The web of intrigue in who's suppling your electricity?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

SF VIP
Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
In the old days, you only had one company-the electric company. Now, there's suppliers, providers and transporters. I have to re-new my contract before 1/4/24. There's all these electric companies with all kinds of rates and terms. And besides rates is fees recuring from none to $20+/month. Then there's cancellation fees from none to $100s. When you get into the variable rates, "there is no hope to all, who enter within".
Why do I feel no matter which "contract" I sign up for, I'm gonna get screwed? Do you face the same electricity mess? ( BTW, If you're in Texas, I already answered 'yes' to that question.)
 

I get annoyed at electricity suppliers claiming to supply 100% "green" energy. As far as I can see, you get the same electricity as your neighbour, no matter what you pay for. What the supplier is really saying is that they are bulk buying "green" energy, but this just gets mixed into the grid along with all the other suppliers.
 
It's one of those "deregulation shuffles" like when they broke up AT&T. I don't believe the consumer wins, and that is probably the motivation. Then you have the great evil known as Wall Street getting its fishy fingers on yet another thing, adding more tiers of money grabbing.
 

Where I live it’s city utilities, all of them, billed by the city and there’s no choice.

Outside the city limits there are various companies but still no choice. Apparently the areas were awarded or assigned to certain companies at some point and it’s been that way for decades.

In the small town where we lived for a long time each service was from a separate company and billed separately. Again there was no choice of where to get electricity, water or natural gas.

Where we do have a choice is privately operated trash collection companies. That really aggravates newcomers because a different trash truck goes by every day. Free enterprise but I don’t see how that’s possible with electricity.
 
Best solution is going full solar with battery back ups. But, if you are in Arizona the state requires everyone to pay a fee to the electric company to keep it going regardless if you're hooked up or not. But, that's a conservative state with conservative values - supporting the status quo. We conservatives love the good old days. Back when there was only one electricity company. Here's one for the good old days. (y)
 
PSE&G has been my supplier forever. A few years back there were young people dispersed throughout the area trying to convince people to sign up for a supplier that was supposed to be cheaper. I decided against it. I do view my bill from time to time and see the breakdown about the various affiliated entities that make sure we get electricity. I am not under contract and could change providers anytime I want, but I don't see the need.
 
we have evergy. the third buy out of kp & l or kge or whoever they were. they keep telling us they're working to lower rates but keep raising them. plus they don't have the power to keep the electricity on all the time. in the summer time there are times we have to do rolling blackouts. i think we're gonna get screwed no matter what.
 
Where I live in NYS , I still have the NYSEG electric company, after 35 years, and I get many mails about other alternatives from green energy companies. I also am surrounded by many Windmills and hold a windmill lease for a small area of my land that has a transmission pole on it.

Personally I believe solar and wind power are not enough to produce the electricity we need.
I believe we will always need fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro power.
 
Up at the off grid cabin it was LG and G
(large generators and gas)

Down here in town it's Pacific Power
No complaints

Widow of Vietnam Vet said:
Personally I believe solar and wind power are not enough to produce the electricity we need.
Click to expand...
True enough

and to get a viable solar setup is quite spendy
$50K was the estimate for our place (not including batteries)
 
fuzzybuddy said:
In the old days, you only had one company-the electric company. Now, there's suppliers, providers and transporters. I have to re-new my contract before 1/4/24. There's all these electric companies with all kinds of rates and terms. And besides rates is fees recuring from none to $20+/month. Then there's cancellation fees from none to $100s. When you get into the variable rates, "there is no hope to all, who enter within".
Why do I feel no matter which "contract" I sign up for, I'm gonna get screwed? Do you face the same electricity mess? ( BTW, If you're in Texas, I already answered 'yes' to that question.)
Click to expand...
Yes, I do feel screwed because we have ONE electric company who owns the infrastructure so whatever perks other competitors believe they are offering is mitigated by the high cost of delivery which remains the same because this one company owns everything already. Jeez. o_O
 
fuzzybuddy said:
In the old days, you only had one company-the electric company. Now, there's suppliers, providers and transporters. I have to re-new my contract before 1/4/24. There's all these electric companies with all kinds of rates and terms. And besides rates is fees recuring from none to $20+/month. Then there's cancellation fees from none to $100s. When you get into the variable rates, "there is no hope to all, who enter within".
Why do I feel no matter which "contract" I sign up for, I'm gonna get screwed? Do you face the same electricity mess? ( BTW, If you're in Texas, I already answered 'yes' to that question.)
Click to expand...
When I lived in BC, it was so simple. One producer, supplier, transporter. When you moved, you call BC Hydro to connect you or disconnect you and it's done. Now in Alberta, half a dozen 'power' companies and all kinds of plans for all different lengths of time and different costs! Unless you really love getting down in the weeds on all that stuff and nickel and dime it, it can drive you nuts trying to figure out who to go with.
 
Widow of Vietnam Vet said:
Where I live in NYS , I still have the NYSEG electric company, after 35 years, and I get many mails about other alternatives from green energy companies. I also am surrounded by many Windmills and hold a windmill lease for a small area of my land that has a transmission pole on it.

Personally I believe solar and wind power are not enough to produce the electricity we need.
I believe we will always need fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro power.
Click to expand...
We've had solar panels put on our house, but we're hooked up to the grid which saved a whack of money on the batteries. Besides, in our little house, there's no good place to put a bank of batteries. But we have enough panels that the system will provide the electricity for our EV and our entire house. And the federal loan we took out to pay for the panels, is interest free, so it's a lot easier to bear.
 
There is only one power company here on the corner of Walk 'n Don't Walk ... Alabama Power Company
When I bought this house in 2006 I didn't move in for two months but had power connected in my name.
Turned out that even though I didn't use a single kilowatt for the entire two months, my bill was still $60 a month.
So if I turned off every single thing and walked away for a month ... there would still be a minimum bill ... and probably gone up since 2006.
Even so, my home is so small and it's just me, the average bill for the past 12 months combined and averaged is $120 a month.
The price of kilowatts have gone up and gone up recently. That $120 average used to be about $95 not so long ago.
 
Debrah N. said:
When I lived in BC, it was so simple. One producer, supplier, transporter. When you moved, you call BC Hydro to connect you or disconnect you and it's done. Now in Alberta, half a dozen 'power' companies and all kinds of plans for all different lengths of time and different costs! Unless you really love getting down in the weeds on all that stuff and nickel and dime it, it can drive you nuts trying to figure out who to go with.
Click to expand...
Exactly!!!!!!!!
 
I'm in Norcal, and a friend who bought a country home in the foothills of the Sierra, which came with 4KW of solar panels, is taking his home off-grid. He wants to be his own power utility (a good idea when faced with dealing with PG&E) and has invested more than $100K in battery storage.

Josh provides his own power.
 
BTW, The letter I got turns out to be from a competing electric service. The letter makes it sound like I'm "renewing" a contract, and these are the renewal plans. But, by signing up for a 'renewal' plan, I'm switching to a new supplier.
It's hard to figure out what is chaeper. Some may have a cheaper per kilowatt rate, but have monthly fees, others don't have fees, higher rates, and variable rates are just like using a slot machine-a win or loss.
 
From what i understand, my electricity comes from hydropower, nuclear power, natural gas power, and perhaps some coal power.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Why do I feel no matter which "contract" I sign up for, I'm gonna get screwed? Do you face the same electricity mess? ( BTW, If you're in Texas, I already answered 'yes' to that question.)
Click to expand...
Nope, no issues here at all... I don't even know about contracts although I know I could choose a different provider. I never saw a need to do that... have PPL and always have. Thankfully there's never been a problem with them in all these decades and the rates aren't any higher than what would be expected.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
BTW, The letter I got turns out to be from a competing electric service. The letter makes it sound like I'm "renewing" a contract, and these are the renewal plans. But, by signing up for a 'renewal' plan, I'm switching to a new supplier.
Click to expand...
Sounds tricky for sure! Probably something to check out as well is if a rate they're quoting is actually just an introductory rate.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
In the old days, you only had one company-the electric company. Now, there's suppliers, providers and transporters. I have to re-new my contract before 1/4/24. There's all these electric companies with all kinds of rates and terms. And besides rates is fees recuring from none to $20+/month. Then there's cancellation fees from none to $100s. When you get into the variable rates, "there is no hope to all, who enter within".
Why do I feel no matter which "contract" I sign up for, I'm gonna get screwed? Do you face the same electricity mess? ( BTW, If you're in Texas, I already answered 'yes' to that question.)
Click to expand...
You're right. There was only PennElec when I lived in PA for years. When we lived in TX, that was the first time we experienced "choosing" our supplier. Then we moved back to PA and it was still PennElec. When we went to AZ, it was a co-op and we had good rates. Now, I'm back in PA and had the frustrating opportunity to pick a supplier other than PennElec, even though my bill comes from PennElec. I got the same notice to re-sign my contract. It came right after my husband passed away in October, so I ignored it. I had too many other decisions to make that seemed more important. I have no idea what my rate will be. At least it is $0 cancellation fee.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
BTW, The letter I got turns out to be from a competing electric service. The letter makes it sound like I'm "renewing" a contract, and these are the renewal plans. But, by signing up for a 'renewal' plan, I'm switching to a new supplier.
It's hard to figure out what is chaeper. Some may have a cheaper per kilowatt rate, but have monthly fees, others don't have fees, higher rates, and variable rates are just like using a slot machine-a win or loss.
Click to expand...
It's quite a racket isn't it? We have the same situation in Alberta. Our rates went up 128% in June last year. Not a darn thing we can do about it. The province next door had a rate increase of about 1.7%. And like you say, trying to decide between plans almost means you have to call in an accountant. At least I do because math was never a strength for me.
 

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