Electricity shopping links
Readers have asked: 1)Where can you go online to find out what BGE's prices will be after May 31? 2) Where can you go online to compare different electric offers?
1) BGE's prices for June through September are here. The summer generation rate is 12.242. Add .4 cents and change for transmission and you get close to 12.7 cents for the "price to compare" for summer. (Note -- this is different from the ANNUAL price to compare on your BGE bill, which smooths out seasonal differences.)
2) The best list of independent electricity vendors is put together by the Office of People's Counsel and can be found here.
Note that OPC's price to compare includes the ~.4 cent transmission charge. Its listed BGE price to compare is too low and probably based on dated data -- 11.82 cents. That's substantially less than the 12.7 cents that BGE's price will hit this summer.
Here is OPC's site for natural-gas shopping.
BGE's list of residential suppliers is here. But it doesn't include prices; you have to link or call to the vendors to get prices. And some of the Web-quoted prices look very old and high. BGE's site also doesn't include third parties reselling suppliers' products.
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Comments
The real question is will I lose the PeakRewards credits if I chose another supplier?
Posted by: mapuser | March 23, 2009 5:01 PM
Thanks for the feedback. However, that data only goes through September for electricity. Where can we find BGE's rate after September? This info is necessary to know if the WGES contract is worth it, e.g. if BGE pricing will drop from September through April, it may not be worth it. As someone who has baseboard heat in most rooms, my winter spending well eclipses my summer spending and is why I more concerned with that. FYI, I used WGES once before a few years ago and saved a hundred bucks or so, but want to confirm I will do the same now.
Posted by: JM | March 23, 2009 5:08 PM
JM: As the column states, BGE hasn't bought all its juice post-Sept. 30, so nobody knows what the price will be. WGES projects it'll be around 12 cents, which sounds correct because BGE has already purchased 75 percent of the post-Sept. 30 kilowatts. Hope this helps. JH
Posted by: Jay | March 23, 2009 5:22 PM
Mapuser: No, you will NOT get kicked out of Peak Rewards if you switch. Peak Rewards is a BGE program; you're not firing BGE the utility; you're just choosing a different electricity supplier. JH
Posted by: Jay | March 23, 2009 5:23 PM
Jay: Thanks for the clarification. I had not read the column (was just reading the blog) so did not see that key info. Thanks for pointing it out and for the continued coverage of the lovely electricity situation we have here in Maryland.
Posted by: JM | March 23, 2009 9:16 PM
What is BGE's "price to compare" for customers will time-of-use billing
(RL-2)?
Posted by: MikeA | March 26, 2009 8:15 PM