Customer Choice for Electricity and Natural Gas

It’s hard to believe you can reduce your cost of electricity or natural gas with the stroke of a pen…but it’s absolutely true.  Here is what you need to know about getting the most out of customer choice utility programs.  These programs have been available in most industrialized states since 1999.  The idea is to introduce competition between electricity and natural gas utilities in an otherwise monopolistic business environment.  Even after you start buying energy from an alternate utility your local utility continues to provide distribution and other services without change.  This is because they charge separately for these services.  Just take a look at your utility bill and see the many separate charges.

You can buy electricity or natural gas directly from an alternate utility or you can buy from an agent who represents many alternate utilities.  I recommend the latter.  Here is why.  An independent agency is constantly monitoring the fluctuating energy prices and knows on any given day which alternate utility is offering the best deal.  An agent can make sure you are placed with a utility that does not have an early termination fee giving you the flexibility to switch to a different program when market conditions or the competitive landscape changes.  The point here is that each utility has its own unique pricing.  I recently switched a new single store customer of mine from one alternate utility to another alternate utility and dropped his price of natural gas by 21%.  

 Lastly, you should know that food retailers are highly desirable electric utility customers because of the large amount of energy used but more importantly the consistent pace of energy use stemming from refrigeration and lighting.  The latter means utilities won’t need to maintain as much extra generating capacity and distribution infrastructure like they do for customers who use a lot of energy once in a while.  If you have multiple locations, have your agent solicit custom bids from several alternate companies based on your total usage.  Customers who use lots of energy at a consistent pace are often granted the lowest rates…but only if you negotiate for them.