I’m looking online for “compare my rate” type sites to look for a less expensive electrical service provider. Our provider has had 2 rate increases since January and it looks like another long, hot summer heading our way. We are being very, very energy conservative, have insulated windows, etc, but our electric bill is still too high.
Has anyone shopped for energy this way (on-line rate comparisons) and does anyone have any shopping suggestions or recommended pit-falls to avoid?
Where do you live that you even have an option on where you get electricity from? Here, you either get it from PG&E or you’re off the grid and make your own.
NO. Why would I do so?
How many electric utility companies are listed in your phone book?
If less than two go to a movie or something.
You are up the creek and left the paddle on the cot.
IOW U R SOL. 
New York State and I thought every other state including California has deregulated its utilities. In most states therefore, lots of small companies have come into the market at the instigation of the state Public Utilities Commission (or equivalent) to provide delivery of electricity and/or gas that is purchased from a variety of suppliers.
In NYS, all the companies, both the utilities and the competitors (including for-profit spin-offs of the utilities - it gets complicated) offer both fixed-rate and variable-rate for gas and/or electricity. Every market has a number of options, from a few to many.
The question that the consumer must ask and solve is which option will be most economical in the coming year. As we saw over the last year, this is a question that not even the experts can answer. Katrina did weird things to both the gas and electric markets by knocking out refineries and distribution channels, but the worst effects didn’t happen or last as long as people expected.
And fuel prices were supposed to soar over the winter, but the exceptionally mild winter meant in fact that prices eventually dropped. So the people who asked for fixed rates won some and lost some, but so did the people who took the chance on variable rates.
Betting on which way the market will go is worse than betting on the next year’s stock market. Nobody knows the answer, although everybody and his uncle has a theory.
FWIW, I took the fixed price option from my local utility. But that answer may make no sense at all for you in your situation, even if you lived next door to me, because your particular and individual patterns of usage will drive your costs.
My personal opinion is that these schemes were utopian ideals of the Public Service Commissions that have no anchor in reality and only serve to confuse an already confused public. Unfortunately, we have to live with them until they blow up in our faces.
I wish I could give better advice, but there just isn’t any.
Exapno Mapcase has pretty much nailed it. I would only add that it is important to realize that, since deregulation, electric utilities have divided into their 4 main components. Each component functioning as a separate business unit.
The generation business unit lives or dies based on fluctuations in fuel prices. Ideally, the assets are diversified enough to allow for coal generation when oil/gas prices spike, and vice-versa.
Transmission and distribution: These are the folks you get your bill from. And, believe it or not, they do not make any money on the power they sell you. The energy cost is a pass-thru cost. If the cost that they have to pay for energy goes up, this will ultimately show up as a rate increase for you. I say ultimately because the utilities rates are fixed by an outside entity (normally the corporate commission of the state) and the utility has to apply for a change in their rates (and prove their need). This means that a large portion of your bill would be unaffected by any change in energy cost.
Energy traders are the stock traders of the utility world. They buy and sell power via long term contracts and spot market transactions. This is where (in the utopian deregulated world) you would be betting that you could do a better job the professional traders and get your electricity for 0.1 cent/Kwh cheaper. The odds against the average consumer actually making a better deal vs the professional day traders would be staggering … about the same as getting a fair/good deal on long distance service.
spingears. Attention!
You seem to be in rare form lately. This is only one of a dozen posts in the last few days in GQ that are mindless.
I’m gonna say this once and only once–keep mindless posts out of General Questions. When you have something positive to post, do so. Otherwise please keep the chit chat to another fora.
samclem
And, to make sure you see this, I’m sending you an email.
For the where to find info part of your question: try your state’s public utilities commission (or whatever it’s called). In Ohio, they give you comparisons on their Web site. But, even though the utilities are deregulated here, there’s no competition among electric service providers right now. Lots of competition for natural gas, though.
I’ve got a fixed-price contract for natural gas and probably did OK (haven’t gone back to compare), but as was said before, it’s a gamble.
GT
Thanks everyone. I found a couple of sites and switched my service provider to one that should give me about a 20% decrease in my energy bill by supplying us electricity at a fixed rate for the next year.
There were several companies (more than a dozen) to choose from.
My past provider has had two rate increases in 4 months and my electric bill went up by about $130.00 a month! That’s a pretty big increase- over 25%. DH has changed his name to Commander Kilowatt.
We try to not be wasteful of resources and recycle, etc. I just wasn’t mentally prepared to the two back-to-back rate hikes. Ouch.