Should I lock my power rate in?
 

Ok I'm really stupid about this kind of stuff..so that said.
Right now I am getting my power from Penn power at a rate of $7.49 per KW hr.
I am not on a budget.
I got an offer from First Energy, a competing power company, to lock my rate in for the next 2 1/2 years at a rate of $6.99 per KW hr. Also not on a budget.

Now if in that time my original provider, Penn power, lowers their rate to below my lock of $6.99 PKWH with First Energy, it won't matter and I'm stuck with $6.99 for the rest of my term.

If for some reason First Energies rate goes below my lock, I can re-negotiate my rate with them, but I think that extends my term again for another 2 1/2 year deal.

Can anybody share any experiences with this kind of stuff? I did this with my gas company and got burned( no pun) pretty bad.

What say ye wise oracle?

You have a choice in power company?!?!? Sonofa ........

I think First Energy is a "broker" really.

nobody? really?

Are you sure it is not $0.0699/KWH?

$6.99/KWH would be very very very excessive.

Speedy:)

I have some deep, deep concerns about the upcoming "deregulation" of electric power. How did the telecommunications "deregulation" work out for you guys? Cheaper phone bills and better service? Yeah, right.......

Next: Water supply "deregulation."

I would jump at .069 per KWH. You can't touch that in this area. My rate usually runs around .10 per KWH or more and that is through a member owned co-op.

TX "deregulated" electric power in 2002 and it's a frickin mess (IMHO anyway). You have wholesalers, retailers, fixed rates, variable rates and in this area alone I must have 100 different plans available and few are actually apples/apples comparisons and you better read the fine print very carefully. And by the way, our rates have gone nothing but up and service nothing but down. If you have billing issues you call your "retailer", if you have power issues you call your "wholesaler" and sometimes you just throw up....

See now that's got me thinking too Jack. There is talk of shutting down two coal fired plants in Eastern Ohio. I'm in western PA. So I'm sure, as they all buy power from each other around here, that it will effect my price as well.

+1

Now you have a single wholesaler selling power to the resellers who then sell it on to me. Since there is only one wholesaler, everyone has their own marked up rates. So all this "competition" is really artificial. Just a different company marking up the same product. Only people doing better are the resellers.

Ah yes, good ol' degregulation. It's been a real wonder for Texas! Not.

Predicted brown outs coming this summer. Oh boy.

damn this is getting depressing.

Top tier in LA is $0.35/KWh

Supe, you have totally forgetten what AT&T was like before the breakup.

Here is a clue, from Saturday Night Live

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1329361580.jpg

Yeah.....there was a brief power deregulation event in California a few years ago that didn't leave many happy campers.

For the most part, we (the people) built the transmission and distribution grids and nearly all the generation facilities (certainly all the dams), and now we want to have private companies using these systems (which we paid for) to sell us our electricity at a profit? I guess there's one born every minute.

And again, the really cool "deregulation" thing in out future is the water supply. "They" REALLY REALLY want to get their hands on that.

I remember SNL and I remember Ma Bell. One was a utility that built a communications infrastructure system, and the other was a parody/comedy. Now......I accept that in PARF there is little difference in these subtle distinctions but in the real world, the difference is actual.

I'm paying $0.089/ kWh, which is very good for this part of Texas. $0.069 is a good rate. Locking it for a couple of years is pretty darn good. I do not expect that energy prices are going to be going down anytime soon. And yes, the EPA is pushing to shutdown many powerplants around the nation, without concern for if it will hurt grid stability.

You guys should let Enron run your power grid - they'll do a great job!

Supe, they didn't fully deregulate in California. I was involved in that business. They cut all long term contracts for the electric producers, then forced fixed regulated rates on the utilities for the people. It ended up just like gasoline when price controls were instituted by Carter.

You really don't know anything about the power gen business. Most of the transmission systems were privately built. Most power generation in this country has been privately owned but heavily regulated. That continues to this day. "The People" if you are meaning "The Government" did not build it. Yes, many dams in the late 1920's and 1930's were government built.

LOL!

Dave, I am somewhat regretful for raising these issues in your thread and you'd be righteous to chastise me, but I couldn't help it. Electric power deregulation scares me a great deal.

I have been in the public works construction business for more than twenty years now, which includes substantial electric power infrastructure. I stood in the main powerhouse at Grand Coulee with SIX, count 'em....SIX 50-foot diameter generators, each one capable of powering a city like Seattle or Portland. Two would power Los Angeles.

Each time I have been in contact with people who understand this specific industry, I have asked a simple question. How will electric power deregulation benefit the residential consumer? Nobody........NOBODY has suggested to me a single benefit to the simple residential consumer. Electric power deregulation is about lowering costs for huge power-consuming facilities like aluminum rolling plants, while raising prices for small customers.

My advice......bend over......it might hurt less.

Why should residential consumers be subsidized by the commercial customers? Back to the AT&T issue, long distance was kept high to subsidize local rates.

[QUOTE=Superman;6560961
Next: Water supply "deregulation."[/QUOTE]

I'm on a well, not sure how much more deregulated I can get than that :)

I would ask the opposite question.

When telecommunications was "deregulated" in the 1980's, the public got stuck with local access infrastructure and costs, while long distance calling was "privatized." That's where the profits were.

History will continue to repeat itself.

The public was "stuck" with the real costs of the local infrastruture. They were no longer subsidized by long distance.

Exactly. "Privatization" took away the best revenues, and used the public "local" infrastructure which, better stated is "the nation-wide grid of existing telecommunications" infrastructure. The gubmit was left with the costly and low-revenue local access calling. Brilliant.

That same strategy is now at work toward privatizing utilities like power and (later) water. All so that the private firms can achieve their benevolent goal of reducing our costs. The impact on our costs is predictable, but it ultimately cannot be stopped because there is so much money to be made using infrastructure already in place at public cost, and because utilities are things we virtually cannot stop buying.

top tier PG&E for us is $.48/kwh. we are into the top tier in the summer with AC and pool pump running. We are definately going solar soon.

You rail against all of this, yet, I now have a $30 phone bill per month including long distance to anywhere in the US, Canada, most of Europe, etc. If we still had the original AT&T setup, this would not exist. What again is the problem with competition?

I have 2 bills in my electric rate: 1) local delivery charge, 2) Electric generation rate. Part 1) is regulated and is a fixed cost per kWh delivered. Part 2) is what I'm contracting with my choice of provider.

So, Supe, what are you paying per kWh?

We already have it.

My experience with it is about the same as yours - utter confusion. With us it's gas and electricity. They are both come from the same producers no matter who eventually retails them, so it's just a matter of the middle men playing monopoly and I don't understand their game. On the theory that the more middlemen there are the less efficient the service, I've gone with a strategy of buying from the reseller who is closest to the producer, when I can find out who that is.

Similar option in MD. I figure the savings by switching and it was a dollar or so a month a most. Not worth it to me.

Eight cents. Here, we have no decisions to make. Eight cents.

Thanks to the moderators for not moving this thread. Again, my apologies to Dave for the hijack. I will not continue to beat this dead horse on this thread except to say that wdfifteen is correct. Our gas and electricity will continue to come from the same sources. Privatization is simply the insertion of some profit-making middlemen. Sure, it's a little more complicated than that, since those middlemen can "package" special rate agreements with high-volume users, at the expense of low-volume users (like you and me).

Outta here......

Ok so through the haze of other topics, I'm getting the idea from ya'll that lockin it up is not a bad idea.

"Privatization" took away the best revenues, and used the public "local" infrastructure which, better stated is "the nation-wide grid of existing telecommunications" infrastructure. The gubmit was left with the costly and low-revenue local access calling.

Privatize profit, socialize risk.

The government doesn't own the phone system! Or the electric utility. There are some cities where the city owns the electric utility, but this is not generally the case. Most of the time, water is municipal, but not in my area. We have a regulated, private company which supplies our water.

Yes Dave. With plants closing and dams being deliberately breeched, it looks like power generation is not on the rise. This will help drive prices and profits up. Methinks you should not bet on energy prices to fall.

Just had to lock in my rate here at the new house. .065kwh I think with fees and everything it averaged out to .107kwh I had been with CP&L my whole life and didn't want to change, but when they started hitting us with .147kwh thats when I lost it and had to change last month. Too bad for them, they should have treated their loyal customers better.

It's funny. The local utility is Reliant, and they are owned by NRG. My "provider" is Pennywise Power. Also owned by NRG. The rates are $0.089 (Pennywise) vs about $0.13-$0.14/kWh (Reliant). Why would I pay the same company more money?