Posted on 08/01/2023 10:25:29 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA
Background: Pennsylvania allows you to choose electricity providers. It used to be, years ago, that you had no choice. Whatever company that served your area was the only choice. Now people have a default billing company and then you can choose a provider other than the default, if desired. I take a few minutes every three to six months when my contract is about to expire to search a database of providers and select the best available rate. I suspect most people in PA don’t do this. People are generally lazy.
Now I usually don’t open junk mail, but I recently changed my electricity provider and this envelope caught my attention. It was from CleanChoice Energy. I’m not sure they actually generate enough electricity to serve the number of customers they claim. I went to their website and they boast 200,000 customers. That’s across multiple states from what I can tell. It seems to me that it may be possible to build a small solar or wind farm, connect it to the grid and then bill customers for electricity that you don’t produce. They certainly don’t produce electricity 24/7, so other providers must make up the difference.
The mailer was filled with all kinds of fantastic claims about clean energy. While not completely hidden, the rate for such clean energy production was in small print. It was $0.15/kWh. Since I recently signed a new contact, I remember what I am currently paying. It’s $0.087/kWh. (Which is up about a penny from my previous contract.)
CleanChoice Energy doesn’t provide any price comparison data. Instead there is a form with my billing account number and everything filled out, plus a postage paid envelope. All one needs to do is sign, seal and mail. I’ve got to think there’s a ton of brain dead people that would pay nearly 40% more for electricity if they dare open their junk mail. After all it’s summer, err, climate change and we are all going to boil.
They provide an offer and disclose the price, customers can buy it or not. Looks like good fodder for the bin to me but not a scam, per se.
I think the scam is the part that they don’t and cannot supply electricity to their all customers. I’m willing to bet the entire business is built on government subsidies and grants.
In our area, you can opt for wind...but of course it'll cost you more. I'll take my old RG&E every day of the week.
I specifically choose a provider that uses coal or natural gas to generate electricity. Well, not really, I choose the lowest rate and it is always a combination of coal or natural gas - both massively abundant in PA.
If you want to stop receiving mailings from any organization that provides you with a postage paid envelope, stuff the envelope with folded aluminum foil which is denser than the paper products the company provided. The computers at the post office will weigh the envelope and will charge the owner of the postage paid permit for six or seven ounces. If that permit holder figures it out, she will never send you and other unwanted mailing. If she does not figure it out, well you still have plenty of Reynolds Wrap.
Green is the new word for SCAM
We changed providers and they promised “points” which could be used for some stupid crap China merchandise then made the points expire before we could accumulate enough to use them. Lesson learned. I don’t know what you will get that is very much better than Southern California Edison or PG&E and it isn’t worth the effort to find out.
I shopped by price first, and after narrowing the choices down on that criteria, went with the nuclear plant supplier.
Many of the companies that sell electric have no generating capabilities at all. Some buy the excess electric produced by home solar panels and excess from existing power companies or solar farms or wind farms. Dependent upon complex computer modeling and real time data.
Also got “Second Notice” mail from Clean Energy. Put it in the trash. My current price is 0.899 from Better Buy.
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