Electricity Texas Now

Despite the lowest electric rates in Texas in more than five years, many Texans are still overpaying for electricity because they haven’t checked their energy rate, and compared it with competing energy suppliers.

If you haven’t checked your energy rate since 2008, when electric rates reached historic highs, you’re probably paying too much for electricity.  In the summer of 2008, spiking natural gas prices and record usage pushed Texas electric rates above 20¢ per kilowatt-hour.  To avoid further price spikes, may customers locked-in rates of 17¢, 18¢, or even higher, to give themselves some price security until the markets calmed down, and prices started dropping.

But many Texans haven’t compared their energy rate as prices have fallen over the past two years.  As a result, even though most Texans can find a low, fixed rate in the 9¢ per kilowatt-hour range, millions of Texans are paying inflated rates of 15¢ per kilowatt-hour, if not more.

Another reason many Texans are overpaying for electricity is that they’ve never checked their energy rate since competition started in 2002.  They’ve always stayed with the successor to their old monopoly utility: the so-called “incumbent” provider like TXU in the Dallas area, or Reliant Energy in the Houston area.  For these customers who have never shopped, the incumbent providers typically charge higher rates with more built-in profit — typically at least 5¢ per kilowatt-hour above the lowest rate they offer to new customers — because they don’t expect these non-shoppers to compare their rates against competitors.  These higher incumbent prices can raise bills by over $50 per month, or $600 per year.

That’s why you need to check your energy rate and shop for a lower rate using SaveOnEnergy.com, which provides Texans with the simplest way to compare the lowest energy rates in the market.  If you’re paying more than 12¢ per kilowatt-hour, you are simply paying too much money for electricity for no reason.  Even premium products like renewable energy or plans that guarantee price security for an extended 24 months are below 12¢ for most parts of Texas.  You can still enjoy the same reliable service from a vetted and screened energy provider when choosing a lower energy rate using SaveOnEnergy.com, all while saving hundreds of dollars per year.

From SaveOnEnergy.com

Texas electricity rates have significantly decreased over the last year or so, but not every consumer has taken advantage of this change. Since the Texas energy industry was deregulated, costs have become much more competitive and have therefore dropped significantly. These days, you can choose your own power provider, and more than that, you can lock in pricing for at least a year, for most companies. By locking in your rates now, you’ll save significant costs; costs are projected to rise as warm weather arrives and power usage surges.

Why it’s important to take advantage of “lock-in” rates

By locking in your rates before the warm weather arrives, you can be sure that you’ll keep the same low price you pay now — and that’s true even though costs are going to rise. So even though Texas power companies will be looking at reduced profit margins for customers like you, you’ll be basking in the knowledge that you are cool, collected — and saving money, too.

Make your decision based upon what’s in your best interests

Because competition is so fierce among power companies in Texas these days, the ball is literally in your court. Not only can you lock in a competitive rate by changing power companies as necessary (if your current provider has a higher rate than someone else in your area), but you can keep that competitively low rate, the lowest you can find, for at least a year. This will give you the ability to enjoy savings for at least the next 12 months, perhaps longer.

In addition, many companies will honor policies whereby if you sign up for a new carrier and those rates are higher than your current agreement, as long as you are within 60 days of your contract’s expiration date, you can finish carrying out the old agreement before the new one takes effect. And again, if you shop around for rates, you should be able to find some very competitive ones so that greatly increased costs are not an issue.

Additionally, if you are signing up for a new contract with another company and the rate is better than your current one, your new company should begin to honor your new price by the next full billing cycle. It’s also true that if you sign up with a fixed rate plan instead of a variable rate plan that is at least one year in length, you’ll keep these savings for the duration.

In Texas, you really can’t lose when it comes to having a Texas power company that’s as inexpensive as possible. Find the lowest rate in your area by taking advantage of Texas’ new laws in regard to deregulation and competition, and then lock in those rates so that the savings keep on coming. This is a great time of year to do it, because if you wait until warm weather months, you are necessarily going to pay higher rates simply because energy costs will be higher then.

from ChooseEnergy.com

It’s time to take advantage of the Texas power cost reduction that has seen Texas electric costs decrease significantly over the last year or so. Unfortunately, not all consumers have done so, yet. The are many reasons that these costs have dropped so much, but one of the biggest is because the Texas energy industry has become so competitive since deregulation.

Now, you have the power to choose an electric provider that you would prefer. You’ll be able to benefit and take advantage of the several offers that these Texas Retail Electric Providers are making in order to gain more clients. You can choose from different contracts and programs that will suit your needs, plus many offer many rewards for switching and paying your bills on time.  For example, Bounce Energy offers many of its customers a free companion airline ticket, movie tickets and bill credits just for paying the electric bill on time. Switching is easy and quick, will not have any effect on your services, and there will not be any power outage when the switch takes place. Plus, switching is free of charge!

If you are worried about anything negative happening if you do decide to switch, you can relax. Think back to when telephone companies became extremely competitive and were offering better rates for their services. Many people took advantage of these huge savings and still had quality. That’s because the same telephone lines were being used.

The only thing that really changed was the company that sent you a bill. So, in essence, there won’t be anything different between the scenario with the telephone or with the power company.

Isn’t it time that you took advantage of this deregulation and start saving some money? If you want to see how good the deals are, all you have to do is look online at www.ChooseEnergy.com. So, all this could be done in your leisure time, without interrupting any of your responsibilities. Doing a little research will show you exactly how much money you could save.

You’ll be happy to know that there are many competing Retail Electric Providers. In fact, each deregulated area in the state of Texas has a minimum of 10 providers. So, that puts a lot of power in your own hands to get the best contracts and the best prices for your home or your business.

From ChooseEnergy.com.

Spring officially starts in a few days, and it means it’s time for Texas electric customers to shop for a low electric rate before prices start rising with the summer heat.  SaveOnEnergy.com offers customers a quick and easy way to find and compare the lowest electric rates in Texas, so customers can take advantage of the low energy prices that come with spring.

Spring has always been one of the best times to shop for a low electric rate in Texas, for several reasons.  First, the spring months of March and April are known as “shoulder” months in the electric industry, during which time customers use less power.  Moderate spring weather means customers are not heating their homes for as many hours as they were doing in the winter, and thus are not using as much electricity, or burning as much natural gas (which drives energy prices).  But temperatures are also cool enough so that customers aren’t running air conditioners all day long, which spike electric usage during the summer months.

Since customers use less power during the spring, demand for electricity is lower during the spring, and prices fall with lower demand.

Read the entire article at SaveOnEnergy.com.

DALLAS — More than 1 million Texas consumers can now check online to find out how much electricity they’re using.

The Public Utility Commission announced Tuesday a new Web site that allows customers to manage residential and business bills by figuring out how much energy they used in 15-minute periods. The Web site is available to more than 1 million customers of Oncor Electric Delivery and CenterPoint Energy. Once American Electric Power begins installing smart meters later this year, the PUC says more than 6.3 million Texas customers will be able to manage electricity use through SmartMeterTexas.com. The Web site is designed for customers in competitive retail electric markets.

From Click2Houston.com.

In 2008, regulated utilities in Texas spent $87 million on energy efficiency programs, up from $73 million the year before, according to a PUC report. Together, the total energy savings from those projects are estimated at $372 million over the next decade.

Oncor Electric Delivery, which operates transmission lines in North Texas, spent almost $54 million on energy efficiency in 2008, the PUC reports. That year, ratepayers contributed 22 cents a month to the effort, compared with 89 cents today — although the PUC says that some earlier efficiency costs were embedded elsewhere in the transmission charge.

Oncor offers 31 efficiency programs for residents and businesses and claims to have reached more than 450,000 customers in the past seven years. There’s a waiting list to get its incentives on solar panels, a spokeswoman says, and last year’s funding to weatherize homes for low-income residents was exhausted by June.

In 2009, the Tarrant Regional Water District installed 1,157 solar panels, providing 70 percent of the building’s annual energy use. The district got an incentive check of $231,824.

Cleburne is overhauling its City Hall and another building used for the police and library. It’s a $9.2 million project, including lighting, air conditioning and water systems, and it’s financed with a loan from the state’s energy conservation office.

The city expects to pay off the note with $47,000 in annual savings on its electric bill, Assistant City Manager Rick Holden says. The efficiency incentives: $172,000 in grants.

“As a city, we have to make the economics work, because the environmental gains alone aren’t enough,” Holden says.

The PUC proposal would more than double spending on energy efficiency in four years, and there’s a question of whether enough worthy projects will emerge.

The Public Utility Commission on Thursday instructed Oncor to offer customers a free test of their smart meters, rather than charging the usual $25 fee to send a worker to test an installed meter.

Regulations already allow each customer to get one free meter test every four years. Commissioner Ken Anderson suggested the clock reset when a customer gets a new meter, even if the customer has already had his old meter tested in the past few years. The other two commissioners agreed. Oncor charges customers $25 for subsequent meter tests.

So if someone has already been billed for a smart meter test , “there needs to be a refund of that or a credit back,” Anderson told executives with Oncor and its Houston counterpart, Centerpoint, during a PUC meeting.

Jim Greer, head of Oncor’s smart meter program, said it had conducted about 2,300 smart meter tests so far at customers’ request, and Oncor has billed about half of those customers. He agreed to refund those customers.

Of course, the tests aren’t actually free. The cost for the once-every-four-years test is part of the rate every customer pays to Oncor. PUC spokesman Terry Hadley said the rate has already been set. So if Oncor ends up doing far more free meter tests than expected, the company would have to ask the PUC to recoup those costs by hiking the rate later.

Commissioner Anderson also asked the utility executives how they are sorting out complaints that the old meters were misread during the meter switch.

Oncor’s Greer said, for about 0.86 percent of customers who have new meters, the worker who changed the meter read the old meter incorrectly. An incorrect reading leads to an incorrect bill.

Greer said each meter is read at the home and again at Oncor’s central service location. Now, Oncor is matching those readings to find any errors. He said the company has also begun photographing the old meter for a record of the final tally.

“While as a percentage of the total deployment, it’s not a huge percentage, the problem is in raw numbers it does sound like a big problem,” Anderson said. Oncor has found about 7,000 customers whose old meters were misread.

“It only matters if you’re the one that gets the misread,” said commissioner Donna Nelson.

The PUC also said Thursday it has hired a company to independently test smart meters. That company, Navigant Consulting, is working on a method to do the testing quickly.

From Texas Energy and Environment Blog.

The increased awareness regarding the adverse effects of carbon emissions and global warming has increased the popularity of alternative energy sources. These new energy sources provide cleaner, renewable and cheap electricity sources that can supply the energy needs of households, business establishments and industries.

Now more and more states like Texas, where energy deregulation is in full bloom, have provided their populace with the power to select providers for electricity in Houston, Dallas and other areas in Texas. Part of this includes not only the option to select the Texas electric company that will provide electricity, but they can also choose among companies that have partnered with producers using alternative energy sources.

Why is There a Need for Alternative Energy Resources

More and more electric companies are slowly introducing alternative energy sources as part of their main electricity production process. Still, many people do not understand the implication of such moves in their lives, even though they have been hearing “energy crises” issues clamored across the country and even across the globe.

Although people over the years are partly to be blamed, there is no need for finger pointing now. The key thing here is that people realize the need to use alternative energy sources — before it is too late. The world has been overly dependent on fossil fuels in generating the power they need and use in their everyday lives. However, this dependency only resulted to global warming, increase in pollution levels and the imminent dangers of climate change.

Now people has the option to take the next step and create a change — a change that will affect the way they live now, and the future that is in store for their children, and their children’s children. People now have the option for micro generation of renewable energy right in their own homes, or switch to utility companies that use alternative energy sources.

Read the entire article on Shop Texas Electricity Blog.