Saturday, March 19, 2011

PECO Alternatives for electricity in Pennsylvania


I've been at a total loss about where to buy my electricity now that PECO's rates are going up & Pennsylvania allows some competition. This list of suppliers is a terrific head start. 
Thanks to Hugh Hyatt (software & systems engineer) for sharing this with me:
Here are the results of research I [Hugh Hyatt] did on rate code RS (not RH—to see rates for RH look athttp://www.oca.state.pa.us/Industry/Electric/elecomp/pecrh.pdf) electricity suppliers. Ambit Energy, Respond Power and Stream Energy appear to be the winners, based solely on price.  Below are all results in price per kWh, in brief, in alphabetical order:

   Ambit Energy                                8.4-8.9¢
   Anthracite Power & Light                8.69¢
   BlueStar Energy                            8.878-9.348¢
   Champion Energy                          9.78¢
   Commerce Energy                       11.55-11.87¢
   ConEdison Solutions                      8.89-9.09¢
   Direct Energy                                9.42¢
   Dominion                                      8.91-8.99¢
   Energy Coop Assoc of PA               9.28¢
   Energy Plus Holdings                      8.95¢
   Energy Savers                               9.38-9.77¢
   Gateway Energy Services               8.9¢
   GEXA Energy Pennsylvania             9.8-10.4¢
   IDT Energy                                    9.8139¢
   Liberty Power                                 9.178-10.699¢
   MXenergy                                      9.39¢
   North American Power                    8.99¢
   Palmco Power PA                           8.49¢
   PECO                                            9.92-10.06¢
   Public Power                                  9.799¢
   Respond Power                              8.4¢
   Spark Energy                                 8.93¢
   Stream Energy                               8.4¢
   Superior Plus Energy Services         9.42¢
   TriEagle Energy                              9.4¢
   Verde Energy USA                          8.99¢
   Viridian Energy                               9.49¢
   Washington Gas Energy Services      9.6¢

Prices vary according to date of service, contract length, green-ness of energy, how you sign up. Cancellation fees for contracts vary. All pricing is without any promotion codes. It should be easy to find the websites by Googling for supplier names.  Let me know if you want the extra details I have or if you have a promotion code to share with me. :-)

With regard to customer service, PECO says, "Whether you are purchasing your electricity from a competitive electric generation supplier or from PECO, we will continue to safely deliver electricity, provide billing and customer support, and respond to outages and other emergencies for ALL customers."

There are also a couple of competitors to PECO for natural gas, but PECO still has the best rate (prices per thousand cubic feet—Mcf):

   Commerce Energy    $6.82
   PECO                       $6.29
   Shipley Energy         $6.99