I live in a state that has deregulated electric energy markets too. And I’ve done a bit of research in this regard. Bottom line: I’m staying with my old, regulated power company.
Now the details. Every alternative power company that I looked into looked like a legalized scam. These companies are not regulated. So after their initial teaser period they can charge whatever they want.
Power bills doubling or tripling after the teaser period ends have been reported. And good luck getting through to the cancellation department.
Do your research. But avoid online rating sites that have direct links to the companies they are reviewing. Those sites are just fronts.
Disclaimer #1: You can get good deals if you’re nimble, and jump from company to company when the teaser periods are over. But I’m too old for that.
Disclaimer #2: I found no good alternative energy companies in my state. Your state might have better options than I do.
Why be so vague in your second sentence when you are Fort Worth dude from Texas?
Being without power for a day is inconvenient but being without power for a week can be an actual problem.
I have a questions for those more financially savvy than I.
Seek help from a high school student who has taken math and business courses. Have the student plot out a nice graph and make sure they show all their work.
I live in a red town that doesn’t give choices. Go figure.
I would get a three month provider, then pop for a 12 month provider.
There in Texas, you have “Power to Choose” to get you your best rates.
https://www.powertochoose.com/
My three-year contract at 10.8 cents ended this week. I had to sign a new one-year for 14 cents. Natural gas prices have been at all-time lows so something is fishy.
Where are these alternative power companies getting the electricity? They don’t have power plants. They are buying it from the legacy monopolies (DTE, Consumers Energy, and probably from Canada Hydro in Michigan). How do they get the power to your house? They lease capacity on the same power lines and again from the legacy transmission monopolies (ITC and DTE here in Michigan). How can the possibly be less expensive in the long term?
We don’t have that option at my house in AZ or my houses in CA. AZ electricity is really cheap, but California has one hell of a racket if you don’t pay attention. Time of Use billing is what screws most in CA, they forced me on it for 3 months when I built my new house and got power. It was $100 just to have a porch light on for A MONTH. After Switching back to Standard Billing my bill for both houses combined is in the $300-$400 range in the summertime.
There is sales tax on electricity in Texas.
Residential customers are exempt from paying sales tax on electricity. Commercial customers in Texas pay sales tax of 6.25 to 8.25% on their electricity bill. Your business may also pay a city tax depending on where you live. Texas is facing a crunch in its electricity supply because of a massive build-out of heavily subsidized wind and solar energy. Renewable subsidies force reliable resources like natural gas, coal and nuclear to sit idle for hours on end, making it harder to recoup costs and stifling investment. So it’s either pass the loss on to certain commercial enterprises or start taxing residential users.
wy69
We have a choice in Texas and I’d would suggest that you stay away from variable rate contracts. I took one and really got screwed when rates went up.
First time go short term, a year is good. See what’s included in rate, there’s more than just electricity like transmission of it which will cost as much or more then meterbrental . some rates will roll it in to the contract some won’t and quote a really low rate. Choosing a carrier is tricky. Consider doing this every time your contract comes up for renewal.
If you are in Fort Worth then you are Oncor for T&D their monthly fee $4.23 is fixed by the legislature and they get $0.051248 per delivered kWh.
So what you are asking is what REP should you use. The Retail Energy Provider is not a power producer they are the middle man from the wholesaler to you the consumer the wholesaler is ERCOT who actually bought the power from power producers and sold it to the REP who marks it up even more about three times what the wholesale price was.
So regardless of who you choose you will pay 5.1248 cents per kWh PLUS what the REP charges you right now it’s in the 8 cent range. That’s $80 per megawatt hour.
Dreal-time Bus Avg wholesale from ERCOT is $20.02 right now this second.
You can see the delayed data here. Along with all the other public grid metrics and graphs. You will notice as solar @35% of the total grid load right now the price plummeting inversely as gas turbines sound down. Why? Because solar can be sold at a profit for $12 per MWh gas needs at least $30 at $3.50 MMBTU gas rates which is one fifth what the retail gas rate is right now.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
You can get the best deal for Oncor T&D affiliated REPs here.
https://www.powertochoose.org/
To answer your questions on timing right now the weather is relatively mild so peak demand is in the 75,000MW range in July or August it will be 83,000+ rates will spike due to gas turbines setting the peak energy price point which is then used to compute the average price point to charge for fixed rate REPs. It’s 13.4 cents per kWh right now with T&D charges included this is a good deal. It will be 19+ in peak summer it will fall again in the mild fall and rise in Dec to February as gas prices rise with winter demand.
Wish I could give you some wise advice.
But I live in NYS and Albany is allowing our foreign owned electricity provider to screw customers silly.