Thursday, December 20, 2012

PA Ranks First In Competitive Electricity Suppliers Competing For Residential Customers

On Tuesday, I posted about Public Service of New Hampshire using its monopoly status to raise rates to now about 30% above market prices and to force its captive customers to pay for inefficient, old, and dirty fossil fuel plants. Indeed, the competitive market would have closed the PSNH plants and made room for new, efficient, natural gas or renewable energy facilities.

Unlike New Hampshire, Pennsylvania has intense retail electricity competition that gives customers the power to choose from whom they will buy their electricity.  This power of choice protects customers from abusive monopoly pricing among other things.

In fact, forty-seven companies are competing to supply electricity to residential customers in Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania is number 1 in that category. finance.yahoo.com/news/competitive-electricity-markets-continue-advancing-181000525.html.  That's the conclusion of the Annual Baseline Assessment of Choice in Canada and the United States--or the horribly named ABACCUS report.  Overall, the report ranks Pennsylvania third in competitive retail markets, behind Texas and Alberta.

Pennsylvania is nearing 2 million electric customers that have switched to a competitive supplier or 34% of all customers and 59% of all electricity supplied in Pennsylvania.
extranet.papowerswitch.com/stats/PAPowerSwitch-Stats.pdf?/download/PAPowerSwitch-Stats.pdf.

Shopping for electricity is most vigorous in PPL, PECO, and Duquesne Light service territories, where respectively 518,000, 419,000, and 227,000 customers have switched.  Customers can save money, buy long-term power contracts, and purchase renewable energy in the competitive market.

To shop for power, go to www.papowerswitch.com and www.choosepawind.com.

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