Dominion Retail undercuts BGE's standard price
If you haven't switched to an alternative electricity supplier yet, Dominion Retail is offering a good deal to BGE customers. At 10.37 cents per kilowatt-hour for electric supply and cross-country transmission (delivery by BGE is another 2.37 cents), Dominion has the lowest price most BGE customers have seen in a while. The price locks in from now through 2010, and there is no cancellation penalty. A typical house ought to save $10 or more a month.
(Attention: If you switch to Dominion you WON'T lose the $100 BGE credit just obtained by the Public Service Commission as a result of a venture by Constellation Energy, the utility's parent. The credit is applied through your BGE delivery account, which doesn't change no matter who your electricity vendor is. So you can basically double the O'Malley/PSC credit by switching to Dominion.)
UPDATE: Switching to Dominion, WGES or any other competitive supplier does not affect the Peak Rewards you get from BGE cycling off your AC in the summer, either.
In comparing its price to BGE's price, Dominion's marketing department seems a little messed up. They claim 10.37 cents is 12 percent less than BGE's "price to compare" of 11.97 cents. Actually it's 13 percent less. But at this point on the calendar, BGE's price to compare is misleading. That's because 11.97 cents is a blended price to compare for the 12 months starting June 1 -- a period that includes both BGE's high summer rates and lower non-summer rates. But summer is over, so a better point of comparison should be BGE's non-summer price that started Oct. 1 and goes through May 31 -- 11.527 cents.
Got that? No? Don't worry. Dominion's price is still 10 percent less than what BGE's standard price will
be from now through May. That's worth the trouble of switching. It ought to save about $10 per month. People who heat with electricity may save more. And while we don't know what BGE's standard price will be starting June 1, it's still likely to be somewhat higher than Dominion's 10.37 cents because BGE bought a substantial amount of electricity for the period last year, when prices were high.
If you already switched to Washington Gas Energy Services' long-term, fixed offer like I did, Dominion's offer is better. But the WGES termination fees probably make it not worth your while to switch -- you'll spend more for the switching penalty than you'll save with Dominion. WGES is offering 10.9 cents to BGE customers for 12 months and 10.2 cents through May. I'd still go with the 10.37 cents from Dominion, because that lets you lock in for an extra 7 months, including summer when you'll be burning juice to run the AC.
Comments
Thanks for the insight Jay! Any recommendations on gas suppliers?
Posted by: Gerard Dang | November 5, 2009 7:48 AM
Hi,
I'm on budget billing with BGE. Would I be able to switch to Dominion and still be on budget billing?
Posted by: Mo | November 5, 2009 8:32 AM
Mo -- Yes, you can switch to Dominion or anybody else if you're on budget billing. But people who are on time-of-use plans cannot switch.
Gerard: I'm still floating with BGE's month-to-month gas price. I was hoping WGES's long-term fixed gas rate would come down even more after hurricane season, but it hasn't.
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 8:46 AM
Thank you for the helpful information.
Posted by: NotableM | November 5, 2009 8:49 AM
Interesting post, but incredibly distracting headline.
"Undercut's"? Seriously? Are there no editors left?
Posted by: Tony T | November 5, 2009 8:50 AM
Thanks for the tip Jay. I signed up this morning, let's see how much I save since I heat with a heat-pump.
Posted by: Bucktail | November 5, 2009 9:04 AM
Thanks Tony T: Actually, no. My blog posts are not edited, so you guys have to do the job!
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 9:06 AM
What about if you signed up for peak rewards and receive the credit? Would I need to switch back to BG&E in June?
Posted by: Shawn | November 5, 2009 9:48 AM
Thanks for the info Jay. As most people have forgoten, and the nay sayers do not want you to remember is that BGE was to be the "Provider of Last Resort" meaning we were suposed to purchase our electricty from outside providers and BGE would only distrubute the power to our homes. But the forward thinking, NOT, Gov. Glendenning and crew set it up to fail when they also forced BGE to roll back prices at the same time. I do not thing there was a singl company that was able to come in and offer power at the price BGE had to reduce it to, in fact I believe the companies that did try to come in asked the PSC to have BGE RAISE their price so that they, the new providers, would be able to sell power here at a profit. Seems to me the alarm bells should have began to ring back then.
Posted by: Robert M. | November 5, 2009 10:13 AM
Hey Shawn: The answer is no. Swtiching to Dominion, WGES or anybody else will NOT affect your peak rewards credits from BGE's peak-demand management program. You'll still get the credits no matter who your supplier is.
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 10:35 AM
Hi Jay,
I'm looking at my BGE September 2009 bill. under the heading BGE Electric Delivery Service, Distribution Charge, I am charged .0258/ KWH.
is the "cross-country transmission (delivery by BGE is another 2.37 cents" added in addition to the Distribution Charge: (2.58 + 2.37)/ kwh?
Posted by: nestee | November 5, 2009 12:44 PM
Hi Nestee: Good question. The distribution charge and the delivery charge are the same. Don't add them together. Some months the dist. charge varies from 2.37 cents. I haven't investigated the reasons, but I don't think they are nefarious. There are other, minor tariffs that BGE gets reimbursed for.
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 12:52 PM
Jay: Maybe prices are different according to zip code, but in Millersville, WGES floating gas prices have been cheaper than BGE for some time. It's 4 cents cheaper for November.
https://www.wges.com/portal/learn_more.php?offer_id=27915
Posted by: MikeA | November 5, 2009 1:00 PM
Hi MikeA: I was referring to WGES's fixed natural gas price, which is 77 cents for 1 year and 90 cents for 2 years. BGE's floating price this month is 62.99 cents. I've never compared WGES's floating price w/ BGE's floating price over time. I figured they couldn't be that different. If you know otherwise tell us.
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 1:11 PM
Jay: If I switch to Dominion through the end of 2010, is there a penalty to switch back to BGE or another supplier at the end of that period?
Posted by: Paula S | November 5, 2009 1:41 PM
Paula: No. That's one of the good things about the Dominion deal. There is no penalty to cancel. And there is no fee to switch back to BGE's standard product or anybody else. And Dominion is a huge, reputable company. So this is pretty risk-free.
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 1:48 PM
Here's WGES comparison chart for floating rates.
Bill Month WGES Customer
Price BGE
Rate
Nov 2009 $0.590/therm $0.630/therm
Oct 2009 $0.550/therm $0.591/therm
Sep 2009 $0.450/therm $0.499/therm
Aug 2009 $0.490/therm $0.556/therm
Jul 2009 $0.550/therm $0.617/therm
Jun 2009 $0.550/therm $0.571/therm
May 2009 $0.520/therm $0.530/therm
Apr 2009 $0.550/therm $0.579/therm
Mar 2009 $0.790/therm $0.846/therm
Feb 2009 $0.890/therm $0.897/therm
Jan 2009 $1.030/therm $1.037/therm
Dec 2008 $1.040/therm $1.046/therm
The first price in each pair is WGES, the 2nd is BGE. In November, WGES is 4 cents cheaper/ therm.
Posted by: MikeA | November 5, 2009 2:32 PM
I have time-of-use rates, and use roughly half my electricity at non-peak times. Is it worth it to switch?
Posted by: Bill in Columbia | November 5, 2009 2:35 PM
Hey Bill S. in Columbia: I'm pretty sure Time of Use customers cannot switch. The alternative suppliers don't want to hassle with TOU purchasing/pricing. However, my impression is that TOU is not that great a deal the way BGE has it set up, anyway. Might be worth it to dump TOU and go w/ Dominion.
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 2:40 PM
NOTE NOTE NOTE>>>>> Jay Hancock is wrong!!!! If you are a TOU customer, you CAN switch to another provider, whether you're residential or commercial. I know, I am an energy consultant and have been in these markets for gas and electric ever since there inception in 1997. Stop giving your readers bad information Mr Hancock, you should know this stuff if you're gonna blog it.
Posted by: Bob K | November 5, 2009 3:11 PM
For gas suppliers. If you are a heat load, in other words, you heat with gas, you should go to WGES and enroll for the one year deal at 71Cents a therm. Its a good price to protect the heat load which is about 70 to 80% of the annual gas usage.
Posted by: Bob K | November 5, 2009 3:16 PM
Bill & Bob K. I asked BGE rate czar Wayne Harbaugh whether BGE households can get time-of-use plans from competitive suppliers. He says while it's technically possible he doesn't know of anybody offering it. I've never heard of anybody else besides BGE offering TOU to households. Bob lemme know if you know an alternative supplier offering residential TOU now. Here is what Harbaugh said:
Jay -
Customers can shop if they are on flat rates or BGE's TOU rates. I assume the real question is will they get TOU rates.
The rates that customers will get from suppliers will depend on the offering from the supplier. If a residential customer has a TOU meter we will provide the supplier with TOU readings so that the customer could be billed on TOU rates. I do not know of any retail suppliers that are currently offering TOU rates to residential customers, but there is nothing that would stop them from doing that.
Likewise, for our larger customers where we collect hourly usage data, all of the hourly data is forwarded to the retail supplier to bill as they want to. I have heard that suppliers are offering a lot of different time variant rate forms to commercial customers including hourly real time pricing.
Wayne Harbaugh
Posted by: Jay Hancock | November 5, 2009 4:00 PM
Jay,
Where are you getting the WGES floating (monthly) gas rates from the chart you posted? I've been comparing WGES and BGE's rates for a couple years now, and have almost always found WGES's month-to-month rate to be higher. WGES's site today (11/19/09) shows a "Price Flexibility" price of $0.69/therm, versus BGE's November rate of $0.6299/therm.
Maybe WGES offers multiple rates. I'm just entering in my zip code to display the rates.
Hey Darrell: The WGES floating rates posted here were from commenter MikeA. Can't vouch for their accuracy. -- Jay
Posted by: Darrell | November 19, 2009 2:59 PM