Here in Texas, we have a totally deregulated power delivery system. What that means is there are dozens of power company providers out there, all of whom want your initial business.
If you come from a background of only one power provider (KP&L anyone?) then this whole deregulated concept is puzzling. It took me years of overpaying for electricity to figure out I could power-company shop every year, or less! That way, if you keep changing companies, between the two lowest, with the best customer service histories, you tend to get the lowest possible rates.
The catch is, the company with the cheapest rate for a "new customer" will not offer you a great rate to renew. So much for customer loyalty, I guess!
So if that is how the game is played, I can play it too. There is a website, powertochoose.org that all the companies list their teaser rates on, and all their plans. It has all the legal details worked out, so you are not getting slammed, etc. And you can compare and pick your plan from all the offerings.
Since the plan I chose last year is about to expire, I went shopping for a new plan, and a new power company. Easy! We should get a better plan rate this weekend, and we will do a plan just long enough to see us through winter into spring (6mo). Then we play roulette again, and pick a summer plan from whoever has the best rate then. By doing this, we can expect to roughly halve our electricity bill from what it would be if we stayed with the same company every year.
Hey, I never said the deregulation system made sense, only that I eventually learned how to game the system!
We just have the one power company here. So no roulette for us.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't choices; we get the company that's available and that's that. Don't like it...tough. Same with phone companies; so much for regulation.
ReplyDeleteWow, I wish we had a system like that!
ReplyDelete