Confused about your electric rate?

Some typical issues that cause confusion about an electric rate are found below. Typically after a term agreement for a rate has expired the price switches to a variable price that changes month to month.

You may have signed up on a fixed price but when receiving your first bill you are immediately left feeling like the provider has scammed you into something not at all promised in their advertising.

We help with this type of problem and more. Please leave a comment below with your specific issue and we would be glad to help you out.

Common electric rate issues:

  • Fixed price is not really fixed after fuel surcharge increases because of rising energy costs tied to the cost of natural gas.
  • Fixed price switches to a variable price after contract expires.
  • Fixed price changes based on the date the meter is read rather than being locked in at time the customer calls to change providers.
  • Variable price is advertised as a much cheaper price compared o competition only to rise within the first month to be even more expensive than the competition you switched from.
  • You were advertised a competitive price but the price ended up being more expensive than who you were with previously.
Posted in Electricity Tips

Question about your electricity company?

Please comment below and let us know what your question is. One of our energy consultants will research the issue if necessary and comment with an answer.

Common issues are usually about confusion after signing up for an electric rate and then being billed differently than what was promised in the electric rate advertisement.

We handle researching these types of problems on a frequent basis so feel confident in leaving us your related problem as we probably have a good answer for you.

Posted in Electricity Tips

I changed Pennsylvania Electricity Companies and was not charged the quoted rate

Power LinesA very common problem in deregulated electricity utility markets is to be quoted the wrong electric rate by the Pennsylvania electricity salesmen. You get your first electric bill in the mail and it shows the total charges and even averages out the price of the electric rate in a per KWH rate.

What you will notice and what many people notice is the rate is not the same price compared to what the sales guy told you on the phone, behind a kiosk, TV, radio, or after knocking on your door.

Let me go ahead and warn you now, if you have someone knocking on your door to sell you electric service don’t do it. Wait and study the documentation they gave you and compare the price, terms of service, and energy contract with one of the established electric companies in PA.

What many Pennsylvania electric companies know they can get away with is to offer a variable teaser type of electric rate or a fixed rate that does not include all of the charges.

You think you will be paying much less but with a variable price they can jack that rate up on you after the first month regardless of the promises they made to you.

There is one electric company in PA that several hundred people have complained about in comments all over the web that promised savings over the incumbent electric provider in the area.

Home owners switched to this supposedly cheaper electric company based on the promise that the rate would be cheaper than the electric supplier in Pennsylvania they have been using for years.

What ended up happening is this electric company has been raising that price the same month or one month after sign up to a much higher electricity price compared with the company they switched away from.

When choosing a Pennsylvania electricity supplier make sure the company is a good solid electric company that does not have a history of bad reviews, customer dissatisfaction, and tricks throughout their energy agreement.

Our PA electric rate chart is a straight forward chart put together daily by a group of energy consultants. Our goal is to educate you as to which electric company in PA can give you the best deal. We are not trying to promote a gimmick of some kind as we are in the customer education business.

After reviewing the PA electric rates in our comparison chart you may call us to learn more or continue and order your electricity service online.

Not all Pennsylvania electricity companies are scams but there are some out there and we want to help you avoid signing up with them.

If you would like to compare electricity suppliers in Pennsylvania please use the compare chart at the top of this page. We offer green choices, fixed, and variable electric rate plans. We recommend going with a fixed plan so you are guaranteed the same rate month after month until your contract expires. Green energy options are many times a virtual credit as even when choosing a green electricity plan if your location only has coal fired power that is what you will get although a renewable energy credit will have been purchased by the provider to offset the dirty energy.

 

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Posted in Pennsylvania

Greenpeace and their take on the IT sectors electricity usage

gpGreenpeace recently came out with a study that focused on the IT sector and how they use electricity.

The question just how dirty the world has become because of data. The study gets real critical of some very popular companies like Facebook.

They claim that Facebook uses quite a bit of what is referred to as dirty energy. Any type of fossil fuel created energy is known as dirty energy and so coal fired power and natural gas power would be a couple of these power sources.

Windmills kill quite a lot of birds and destroy the look of the environment and so I assume Greenpeace likely has wind power in this dirty energy category as well.

Data Centers are the culprit behind this dirty energy usage as they house the servers, routers, repeaters, UPS power backup supplies, etc. that are extremely power hungry.

Data centers do not divulge how much their data centers use in energy as they consider it a part of the competitive edge they have based on how they save energy.

For every dollar saved in energy usage a data center can make a whole lot more money as this goes straight to the bottom line in such a heavy energy usage type business model.

Facebook uses about 53.2 percent coal fired power in electricity usage according to Greenpeace. Google plans to buy a 100.8 megawatts of wind power from NextEra Energy but this is only a plan at this stage of the game as the wind power facilities have not even been built yet.

As for priorities green energy utilization is not expected to be in the top 20 % of IT sector company priorities in the next decade as there are too many more important things to look at before this issue is satisfactorily dealt with to Greenpeace’s expectations.

In Texas most energy providers offer a green energy choice that allows commercial businesses or residential home owners to purchase renewable energy.

The two big electric providers, TXU Energy, and Reliant Energy both offer renewable energy plans as well as have renewable generation capabilities through affiliated companies.

 

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Posted in Texas

What Makes a Good Electric Company?

The easy way to determine if you have chosen a good electric company is to check your first months electric bill and see if it averages out to be the same electric rate that they advertised to you.

Many times what you will find is that after averaging in all the fees and charges your electric rate looks much different than what they promised you.

Unfortunately many retail electric providers do not self police their own company and the industry as a whole doesn’t either. What happens is that these sneaky little advertising tactics that show one rate in the advertising and a different one on the bill go on for a few years until the state governments in act rules and regulations to protect the consumer.

The right thing to do is to have the private retail organizations that govern retail electric providers self police their industry at the outset.

Rather than getting tricked into an electric rate from a fly by night electric provider it is better to go with an energy consulting company who has gone through the contracts already.

Even though the industry may not do a good job in protecting the consumer from these types of scams an energy consulting company knows how to look through a contract and find the most common price raising tactics.

What you will see is that the really good electric companies find a way to differentiate their business from the others.

They will make their brand memorable and unique and build customers by the benefits their brand offers over others without resorting to sneaky price raising tactics.

In summary, be careful with the potential for a bad electric company to increase your rate dramatically. You will usually find out after 30 – 45 days of electricity usage which means your last bill prior to leaving the provider will be where they make a majority of their profit off of you.

 

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Posted in Pennsylvania, Texas