Energy Savings in Penelec Balloons due to Competition
Electricity choice laws that allow customers who are part of First Energy’s Penelec service area to shop for competitive power rates are paying off for those customers who have switched their power supplier. The Pennsylvania Electricity Generation Choice and Competition Act gives every customer who receives an electric bill from Penelec the option to shop for lower electricity prices among a variety of energy suppliers who are licensed by the state. Customers who do not shop pay a default rate for their electric generation supply through Penelec, though the actual money received by Penelec for these charges is passed through to other competitive suppliers who have previously bid for the ability to provide power to the default customer pool.
Recently competitive suppliers have been dropping their electricity rate offers substantially in order to attract more customers. The lower competitive prices combined with a high default rate have ballooned the potential energy savings available for Penelec residential customers who have yet to switch their electricity supplier. For the first time in several years customer who take the time to compare Penelec residential rates can yield energy savings as much as 21% versus the default rate.
The fact that simply switching electricity suppliers from Penelec to a competitive supplier can provide substantial savings on the electric bill has spread slowly throughout the region. Despite more than a handful of suppliers offering rates yielding savings of more than 10% against the Penelec generation rate, only 29.3% of the residential customer pool had entered into an electricity agreement with a competitive supplier as of April 2016. There is still a level of unfamiliarity with electricity choice that keeps many Penelec customers away from the act of purchasing competitive power. Though customers can easily obtain energy savings on their monthly Penelec electric bills by simply choosing a lower electricity rate option, the majority of customers remain on the higher default rate.
Customers looking to shop for energy saving options in Penelec can do so by comparing rate offers from multiple suppliers below. All of the companies are licensed by the state of Pennsylvania and work with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and Penelec to ensure a smooth and unnoticed switch process. One of the major reservations customers have about switching suppliers is the limited information they have about the switch process believing that it consists of repair personal visiting the home and disruption the power service. The truth is that the switch process simply occurs through a computer and does not disrupt the power service even for one second. The customer goes from paying the default rate to the new competitive rate without an actual person coming to the home.
