change power companies in PA?

[Seasoned Oak]

In any case utility produced power is a bargain and very hard to reproduce for the price SO FAR. If solar gets much better or wind more commonly available that may change the dynamic.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

From what I learned on this thread Wind is subsidized 2.2 cents per KWH, that's a big 20%+ and paid for by you know who: YOU. As for Solar, don't hold your breath. This is all more ethanol economics.

I'm all for clean energy and that's hydro and nuclear for now. JCP&L used to be about 50% nuclear.

 

[BIGDADDY]

I have Duquesne Light as my "normal" supplier. I just recently switched to IGS Energy, they had a 12 year lock on the rate, no cancellation fee. It seems like a good deal overall, but I haven't had it kick in yet as I only did it a month ago. I think my next bill should reflect it.

I wasn't able to find anyone else I knew that had done it, for comparison's sake, so I am hoping for the best!

12 year or 12 month lock on rate?

 

[BIGDADDY]

I have Dominion.

This may help you.


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[woodgeek]

Woodgeek,

I think the JCP&L customer charge is low, less than $5 and the delivery is about what you quote, I do recall buying delivered power from under 15 cents, maybe close to 14 cents per KWH, depends son what Constellation energy is charging... which is always ove 10 cents. A energy cost of 8.5 cents is the lowest I've seen, even from whatever energy (coal mostly I think).

I'll take a look at your source, thanks,

EDIT: I just looked closer, your source is "PA" not "NJ" a substitution of NJ didn't return anything and I bet there are no wind sources in NJ, unless they are offshore. As speculated above, no in my market.

Google turned up this link... http://maketheswitchusa.com/nj/

It seems to think JCP&L costs 10.72 cents/kWh, and suggests "Commerce Energy" which offers a 12 mo contract at 9 cents, or a 15% reduction. An unknown is whether JCP&L charges you a cancellation fee for switching from them...I would think not but you would want to check/call them.

Looks like you CAN buy green power by paying a surcharge to Commerce, details here (broken link removed to http://www.njcleanenergy.com/renewable-energy/programs/cleanpower-choice-program/start-today/start-today)

The cheapest one is 50% Wind and 50% hydro for a 2 cent surcharge. So, in principle you can get 'green' power for 0.3 cents/kWh more than you are nominally paying now.

From what I learned on this thread Wind is subsidized 2.2 cents per KWH, that's a big 20%+ and paid for by you know who: YOU. As for Solar, don't hold your breath. This is all more ethanol economics.

I'm all for clean energy and that's hydro and nuclear for now. JCP&L used to be about 50% nuclear.

But unlike ethanol, wind is significantly energy positive and not as hard on the environment as growing corn. And unlike solar, turbines can deliver power cheaper than many FF sources (whose prices are, ahem, also effectively subsidized)....unsubsidized grid parity for wind was reached in many (but not all) markets 10 years ago. If the 2.2 cent subsidy doesn't get renewed going forward, we will see if wind power will 'sink or swim' on its own.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Woodgeek,

Thanks your input is always helpful and interesting to me and others, I am sure. Also: "(whose prices are, ahem, also effectively subsidized)." Amen! And usually to the determent of the free market. I am cheering for wind power to survive whatever the government involvement, but I remain an observer in my private practice, I can't even get up the energy to do some solar water heating - and even if just done the 9 months a year on doesn't have to protect against freezing temperatures one could easily recover the cost in a year or two, less if DIY.

But I diverge, again.. I got another electric power offer in the mail, it is connected to United Airlines, I can always use a few addition miles on my UA (once Continental) account.

Happy New Year

 

[maverick06]

ok, so I started the thread, so I can have the sidebar haha!
I just checked the link and it shows that for me, the power currently provided is 40 nuclear! Thats pretty cool. Did you also know that about 40% of all nuclear power provided is actually from burning old soviet nuclear weapons. There is very little press on this, it didnt want to be perceived as if the nuclear plants were bombs, just a few articles. The US bought them, reprocessed the fuel into commercial grade fuel, and provided them to the industry. I have no idea how the costs worked, probably all paid by the us govt. But to get rid of the russian's weapons, thats a pretty good deal. So think about that. My christmas tree is in front of me, burning 600 watts of power. 96 watts of which are from megatons that were aimed at where i work.

I think we won

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Yep, and we decommissioned many more USA weapons than did the Russians, a policy we seem to still be following. More interesting might be how much of the bomb decommissioned stuff producing electric power is from Russia and how much from USA weapons. Whatever it cost us, better in our hands than on the world terrorist market. From the Iran news I have concluded weapons grade nuclear fuel takes more processing, so what has to be done to bring it back to industry grade fuel - and where did the stuff taken out go?

Isn't it interesting the Russians were (are) yet making a profit on the "end" of the cold war, and still find it necessary to ban adoption of Russian orphans by USA families.... just another example of Russian/USA cooperation. Much more of this and they'll end up winning.

 

[woodgeek]

Yep, and we decommissioned many more USA weapons than did the Russians, a policy we seem to still be following. More interesting might be how much of the bomb decommissioned stuff producing electric power is from Russia and how much from USA weapons. Whatever it cost us, better in our hands than on the world terrorist market. From the Iran news I have concluded weapons grade nuclear fuel takes more processing, so what has to be done to bring it back to industry grade fuel - and where did the stuff taken out go?

For enriched Uranium...the stuff taken out is depleted uranium...to 'unprocess', you just mix it back in...dilute the enriched stuff with depleted or unprocessed, natural U.

 

[maverick06]

If you want to read the details, check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
The summary to date:
equivalent to 18,000 russian nuclear warheads have been eliminated
This is 50% of our nuclear power.

 

[Laszlo]

Looking for new green/wind options in PA, the portal is here: http://www.choosepawind.com/buy-pa-wind

Going over the options, I went with: (broken link removed to http://citizenpower.com/GEC/index.html) While the website makes them sound like dirty hippies...they were also the cheapest. My only choice is length of contract, I went with 24 mos since I can't be bothered to mess with this stuff too much.

The good news....my locked rate for 24 mo is 8.5 cents for 100% wind power (local, not REC). So my 'all in' will be 13.5 cents/kWh, or a whole cent cheaper than conventional PECO power. Since the phase out of my previous deal, my PECO Wind price has risen from 10 cents to 17.5 cents, so I will be saving 4 cents per kWh, or about $600 yr . Suppose I should have looked into this sooner .

Thanks for pointing them out to me. Much better find than what comes up on the PApowerSwitch site, both for long-term fixed prices, and for 100% wind. Plus they claim taxes are already included in their price, unlike some of the competition.

Any issues or surprises since your switch? I'm thinking of signing on for a 3-year fixed rate of 8.28¢/kWh (compared to PECO @ 8.69¢).

 

[woodgeek]

I am yet to see the new contract in my bill....I think the switch happened last week, but I won't see that bill until march.

 

[greg13]

In NY They started allowing outside Energy suppliers a few years ago and from what I have seen and heard so far no one SAVES much money by switching providers and it turns into a major hassle when you try to switch back. The local TV stations have done many news segments on the subject.

 

[johnny1720]

In NY They started allowing outside Energy suppliers a few years ago and from what I have seen and heard so far no one SAVES much money by switching providers and it turns into a major hassle when you try to switch back. The local TV stations have done many news segments on the subject.

I changed almost 2 years ago, i got a report from the energy company last week. They said I saved $32.00 in the last 12 months, IMHO not worth it but it has been a seem-less change for me and my family.

 

[muncybob]

I have not saved much either, but we are not big users of electricity. I do consider a change when they make a special offer such as a $50 credit, etc. and there is no termnation fee.

 

[Hearth Mistress]

My latest bill from Met-ed has a "compare other supplier rate" at .089. Since we don't use a lot of electric, I've never even thought of looking. We've been here just over 10 years and have ony had an electric bill over $100 a few times, either really cold pre-stove months or really hot AC mobths. We are on a "fixed" plan $78 a month and every 3 months they review our bill and change it accordingly. Right now I pay $78 a month but only use about $55 so that extra money gets credited to my account and I can either leave it there, for higher months, like Summer when the AC is on, or get a refund. While this payment arrangement may not work for everyone, I don't mind it.

 

[Redbarn]

My latest bill from Met-ed has a "compare other supplier rate" at .089. Since we don't use a lot of electric, I've never even thought of looking. We've been here just over 10 years and have ony had an electric bill over $100 a few times, either really cold pre-stove months or really hot AC mobths. We are on a "fixed" plan $78 a month and every 3 months they review our bill and change it accordingly. Right now I pay $78 a month but only use about $55 so that extra money gets credited to my account and I can either leave it there, for higher months, like Summer when the AC is on, or get a refund. While this payment arrangement may not work for everyone, I don't mind it.

We switched from Met-Ed at 0.089 to Reliance at 0.069. Took about 30 minutes on-line and we fixed the rate for 1 year.

Everything else is the same as before. Same billing,etc..
We just pay less for the same product/service.
Not many things in life go down in price !

 

[Hearth Mistress]

We switched from Met-Ed at 0.089 to Reliance at 0.069. Took about 30 minutes on-line and we fixed the rate for 1 year.

Everything else is the same as before. Same billing,etc..
We just pay less for the same product/service.
Not many things in life go down in price !

I never heard of them, just googled it. No thanks, India has taken enough jobs out if the US. Unless there is another Reliance Energy, they are based in Mumbai.

 

[Redbarn]

I never heard of them, just googled it. No thanks, India has taken enough jobs out if the US. Unless there is another Reliance Energy, they are based in Mumbai.

My mistake.
Reliant Energy
Houston, TX

 

[Hearth Mistress]

Ok, just looked. you lucked out, not so much here.

The quote for my zip code is .879 for 12 months but that doesn't include the "distribution fees" that my current supplier will tack on to the bill for Reliant to use their infrastructure to get 3rd party electric to my house. Not sure what these fees are but being that close to what I'm paying now, it just doesn't seem worth it, especially since I'm sure after 12 months the "honey moon, thanks for switching" rate would go up so I'd be right back to looking around again.

It was worth a look though, thanks for sharing.

 

[woodgeek]

Ok, just looked. you lucked out, not so much here.

The quote for my zip code is .879 for 12 months but that doesn't include the "distribution fees" that my current supplier will tack on to the bill for Reliant to use their infrastructure to get 3rd party electric to my house. Not sure what these fees are but being that close to what I'm paying now, it just doesn't seem worth it, especially since I'm sure after 12 months the "honey moon, thanks for switching" rate would go up so I'd be right back to looking around again.

It was worth a look though, thanks for sharing.

HM--the distribution rate from MetEd should be broken out on your current bill. It should also have a 'price to compare' on it to allow you to, um, compare the generation prices.

 

[woodgeek]

Ok, got my first electric bill that reflects my new contract. No surprises. PECO is charging me the same customer fee ($7.17 flat) and distribution fee (4.25 cents/kWh) as in my previous bill. Neglecting the customer fee, my price per kWh was 12.9 cents total in Jan, now it is 12.7. All as expected.

Feb is a high use month for me, 2700 kWh, so I saved a whopping $5.

But the new supplier is 100% PA wind, so I dropped the CO2 associated with last month's usage by >1 metric ton.

As for price trends, the 24 mo contract I took in Dec is now priced 0.1 cents cheaper....I could have saved $7.50 last month instead of $5!

 

[Redbarn]

Ok, got my first electric bill that reflects my new contract. No surprises. PECO is charging me the same customer fee ($7.17 flat) and distribution fee (4.25 cents/kWh) as in my previous bill. Neglecting the customer fee, my price per kWh was 12.9 cents total in Jan, now it is 12.7. All as expected.

Feb is a high use month for me, 2700 kWh, so I saved a whopping $5.

But the new supplier is 100% PA wind, so I dropped the CO2 associated with last month's usage by >1 metric ton.

As for price trends, the 24 mo contract I took in Dec is now priced 0.1 cents cheaper....I could have saved $7.50 last month instead of $5!

There seems to be a strong Zip code factor.

I pulled out our Met Ed Bill for February.
Customer charge was $8.11. Supplier fee $3.45 cents per kWh.
For 839 kWh of use at a saving of 2 cents per kWh, we saved $16.78 in Feb.
Even if the price goes back up after the 12 month contract period ends, well worth the effort of an hour at most online.

We have multiple bills as we have a separate bill for our outbuildings.
So we have multiple saving.

The lower rates do make financial case for fitting solar panels to the barn less attractive but as the price of PV panels, microinverters and other Solar hardware continues to fall, it slightly eases the pain of waiting.

 

[Hearth Mistress]

HM--the distribution rate from MetEd should be broken out on your current bill. It should also have a 'price to compare' on it to allow you to, um, compare the generation prices.

The price to compare is .089 on my bill, so Without going back an looking at my bill, the Reliant .0879 rate, plus the distribution rate, which is a few cents, would mostly likely put me over what I pay now, so with Met-Ed I stay

 

[woodgeek]

The price to compare is .089 on my bill, so Without going back an looking at my bill, the Reliant .0879 rate, plus the distribution rate, which is a few cents, would mostly likely put me over what I pay now, so with Met-Ed I stay

The 'price to compare' strips out the distribution charge for an 'apples to apples' comparison. The distribution charge is the same whether you buy from MetEd or not.

Your reliant rate doesn't look right. I looked up your options for your zipcode and MetEd at pappowerswitch:

http://www.papowerswitch.com/shop-for-electricity/shop-for-your-home/

and got a 7.6 cent quote from Reliant and a 6.9 cent quote from 'Washington Gas Energy Svcs', which would save you 1.3 or 2 cents/kWh net, equivalent to a 10 or 15% reduction of your current bill.