Power Supplier

[jimhelm]

So, if you live in PA, the price caps on the electric rates are expiring on Jan 1. You can shop providers now and save some dough.

I have PPL, and there are 18 suppliers available to shop.

the upcoming rate is 94c/kwh eff Jan 1. I found it for 84c.

that's good right?

[HungLikeJesus]

Do you mean 9.4 cents/kWh? 94 is closer to what people pay in Alaska.

[jimhelm]

yes!

oops.. i forgot my decimals.

[Clodfobble]

We had a similar thing happen for us last spring. We changed providers and went from about 17 cents/kwh to 8.9 cents/kwh. Just in time for summer, our bills were fan-fucking-tastic.

[BigV]

do you know the source of your power from provider to provider?

presumably, they all feed into the same grid, you just participate in the market for supplier.

What criteria do you use to make your choice?

[Clodfobble]

Price?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by BigV

do you know the source of your power from provider to provider?

presumably, they all feed into the same grid, you just participate in the market for supplier.

What criteria do you use to make your choice?

Right now we pay a generation charge, a transmission charge, a distribution charge, and a transition charge thats ending. I'm assuming by choosing a new supplier it's the generation charge that will actually change, and the rest will actually be the same companies we had, since they own the infrastructure. They are quoting the end price, but only part of that will go to the new "supplier". Actually for homeowners our local, PECO, will go down for less than 500kwh per month, and up 5% for over 500kwh, after the first.

[glatt]

I don't know what you guys are talking about. I'm pretty sure it's still a monopoly here. Although at the local farmers market, the power company here has this thing where you can sign up to pay more for your electricity and they will tell you it comes from wind power.

[Lamplighter]

The booth at the Farmers Market has green curtains.

It's like a lake fed by a polluted river and pristine creeks.
At the dam, they treat all the water the same.
When you sign up for the pristine creek water, they charge you more.

But if enough sign up for creek water, it's an incentive to improve the river.

[wolf]

I don't get to choose. My apt sub-bills the electric themselves.

I miss PECO.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

I don't know what you guys are talking about. I'm pretty sure it's still a monopoly here. Although at the local farmers market, the power company here has this thing where you can sign up to pay more for your electricity and they will tell you it comes from wind power.

These changes have been ongoing for a generation. A world leader in establishing principles behind this market is the Penn-Jersey-Maryland grid and principles promoted by the NERC in New Jersey.

You buy electricity from a provider. And also pay a local utility to deliver that provider's electricity. You pay for electricity by the kilowatt hour. For access to your home (including a meter). And another charge for the company that distributes electricity to your neighborhood. That is 9.4 cents plus those other charges.

For example, the current grid prices are between $20 and $40 per megawatt hour. Or about two to four cents per kilowatt hour. Then your provider must buy time on the distribution system to deliver that power to your local provider. Established by long term contracts, or (especially when emergencies happen) on spot market purchases maybe every 15 minutes.

Appreciate why this failed in CA. CA only did spot market pricing using principles taught to business school graduates. The people who ran most CA utilities. Corrupt companies protected by a corrupt administration (Enron was only one player in this corruption) manipulated those prices to even charge $1000 per megawatt hour. Those corrupt companies even paid generators to go off-line – to not provide electricity. To keep those $20 prices up at $1000. This ridiculous market setup by business school graduates automatically attracted corrupt and politically approved companies such as Enron and Dynegy.

Meanwhile extremist politicians further added to the lies and confusion by blaming CA for not building power plants. Because Californians are too liberal. And yes, some of our extremists here reciting those lies. Anti-American type even subverted prosecution of Enron, et al companies. To this day, nobody has been investigated for intentionally creating a mythical CA energy crisis that only enriched politically approved companies.

Meanwhile, the PJM (who also stopped the 2003 NE blackout) is dominated by people from the power industry. Patriots routinely come from where the work gets done. Therefore the world is watching or learning from PJM. Learning how free markets are supposed to work.

Now the problem. From little I can decipher, the Courts have screwed the industry. When a transmission line is built, is it for the benefit of the producer (electric generator) or the consumer? Because the courts asked and answered that question, and because our Congress back then was so dominated by extremists who needed first to be paid, then transmission lines cannot be built.

For example, the Baltimore/Washington area has a serious electric transport problem. Electric companies therefore were paying high prices for electricity and could not pass those higher prices on to customers. The electricity costs little to generate. The transmission costs are high due to insufficient transmission lines. This problem is so severe that it has even increased prices out in the Hagerstown MD area.

Desperate to expand the network, instead, the courts and Congressional inaction back then screwed the economy. One line desperately needed across lower West Virginia cannot be built. Because that was in the 2000s, then you have not yet seen it appear in economic data. Another example of how economics really works. And why spread sheets only report on things four and more years ago.

A most serious problem with energy providers is the transportation network. It was more than sufficient ten years ago when wackos invented a dilapidated energy grid. Existing facilities are superb - very high tech. But not enough capacity is planned for demands in ten years. The grid may have future problems because those wackos subverted the supply/demand relationship. Invented myths such as a dilapidated network. And ignored what really was needed. If free market pricing determined transmission lines, then future network growth would address those future demands.

Let’s be quite blunt about this – as any honest person would be. The grid is a trophy of advanced engineering when politicians were lying for a political agenda. But future capacity may be constrained because free market forces will not be permitted to create new capacity. Supply verses demand relationships necessary for a free market were stifled by politicians who needed campaign contributions (ie K Street) before it would do anything. A bridge to nowhere was a concurrent example.

T Boone Pickens was planning a large scale windfarm system. He quit. His only problem was a system designed by 2000s politicians to impeded the construction of one key component - transmission towers and lines.

NYC has a similar problem. A private group was planning a transmission line from upstate NY to a major power distribution facility north of Ramapo NJ. They also had to quit. Our first 2000 politicians were too busy promoting political agendas (ie lawyers rewriting the science papers). Therefore legislation necessary to support free markets never happened.

Fortunately, responsible organizations have been keeping the enemies of America in line. Never forget who created the NE blackout and the near disaster at the Davis Besse nuclear plant. First Energy Corp and their MBA president Anthony Alexander. His only agenda is to build an empire for his own personal glory. Not expand a reliable company. Which is why he and First Energy single handedly created the entire NE blackout from Michigan and Indiana to Ontario and NYC.

Alexander is buying other electric companies. Then using cost controls and other money games to pay for what he overpaid for. Only PJM, state regulators, and other similar bodies are demanding that he meet minimal standards. NJ created a PUC director whose only job was to sit on and force First Energy to maintain equipment. This NJ director discovered that First Energy was running their transformers at 110% - routinely. Anything to increase profits and the glory of an MBA.

Your ears should be keenly attuned to which politicians will be bought off by First Energy. A threat to the new free markets in electricity. And how that will adversely affect your future electric prices.

A dangerous '3 Mile Island' type problem was discovered in three nuclear power plants. All had to shutdown and fix it. Two did. But Anthony Alexander knew how to use corruption. So he ran a $450,000 fund raiser for Bush Cheney. Only his plant (Davis Besse) did not have to shutdown. Then we later discovered it also had a hole in its containment dome. Directly traceable to that business school graduate, his cost controls, and who he knew to pay off. In a country where Fox News forgets to report these stories, many never heard any of this.

Worry about people such as Alexander who remain a serious threat to these new free markets. And many people with a political agenda that impede new industry regulations necessary to make this free market work.