Business & Tech

UI Urges Customers to Shop Around for Electric Suppliers

Changing suppliers does NOT affect UI's profitability, but has the potential to save every residential customer up to $20 a month, or more or less, depending upon usage.

Virtually everyone in Stratford [and the region] where United Illuminating provides electricity should seriously consider switching their electric supplier to save money on their monthly electric bill.

At a Community Meeting held last week at the Baldwin Center, UI’s Chuck Eves, a director of engineering, and other officials in attendance affirmed this fact. Eves noted that indeed customers can and should investigate the process to switch electric suppliers to save money.

He explained that third party power generation companies have access to spot market prices for fuel that, along with other market factors, allows them to offer CT customers a price per kilowatt hour (kwh) that is generally lower than UI’s “standard offer rate.”

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Despite the fact that UI officials have been promoting the idea of switching to a third party provider ever since deregulation of the industry made this possible in 1998, UI customers have a hard time comprehending how the company can afford to do so.

The average customer “can save about $20 a month,” Eves said. ‘UI encourages people to switch.” CLICK HERE to visit UI's web site with more details about changing electric suppliers.

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Both Eves and UI’s Michael A. West Jr., Director of Communications, noted that electric customers can choose from among a list of suppliers that the state keeps.

For a comprehensive list of current suppliers, CLICK HERE. UI also provided a written list to those in attendance. However, the online site will track changes in the respective pricing going forward.

"But how do you make money on this?" asked a resident. It is a question that UI utility officials hear often.

Electric "generation" is a pass-through cost, Fox said, and UI simply “passes on” the supplier's price into its bill to customers. By state law, UI does not make a profit on the "price" of electricity.

However, instead of having customers receive multiple bills for generation and transmission costs, it’s easier and cheaper to bill customers in one bill, which is split into its respective components, he said.

For a more detail explanation of UI's electric bill, CLICK HERE.

Fox likened the ongoing print and telemarketing efforts by some of these third party generators to credit card offers. “It’s certainly your choice to switch or not,” Fox said. And customers can switch one month, and change again the next month, or return to UI's standard rate. Again, officials stressed, the intention is to help CT's customers save money.

He recommended that customers “read the fine print” when he was asked if the lower price was locked in for a fixed period of time or not.

“The whole idea is to open up competition” in the electric generation market, he said. “The idea is that with so many suppliers, the unit price [of electricity] has to come down.”

Does switching suppliers affect a customer’s eligibility for energy assistance? Fox noted that energy assistance has “nothing to do with your choice of supplier,” but instead is based on a particular customer’s income eligibility.

Earlier in the evening, UI’s Eves reviewed two topics: keeping the lights on and bringing them back once they go out. See Stratford Patch on Wednesday for his review of these topics.


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