PPL Electricity Rates June 2023 by Todd Yasbin

If you live in Pennsylvania and have not educated yourself about the energy choice laws in the state then you are missing out on a bunch of savings. Put another way, if you haven’t taken the time to shop for lower electricity rates, then you are vastly overpaying on your monthly electric bill.

While technically speaking electricity choice has been around in Pennsylvania since the early 2000s, it wasn’t until the beginning of 2010 when people throughout the state really started to take notice. It was then that a decade long low price lock in the state’s second largest electric utility expired and opened up the floodgates of new electricity suppliers entering the state market.

Pennsylvania Power & Light (PPL), the utility company that delivers power to around 1.2 million customers throughout the central part of the state, had to increase their default rate for electricity generation supply. The previous default rate had been locked in a decade prior when wholesale energy rates were very low. When the rates finally expired, wholesale rates were now much higher and caused the price their customers were paying to increase around 20% overnight.

1. The previously low rates had two major effects on Pennsylvania electricity choice:
   For the first decade of the 21st century, competitive electricity suppliers could not offer rates to customers below the default rate and thus didn’t bother entering the market.
2. Because rates were low customers didn’t feel the need to educate themselves about electricity choice. They may have read an article that a new law created a new energy choice market in Pennsylvania, but from their perspective nothing had changed. They still received their bill from their utility and there were no other companies marketing their service.

But that changed in 2010 when the default rates spiked. Now competitive electricity companies had a reason to enter the Pennsylvania market as they could offer customers with lower electric rates and savings on their PPL electric bills.

Electricity companies rushed into the PPL service area market with billboards, TV commercials, online advertising, and even door to door salesmen. More people started to familiarize themselves with electricity choice and the savings available by shopping for the cheapest PPL electric rates.

The following year in 2011 the same thing occurred in the state’s largest electric utility service area PECO Energy. PECO Energy, the utility that delivers power to the city of Philadelphia, had their decade long default rates expire and were forced to charge their customers a much higher rate for electricity supply.

Meanwhile, as was the case in PPL, competitive electricity companies could offer PECO Energy customers rate plans that were much lower than the default rates. Customer started comparing Philadelphia electricity prices and switching. The industry of electricity choice was starting to take shape.

Dissecting Myths about Pennsylvania Electricity Choice by Todd Yasbin

Over the next eight years customers in the other utility service area markets in the state started to see savings opportunities offered by competitive electricity suppliers. Many of the suppliers were slow to enter into the smaller First Energy areas at first, but once they could offer savings to those customers and choice awareness picked up, it make sense for them to go in and acquire a pool of new customers.

From 2010 until 2019 electricity suppliers were able to offer savings to at least some pool of Pennsylvania customers at any given time. The market was maturing as more people began to realize that they can not only shop for savings, but for price security and even renewable options.

Electricity Shopping Activity Stops

But everything seemed to change around the time of the pandemic. From early 2020 until the summer of 2023 the default rates became very low and competitive suppliers became unable to offer savings. For the last three and a half years, the growth in electricity shopping in Pennsylvania completely stopped.

Worst yet was that many customers went back onto the default rate with their utility. The number of active customers on a competitive plan began shrinking quite rapidly.

A lot can happen in 42 months. Over the last three plus years hundreds of thousands of people in Pennsylvania have moved into new homes, and without competitive electric rates offering savings to incentivize people to shop, most consumers have forgotten that Pennsylvania electricity choice exists and have reverted back to the days of regulated energy.

2023 Pennsylvania Electricity Rates are Competitive Again

In recent months the electricity suppliers have been able to start offering competitive rates that are lower than the utility default rates. At first the savings were slight, but in the summer of 2023 savings have really started to expand.

Customers of the two largest utilities - PPL and PECO Energy - are able to lower their electric bills by more than 20%. As of April of 2023 only 21.4% of PECO Energy residential customers were purchasing their power from a low Pennsylvania electricity supplier even though savings were as high as 30% off of the PECO price to compare rate.

There is absolutely no reason why a PECO Energy customer who can save 30% should remain on the price to compare rate, and yet there are more than 1.2 million residential customers who are paying that high default electric rate.

On November 1, 2018 the basic service rate offered by National Grid to Massachusetts residential customers increased by a baffling 26.2%. Basic service is a default rate that National Grid charges to those customers for electricity generation supply who have not elected to purchase their power from a competitive electricity supplier. Residential customers can save money against the higher default rate by comparing competitive rates offered by suppliers who are licensed by the state of Massachusetts. Those customers who are already on a competitive rate plan will not be effected by the November 1 rate increase.

Numerous competitive rate plans are available for National Grid customers to choose between. In response to the 26.2% price increase competitive Massachusetts suppliers are pushing back and stepping up their marketing efforts in order to gain new customers. Energy price comparison sites such as ElectricRate.com are posting competitive rate offers as much as 12.6% less than the basic service rate offered by National Grid. Other rate green energy options are available that provide small savings.

As of May 2018, the Massachusetts state government reported that roughly 42.8% of the 1,035,462 residential customers that National Grid delivers power to had elected to purchase their electricity from a competitive supplier. The remaining 592,000 customers have the ability to substantially lower their National Grid electric bill by comparing and selecting a lower rate plan. The new basic service rate of $0.13718, up from $0.1087 in October, is the highest the default rate has been in over three years. Massachusetts electricity suppliers are expecting a large new batch of first time shoppers in response to the high rate, which will stay in effect until the end of April of next year.

Competitive rates offering savings versus the basic service rate are shown below. All competitive rates are provided by suppliers who have been licensed by the state of Massachusetts.

Eversource Energy will change their default pricing for residential and commercial customers on July 1, 2018. The current prices have been in effect since January 1 of this year while the new prices will stay in effect through the end of the year. Since Connecticut has gone to an energy choice state Eversource Energy, formerly Connecticut Light & Power, has been updating their default prices twice a year on January 1 and July 1, so the change shouldn’t come as a big surprise to most consumers.

Residential customers will see a small drop in their default price of $0.09078 to $0.08530 while small and medium sized commercial customers will see a modest increase from $0.09304 to $0.09422. Customers who are currently purchasing their power from a competitive electricity supplier will not be affected by the change. The Eversource Energy default rate in Connecticut encompasses the charges that would be imposed by a competitive supplier’s electricity plan. The default price is merely the rate customers pay for electricity service who do not shop for prices available in the competitive energy marketplace.

Since the Connecticut residential electricity market became competitive in 2006 the number of participating customers have fluctuated in correlation with the Eversource Energy default price. When competitive electricity suppliers can offer rates that are below the default price more customers flock towards the electricity shopping experience. However, when the default rate and competitive rates are near the same consumers are less likely to shop. Over the years competitive electricity suppliers have attempted to smooth out the shopping droughts by offering customers with more incentives to shop other than low electricity rates. In addition to savings versus the default price, many competitive suppliers now offer renewable electricity rates and long term contracts that can offer customers price stability.

Maryland’s second largest electricity utility is seeing an increase in competitive shopping activity as historically low energy prices are enticing first time shoppers to search for savings. PEPCO Energy delivers power to over 500,000 residential and commercial customers throughout Maryland. While the delivery of power remains a regulated business in the state, Maryland electricity choice allows consumers to shop for competitive power generation offers. Customers who have not shopped pay a default rate through PEPCO Energy for generation supply. Competitive Maryland electricity suppliers are offering fixed electricity rates that are well below the default rate, which results in electric bill savings for those PEPCO customers who take advantage of the choice laws.

The majority of consumers residing in the PEPCO service area are still unaware of their ability to shop the market for competitive electricity rates. Officially the state has been an energy choice state for more than a decade, however it wasn’t until the last few years that competitive electricity suppliers began marketing their services. Prior to this time the competitive companies were unable to offer electricity prices to customers that provided significant savings, if any, against the PEPCO default rate which is officially called the standard offer service (SOS) rate. Falling natural gas prices over the last few years have allowed electricity prices to fall, resulting in enhanced savings opportunities for PEPCO customers living in Maryland.

Lower energy prices and a high SOS PEPCO rate have caught the attention of executives working for competitive electricity companies who are looking for new customers. Initially, as the Maryland electricity choice market started to grow, competitive suppliers focused most of their marketing efforts on the BG&E market which contains nearly double the number of customers as the PEPCO market. WHile BG&E is still attractive for the suppliers, the combination of savings potential and first time shoppers in PEPCO is to enticing to pass up. Meanwhile, as more competitive suppliers enter the market, consumers are benefiting even more as rate offers are being pushed down and their options are expanding.

In order to sell electricity to a PEPCO customer the competitive electricity supplier must be licensed by the Maryland Public Service Commission. For first time shoppers, the rate offered by the competitive supplier replaces the PEPCO standard offer service rate. Electricity choice in the PEPCO service area is providing an easy way for consumers to lower their electric bill. All switches are done electronically, so the customer does not have to stay at home and wait for a technician to come over and do manual work. Below is a list of many of the lowest PEPCO rates currently available, all offers are updated in real time.

Switching to an alternative electricity supplier is proving to be a smart move for residential customers of Eversource Energy in Connecticut, formerly named Connecticut Light & Power. In January Eversource Energy raised their generation service rate for their residential pool of customers by 16%, an increase that consumers will start to notice when their February electric bills arrive. The generation service rate is the default price for electricity generation supply that Eversource Energy charges their customers who do not switch to a competitive electricity supplier. The new generation service rate, which went into effect on January 1, 2015, went up to $0.09555 from the previous rate of $0.08228 that had been in effect since July 1, 2015.

Competitive Connecticut electricity prices are coming in below the Eversource Energy basic service rate, resulting in opportunities for consumers to save money. Switching electricity suppliers causes the competitive supplier’s rate for electricity to replace the default generation service rate. Switching electricity suppliers in Connecticut does not affect the quality of the power that the customer receives. Even though customers can switch away from Eversource Energy for their electricity generation, they are unable to leave Eversource Energy as their utility, or power delivery, company.

Taking the time to switch Connecticut electricity suppliers is an easy process that can result in large savings. The actual electric switch process is seamless as no maintenance people need to come to the home to enact the change. Everything involved in the switch process happens through computers without any interruption in power service. Compare competitive offers to the Connecticut Eversource default price below from suppliers who are licensed to sell electricity in the state of Connecticut.