Free market competition in Arizona’s electricity market is likely, says energy analysts. Those in charge of utility regulations in Arizona support reviving deregulation and opening electric choice to not only larger businesses but residents and small businesses as well.

Deregulation would mean that electric customers would be able to purchase their electricity supply from competing retail electricity providers instead of being forced to purchase directly from the default utility, either Arizona Public Service Co. or Tucson Electric Power.

Bob Stump, Chairman of the Arizona Corporate Commission (ACC), which oversees public utilities in the state, said in a press release: “We will prudently and cautiously examine how other states have fared under retail competition and ponder whether the time is right for Arizona to follow a similar path.”

Commissioners have set up two public meetings and will gather information from various stakeholders about whether or not Arizona will follow through with opening up to electric choice.

Arizona began deregulating its electricity market in the late 1990s, along with other currently deregulated states. However, a judge’s decision in 2004 stopped deregulation. The state does have a small lottery system for commercial and industrial customers, but smaller businesses and residents are now allowed to participate.

Direct Energy Seeking to Enter Arizona Electricity Market

Direct Energy is prepared to enter the Arizona electric market. The retail electricity provider submitted a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CC&N) to the ACC this month in order to enter the market and serve retail customers in the state.

The retail electricity provider has already demonstrated corporate commitment to the state. Direct Energy has a call center in Tempe as well as a current contract with a vendor to establish another significant call center in the city. Furthermore, the provider has two retail electricity contracts with commercial customers that were able to participate in Arizona’s electric choice lottery.

Direct Energy is one of the largest retail electricity providers in North America, operating in 46 state with more than 6 million residential and commercial customers.

The retail electricity provider, Energy Plus, has expanded its service territory and is now an available electricity provider in the District of Columbia. Energy Plus already sells retail electricity to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in deregulated electric markets in nine states across the nation.

Commercial, industrial and institutional customers in the PEPCO service area in D.C. are eligible to sign up with Energy Plus. The retail electricity provider offers competitive rates as well as hefty rewards programs – which other electricity provider most often reserve for residential customers.

Electricity plans offered by Energy Plus are simple and convenient. There are no sign-up fees to start doing business, and there are no cancellation fees if your business decides to switch to another provider. Rates offered are variable, and fluctuate according to region, wholesale electricity market prices, costs to purchase electricity, and other factors. Each month, your business will be able to compare the rates it is paying with Energy Plus to the default utility, PEPCO’s rates in order to ensure savings.

Each time your business pays its electric bill, it will earn 2% cash back on the annual charges paid for electric supply through Energy Plus. There’s also a $25 enrollment bonus after two months of active service.

Energy Plus is a subsidiary of the major utility holding company, PPL Corporation. The retail electricity provider offers electricity, natural gas, renewable energy, and other products and services to residential commercial, industrial, and institutional customers.

Selecting a Retail Electricity Provider for Your Business

Unlike residential customers, businesses must shop around for their electricity supply by contacting several providers to negotiate the lowest rates. Unfortunately, this is a time consuming process.

To find out if Energy Plus is available to serve your business, fill out our Business Electricity Rate form, and we’ll contact Energy Plus as well as several providers in your area to negotiate the best rates. The service is free and there is no obligation to sign up with a provider unless you choose to do so.

JustGreen Lifestyle is Just Energy’s green energy initiative that helps businesses and residents help reduce their environmental impacts through carbon offsets and renewable energy credits.

When businesses sign up, they receive a monthly membership plan that is customized to that company’s particular needs depending on size and energy use. Business members also benefit from various marketing assets designed to help companies educate their employees and promote their environmental commitment to their customers and surrounding communities.

Three participation levels are offered depending on the size of the business. Select, Plus, and Elite. Total annual carbon offsets range from 55,000 with the Business Select plan to more than 220,000 with the Business Elite plan.

Just Energy has invested over $50 million in over green energy programs, including $15 million in carbon offset projects and over $35 million in renewable energy projects. Over 230,000 Just Energy customers opting for greener energy has helped offset over 883,206 tons of carbon emissions and has helped to generate 2.8 million MWh of renewable energy. That’s the equivalent of taking 175,000 cars off the road for a year and creating enough renewable energy to power over 280,000 homes for a year.

To find out if Just Energy is available to provide electric supply to your business, fill out the online form for businesses and we’ll contact not only Just Energy, but all the retail electricity providers in our network to find the best plan for your business’s needs. If you’re interested in green plans, just let us know.

Residents and small businesses can check to see if Just Energy is an available retail electricity provider in their areas by using the Compare & Switch tool (at the top of the page). Here, you can compare several available providers and their pricing plans.

Funds from the bill, which would allow ComEd to raise $2.6 billion over 10 years through customer rate hikes, would go toward digitizing the state’s grid through the installation of smart meters as well as operational and infrastructure changes.

The issue here, however, lies in the fact that ComEd has was scheduled to roll out smart meter deployment in 2012 to its more than 3.8 million customers after a recent $182 million rate hike. ComEd claims that it only agreed to start the smart meter deployment if a full $107 million rate hike was approved last year, with the ICC only approving $89 million. The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) and the utility have been at odds since, with disputes in over a dozen rate interpretation and cost disallowances that ComEd claims costs them about $100 million in annual revenue.

In a class action lawsuit filed in Cook County in April, ComEd is currently being sued for the delay of its smart meter deployment to homes and businesses that have already imposed rate increases of $182 on its customers, which were supposed to be used for the deployment of smart meters beginning in 2012. In retaliation, ComEd has countersued the Illinois Commerce Commission for cutting funding that the utility expected to receive that supposedly will delay the deployment until 2015.  The delay is expected to cost ComEd’s 3.8 million customers an estimated $209 million.

If approved, the hike will raise distribution rates by 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), or about $10.50 per month for the average electric user in the utility’s service territory. UI is quick to note that this increase will be offset by the elimination of the transitional charge that went into effect in 2000 in order to offset costs associated with deregulation and electric choice in Connecticut. This charge, formally known as the ‘competitive transition assessment’, will be abolished beginning January 1, 2014.

The rate hike would raise about $65 million in 2014 (an 8.7% increase), and by another $26 million in 2015. The increased revenue is intended to go towards systems improvements as well as $52 million to cover damage from major recent storms, including Tropical Storm Irene and Superstorm Sandy.

Opponents of the rate hike understand that bills will be offset by the disappearance of the transitional charge. However, in a recent public hearing with the Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA), they were quick to point out that their belief that the utility is unjustified in raising rates. Connecticut citizens cited several arguments highlighting the profit-hungry nature of UI and its parent company, ULI Holdings. Despite the fact that Connecticut’s residents pay some of the highest electric rates in the nation, UI has one of the lowest returns on equity (ROE) of utilities in the nation. Customers are more concerned that the revenues will go towards investors rather than to actual infrastructure improvement spending.

Since the rate hike is distribution-related, all UI customers will be affected, no matter if they receive their electric supply from UI or a retail electricity provider. Connecticut has one of the highest percentages of customers that have switched to a retail electricity provider, about 46% of its residential customers. The other 54% can’t avoid the distribution rate hikes, but they can still shop around for a provider that has lower supply rates than UI in order to reduce their electric bills.

Learn more about comparing retail electricity providers in Connecticut.

Currently, BGE’s Price-to-Compare (the average residential supply rate) is around 8 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). The new rate, which will last from June 2013 to May 2014, will be 10.474 cents/kWh. Customers currently shopping around for an electric provider with lower rates should look for plans that have rates below the 10.474 cent/kWh mark.

In late February, the Maryland Public Service Commission approved a distribution rate hike for both BGE’s electric and gas services in order to generate $113 million per year in an effort to “promote safety and reliability” for electric and natural gas services through state-mandated safety and reliability projects as well as increased infrastructure spending. The hike increased the average residential customer’s bill by about 2.6% for electricity and 4.25% for gas.

According to the Maryland Public Service Commission, customers that haven’t already chosen a retail electricity provider will see their bills increase by almost 10% from prior to the two rate increases or about $13.50 more.

While BGE customers cannot avoid the distribution rate increase, they can avoid higher bills by shopping around for a retail electricity provider that offers a lower supply rate than BGE.

Learn more about retail electricity providers and how to find the best plan for your home or business.

Currently, Google is acting as a broker, much like renewable retail electricity providers that are serving areas across the country that are open to electric choice (Google buys power from local renewable electricity generation companies and then sells back to the electric grid). This deal will allow Google to eliminate its middle-man status and to buy renewable electricity directly from the utility, and Duke Energy will be able to absorb the additional costs of producing renewable electricity onto its grid with this significantly large customer.

The partnership is a part of Google’s plan to double its investment in its $600 million data center in North Carolina. As data centers use mass amounts of energy, Google is looking for ways to make its energy use more efficient and sustainable over the long term. And of course, Google looks to be an industry leader not only on the web, but as an innovative company leader that can set standards for other companies, communities, and governments.

Aside from the benefits for Google and Duke Energy, smaller players are likely to benefit as well. The renewable energy industry faces many problems – from scalability to lack of battery storage infrastructure. However, most of the problems revolve around engineering, not the actual supply levels of renewable energy. Google has established itself as a leading investor of renewable energy initiatives in the U.S. and world, and is expected to set aside more resources to push engineers to tackle the problems that are keeping the renewable energy industry from expanding at a higher rate.

As part of Google’s renewable energy efforts, the company has pledged to adhere to the firm standards of (1) providing additional renewable power generation to the nation (as opposed to shuffling around things like renewable energy certificates), and (2) only selecting projects that are scalable and have the highest possible impact on the renewable energy industry.

The contract with First Energy sets electricity supply rates at 4.19 cents per kilowatt hour (cents/kWh), and will last from May this year until March 2014. Expected savings for on electric supply is about 23 percent for residents and about 26 percent for typical small businesses, compared to the current rates of the area’s utility, Ameren. The savings doesn’t reflect a 23 percent or 26 percent savings on total electric bills, since delivery and transmission charges are separated from the electric supply rate (what electric customers can shop around for).

Unlike in most of the areas that voted for electric aggregation last November, residents and businesses in the unincorporated Sangamon County voted against plan. In an effort to please all communities, residents and businesses in unincorporated Sangamon County are able to choose on their own whether or not they’d like to participate. All other residents and small businesses will automatically be switched to First Energy unless they opt out.

Residents and Businesses Can Save Even More by Shopping on Their Own

What many residents and businesses in the Sangamon County area don’t realize is that there is potential for even more savings. Customers can still shop around on their own to find even lower rates, but must opt out of the aggregation program first. Ameren is currently sending out “opt-out” postcards to all account holders in the area. When customers opt out, they will continue to receive their electric supply from Ameren until they choose their own retail electricity provider.

Customers that have already chosen a retail electricity provider will not be affected and will continue to receive their electric supply from the provider they had previously signed up with.

Here at ElectricityRates.com, we make finding a retail electricity provider with lower rates a very simply process: Just type your zip code into the orange box at the top of this page, click “Compare” and then select Ameren as your utility. The tool is free, and if you find a provider for you, you can easily make the switch by clicking on your plan of choice and filling out a simple online form.

Learn more about comparing retail electricity provider and plans.

Just Energy’s Affinity Program is offered to the retail electricity provider’s commercial customers. These programs are established as partnerships and are designed to generate funds for an organization while offering discounted energy offers to members or employees of the organization.  Stevens Institute of Technology will be able to create revenue when students, employees, alumni, and local community residents sign up for Just Energy’s electricity or natural gas plans for their homes. These students, employees, alumni, and local community residents benefit through the retail electricity provider’s exclusive offers on electricity and natural gas plans, which offer lower rates than the local default utility, PSEG.

The retail electricity provider’s carbon offset initiative “JustGreen^TM Lifestyle” will also be introduced with Stevens Institute of Technology. This program offers the college’s students and employees unique green solutions that reduce environmental footprints through carbon offsets generated from green project facilities across the nation.  Just Energy has invested over $70 million in green energy through a highly diverse portfolio of carbon offset and renewable energy projects across the nation.

“Stevens is always looking for ways to reduce its carbon footprint,” said Stevens Institute of Technology President Nariman Farvardin in a recent press release. “We were excited to hear about this partnership with Just Energy, which will help Stevens and its extended community to better protect and preserve the environment.”

Learn more about Just Energy and their electricity services.

This may be hard to believe, but in deregulated areas, utilities can’t profit from the sale of electricity supply. In fact, they purchase electricity at wholesale rates from a generation company to sell back to you at the same cost. Since they can’t profit from supply, there’s no incentive for the utility to find the best rates for you or to keep you as a customer for the supply portion of your bill.

So how do utilities make money? From distribution and transmission. In other words, the delivery of your electricity, as well as maintaining wires, poles, and meters that transmit the electricity to your home or business.

Will the Utility Charge More for Distribution and Transmission if I Switch?

Absolutely Not.

Distribution and transmission fees will stay the same no matter who supplies the electricity. Generally, there will be a flat fee for processing, taxes and other miscellaneous charges, and a rate that is charged for distribution that is based on how much electricity you use. Generally, the distribution rate is around 2 or 3 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). So, if you use 500 kWh, your distribution charge should be somewhere around $10-$20.

Will My Utility Help Me Find a New Provider?

Generally, no. Some states’ utility commissions have programs with purposes of educating consumers as well as providing them with a list of available suppliers in their areas. However, most don’t post the providers’ available rates and plans. That’s why companies such as ElectricityRates.com came about. We’re here to present to you current rates and plans of some of the best retail electricity providers available to you.

Get started by using our FREE Compare & Switch tool at the top of this page. With the tool, you can compare providers and switch online. We’ll never charge you, and we’ll never ask for your credit card information. We’re simply here to help you make the best, most informed choice.