on my table in front the window and have spots of color all over the walls and ceiling.

Alisande, I am in Pennsylvania also. May I ask what electric supplier you have?

Morz, please rethink your practice of running your dishwasher at bedtime. Dishwashers can start fires. I know this because we had a fire in ours years ago. I was awake to see the flames because I'd learned about appliance fires from my dryer going on fire months earlier. Before that, I used to run my dishwasher during the night too.

Really, it's not all that unusual to have a dishwasher (or dryer) fire. For that reason, it's not not a good idea to run them while we're asleep.

Emma, the colorful reflections sound so pretty!

Rose, I use Direct Energy, out of Tulsa, OK. I think another company is called Energy Direct; I don't know anything about them. It's easy to get some of the companies mixed up, as they tend to have similar names.

In Virginia a law was passed allowing consumers to "choose" their electric provider. I'm not exactly sure what that means, since there is only a single set of wires coming to each house. And even though there is now two portions of the bill, one for the use of the transmission lines, and one for the actual electric used, I don't understand how I can choose to pay company A or company B, for the electric I use, when it is the same electrons coming down the same wires.

In any case, since our current electricity provider is a small electrical co-op, and they maintain the transmission lines that we use, and since the only other "choice" is to switch to the large, publicly-traded, mega corporation that charges a higher rate and generally provides worse service, choosing not to switch is really a no-brainer.

Looks like I was passing by at the right time, bob, let me try this explanation. Forget the passage of time or what happened first in this scenario, it doesn't matter.

There's a water company for your town. They have a reservoir up in the hills, and from there a system of mains and secondary pipes that ultimately connect to every house in town. But they have no water sources, no rivers or streams run into the reservoir and there's no natural runoff.

Surrounding the reservoir are four springs, each owned by different companies. All produce a lot of water, which is bottled and sold. The water company approaches each spring owner and says " Let your water run in to the reservoir, then you can sign up customers to buy your water for their houses. You have to put in enough so that the supply is greater than what you sell. I'll take some revenue for delivering the water through my system and you'll get a fee for providing the water."

That's what happened in some states when prior long existing utility monopoly arrangements were changed. In some states, the utilities had to sell power plants and then buy back power from an open market. In other states, utilities were limited to just delivery ops only and the field was opened for other companies to put power into the grid and sell it, just as with the springs and the reservoir. Sometimes the utilities, sometimes an agency, manage that the suppliers limit sales to what they furnish plus a transmission and system loss factor, and that what gets put in exceeds expected demand on a daily basis.

Electricity in a grid travels the shortest route, it can't be herded like cowboys on horses can do with cows. Unless you live near a power plant from the provider you "buy" from, it's most certain that the actual electricity used in your house is coming from a different source. The same is true for everyone else, but the system operators keep everything in balance OVERALL. The suppliers ultimately are getting paid by users in return for power put into the grid that's shared by everyone.

Clear?

Only one supplier here. WE Energies supplies both gas and electricity. The gas company merged into the electric company more than 10 yrs ago. Our power is sourced from gas, coal, wind, and maybe some oil. The peaking plants are driven by gas turbines; base load by coal and wind. Up to last year, we got a significant amount of power from a nuclear station, but that one was shuttered a year ago. The western side of the state purchases part of their power from a Minnesota nuclear plant that sits on the Mississippi river. We may have one small bio-mass plant. A small amount of gas is derived from a huge garbage mound.

We used to have one provincially owned company, which we've traditionally called "Hydro" ("The Ontario Hydroelectric Power Commission"), that generated the power, originally from Niagara Falls, and delivered it to cities, factories, businesses and homes. Quebec has a lot of rivers in the north and great generating capacity, so sells it in to other agencies for a lower cost than they can generate it themselves, though there is a small line loss during delivery.

Some years ago our electrical system was required to allow other agencies to sell power, and other entities went around signing up retail customers at whatever price per kilowatt, - and they bought the power wholesale from the generating and distributing entity.

We did not sign up with the others, still dealing with the retail segment of the original system.

Something like a quarter to a third of my monthly bill is for the actual power ... and it used to include the allowance for line loss. The rest is for other factors, the major one, usually about half of the bill, is for delivery cost and recently the "line loss" factor was included in that, rather than in the actual power that I used.

There's also administration, payment of the debt incurred prior to the split-up, consumer tax ... and our province offers a reduction, currently, of 10% of the bill ... but has made deals with alternative generating agencies for sometimes up to 40 cents or more per kilowatt ... so we're expecting major increases in our power bills.

Upwards of ten years ago my landlord made a large shed with two big doors into his shop, warmed, which he hadn't had before: not much fun cutting sod in summer ... and fixing equipment in winter, in an unwarmed rather rudimentary shop. They said that if he installed a separate service, that it'd cost about $40.00 per month more ... so he told me to tell him how much he owed me - we usually agree on about 15%, settled yearly.

Recently they installed smart meters, so we have one price for peak usage hours (about 12 - 13 cents kwh), a second for mid-peak (about 11 cents kwh) and a third (about 8 cents) for off-peak hours - nights and weekends ... and the rates change during the summer months.

Up until now our cost has been about $100.00 per month.

BUT if I/we were to agree to go with an alternate supplier, my understanding is that the change in price would relate only to the amount that we pay for the power used, about 1/4 - 1/3 of the total cost ... but would not include delivery, admin, debt retirement, etc.

I've been known to be wrong, on occasion, as well: I'm offering the story about our situation as I understand it to be.

ole joyfuelled ... with a power-operated, oil-fired furnace to help, on occasion: regularly in winter

P.S. In the light of what someone said, that their alternate energy supplier was a generator ... wouldn't it be a good idea for about a half dozen people who have freezers or water pipes prone to freezing in a cold house in winter, to go together to buy a generator which they could use alternately to operate the freezer or the furnace (or air conditioner ... but four hours of service in 24 wouldn't help them much)?

o j

That is bio-mass plant is interesting Jemdandy. Are you in Minnesota?

Around here having a generator is almost a necessity, especially if you have had to live through a hurricane and the following loss of services for weeks to months. We have one which we can use for the house and also for the RV should we want to boondock where there is no power.
Preferably would be to have a whole house generator installed professionally which is very large and sits outside on a slab and is wired directly into your electric panel. Should the power go out the generator kicks on and takes over all the power needs of the house just like normal, you just have to have it fuel fed by natural gas or propane and keep those supplies going.
That is our ultimate goal if we stay here. They are an investment of several thousand dollars but can definitely be worth it. My sisters house in Louisiana has one and it really was a life saver when Rita hit and they were all with out power for a very long time.

Our actual power is supplied to us by Centerpoint energy, but the companies buy the power from Centerpoint and then resell it to us. Centerpoint is also our gas company but there are no other companies for gas so we pay them directly. Should we have a power outage we are to call Centerpoint themselves not the power company we are paying for the service. They do not have anything to do with the lines and maintenance that is all Centerpoint.

I really like co-ops, we have been in a couple of them in different areas we lived. I still get a check from the one we belonged to in Dallas because you become a member of the co-op and actually can vote on the board etc. Every year we would get a check back not usually very much but hey it was money back. And they had a great magazine we got free, I miss that magazine I need to see if they can send it to me here.

Commonwealth Edison is the big player in our area of Illinois. About four years ago they were forced to accept competition to supply the power. They still get paid to transmit the power on their existing infrastructure.

Several northern suburbs of Chicago (and our town) researched the various supplier options and negotiated a group price with one. Residents were offered the option of going with this supplier or choosing another one. We -- and probably the majority of others -- went with the supplier the towns had chosen. It was a considerable savings the first and second years -- last year...not so much.

Retaliating for their losses, ComEd has pushed rate increases through the Illinois Commerce Commission, claiming to need more money for line maintenance and installation of 'smart readers' on homes. (These will supposedly conserve electric power by showing customers how fast the little wheel goes 'round when their kids leave rooms with the lights on and stand in front of the fridge with the door open.)

One of the good things about competition is that our new supplier doesn't get any energy from coal or nuclear. One result is that Com Ed has shut some of its coal plants. (The day we have a solution for nuclear waste...I'll reexamine my bias against it.)

I just got our electric bill for mid-Dec. to mid-Jan. Ten percent is *taxes*. BTW, our most recent *gas* bill (heating, clothes dryer, water heater) was $350 -- inflated by a recent rate increase.

There is a watchdog group that tries to fight these monopolies: Citizens Utilities Board. I contribute to their efforts.

Thank you for the explanation, Snidely. I never really knew how it worked.

We're big on generators around here, too. We bought our first one when we had horses; it was mostly to ensure they'd have a water supply. Power outages happen fairly often in storm seasons, but they're not usually lengthy.

The longest was after Hurricane Sandy. My son and I shared my generator for a week; he brought it back and forth between the two houses. I have wood heat, but used the generator for water; he and his family used it for heat, and got their water from me. It worked out well, but was a lot of work for him. Since then he's bought a propane-powered generator.

I should mention that although I'm buying electricity from Direct Energy, my monthly bill comes from and is paid to PPL Electric, the supplier we've had all along.

This thread is two years old, but I thought it might be worth resurrecting. It's timely for me, as I just got off the phone with Direct Energy. After my most recent contract with them expired at the beginning of this year, I let it drop. My intention was to monitor my electric bills to see if the Direct Energy plan had been saving me money. It turned out that it definitely had been, so I signed up with them again today. I chose the same plan I had before: free electricity from 7 to 11 each night. I'll receive a $100 prepaid Visa as an added incentive. They have a bunch of other plans, including one with free weekends.

My regular PPL power bill has a box titled How To Shop For Electricity.

At my location, we do not get to choose our supplier simply because there are no others. However, our utility supplies both gas and electricity and they have been doing a credible job. The utility has a problem: They have been converting some coal fired plants to gas and have been trying to increase wind generation. People say they want renewable energy, but when it comes to actually doing it, the same folks yell "Not in my backyard." This has been the biggest impediment to adding wind generators. Identified good sites have met with local resistance to installing wind turbines,

We had the same situation here. So much resistance to a "wind farm." I was a newspaper reporter at the time, and the township meetings were often contentious with residents voicing their strong opinions. But the plan went through anyway, and as far as I know everyone has settled down. I'll bet some actually agree with me that the windmills are fascinating to look at.