Here's an update to a recent post on what BGE's prices will be for the 12 months beginning June 1. First, a correction. When Public Service Commission chair Doug Nazarian posted BGE's upcoming summer price in the blog's comments section, I thought he was including the transmission charge. Turns out he was including only the price for generating the electricity. So the number I gave for the BGE's upcoming June - September standard price, 11.333 cents per kilowatt hour, is a little too low. Including transmission, says BGE's Mark Case, it'll be 11.78 cents, which is about 5 bucks more a month for a typical user.

BGE's total summer price, adding up all the charges of delivery, transmission and generation, will still be about 5 or 6 percent less than in the summer of 2009. (It'll go up over what it is now because summer prices are almost always higher.)

But here's the real news: According to numbers supplied by Case, BGE's total standard electricity price (including delivery) starting Oct. 1 could be about 10 percent lower than what it is during the current "non-summer" period of October 2009 through May 2010. BGE hasn't bought all its electricity yet for the next non-summer period, but they've locked up 75 percent and have projections for the rest. And Case thinks prices will keep dropping into 2011. "If you look toward the longer term, I think we're headed toward 9-cent power," he said, referring to generation and transmission costs only.

What that means to shoppers: Take Dominion Retail's offer of 10.37 cents for generation and transmission to avoid BGE's upcoming summertime generation/transmission price of 11.78 cents, as noted above. (That switch will save more than $10 a month this summer.) Then start shopping again next fall and look for even lower prices. If you want to switch before the Dominion deal expires at the end of the year, not a problem. Unlike other companies offering alternatives to BGE's standard product, Dominion lets you terminate early without penalty.