Switching to Alternate Energy Providers
4 October 2006Here’s a good consumer alert that doesn’t apply to everyone, but is an option if you live in one of eighteen states: you don’t necessarily have to get power from that inefficient public utility. Monopolies, as anyone who has played a certain board game knows, tend to increase the price for consumers. A lot of states are starting to give consumers options, however. Instead of going with the standard utility, you can go with an alternate energy provider - and they usually charge about 15-20% less for your power.
Most people aren’t switching over, however. Mainly it’s because these companies aren’t marketing very effectively and because of unfounded fears about service quality. But as the article points out, you’re still dealing with the same electric company - you just buy the power elsewhere:
Most importantly, notes Jackson, many folks aren’t exactly sure what happens if they make the switch. They’re concerned that a private company may not be as responsive as their well-established public utility in emergencies, such as power outages. But that shouldn’t be the case. “What happens when you switch providers is your local utility still has to maintain the power lines that bring electricity to your home,” he says. In other words, you will still receive power — and in most cases, your bill — from the utility company you’ve always dealt with. But instead of buying that power from the utility, you are buying it from a competitor.
Every state has a web site for their public utility authority, and you can check out a list here. Which states have this as an option? I couldn’t find a comprehensive list after searching around for awhile, but the article claims it is 18 states, including “Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Oregon, Texas and most states in the Northeast.”
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