Electricity prices for commercial customers are starting to break in Texas, and business owners are seeing the cheapest electric rate offers made in the past three months. That makes it a good time to lock in a fixed price electricity plan at SaveOnEnergy.com , where commercial customers can get competing price quotes from various energy suppliers with just one click of the mouse.

It’s all because the price of natural gas, which is one of the main drivers of retail electric prices, has fallen nearly 30% from a peak of $13.57/MMBtu June 30. That means energy suppliers can charge cheaper rates for electricity, and are starting to trim their prices. While it varies by energy provider and product, some offers have been cut by 5-10%. A few of the higher-priced plans have fallen more, up to a nickel from where they were just a month ago.

But like with gasoline prices or airline tickets, falling prices often start as a trickle, as energy providers try to determine how low they should go. The big drops come when competitive pressure revs up, and one electric company cuts its rates a little more than everyone else, prompting competitors to follow suit, or lose out on new customers.

Customers can accelerate this process and get cheaper electric rates now by forcing electric companies to compete for their business, and by demanding that suppliers match and undercut each others quotes. The quickest and easiest way for business owners to have that happen is by using SaveOnEnergy.com to get custom price quotes from energy suppliers competing head-to-head. SaveOnEnergy.com’s exclusive commercial retail exchange portal is the only place where Texas business owners can get electric rate quotes from various competing electric companies with one click of the mouse. Commercial customers simply enter their business and usage information, and the data is then delivered real-time to each of the competing energy suppliers . The suppliers then evaluate the information and contact the customer directly, drastically reducing the complexity and time required for business owners to get price quotes from competing suppliers. SaveOnEnergy.com makes it simple for business owners to take advantage of today’s cheaper electric rates .

Texans are paying the highest electricity bills they have ever paid, and the worst may be yet to come with hotter August temperatures right around the corner. Although energy prices have eased slightly, oil is still above $128 per barrel. Natural gas hit a three-month low last week, but is still hovering around $10.50 per million British thermal unit, nearly double the price last year. In other words, any relief from energy prices isn’t going to come quickly.

Hotter temperatures compared with last year’s unseasonably mild summer have sent customers’ electric bills soaring. Because last year was so cool, with less need for power-draining air conditioning, Texans are seeing 30%, 40% or even 50% jumps in their monthly electricity usage, pushing their bills even higher. Combining this increased usage with higher electric rates just makes things worse.

It’s caught some Texans by surprise, as temperatures across the state reached 100 (with even higher heat indexes) in the past few days, while the 100 degree mark wasn’t hit until August last year. It doesn’t help that the heat has been "sneaky," as the Dallas Morning News put it, meaning in June Texans saw long stretches of very hot weather in the high 90s, but no headline-grabbing heat waves that got consumers thinking about their air conditioning use, and the impact on their power bills.

The heat, of course, makes attempts to cut back on power use to offset higher electricity rates more difficult, since air conditioning is simply a necessity for many customers. But even if customers are forced to run their air conditioners, SaveOnEnergy.com still offers some energy saving tips to make air conditioners work more efficiently, and save you money. Simple steps to make air conditioners more efficient include cleaning filters and coils, and providing shade for A.C. units (check this link for specific tips).

High bills also get customers thinking about their energy provider, and whether they could save money with someone else. SaveOnEnergy.com has the answer for customers, and gives Texans a quick and simple way to compare electricity rates. The lesson from the past few months, when some 45,000 Texans lost their electric company, is that you can’t go it alone in choosing something as important and complex as electricity. SaveOnEnergy.com breaks it down for customers using simple comparisons, giving customers one-click access to compare energy prices and special product features, such as airline bonus miles, bill credits, gift certificates and convenient payment options. Just as important, SaveOnEnergy.com only recommends reputable energy suppliers that won’t leave the Texas market and strand customers on high electric rates. That can give customers piece of mind that when they find cheap electricity rates on SaveOnEnergy.com, they know electric companies will stand behind them.

Texas businesses with fixed-price electricity deals expiring soon should not procrastinate renewing or finding a new energy supplier before their term price expires. To do so could expose businesses to wildly volatile electricity prices, the most expensive in the market.

The reason is that many electric companies have fixed-priced contracts which automatically renew. But instead of renewing onto the same or another fixed price, the contracts often automatically renew onto a variable rate which fluctuates with the wholesale cost of power. That means a business which has paid 12¢ per kilowatt-hour for 12 or 24 months could end up paying 18¢ to 20¢ per kilowatt-hour under that legalese of the contract.

Many customers aren’t aware of these automatic renewal clauses that can change how a customer’s electricity is priced. In fact, the Public Utility Commission is looking at that issue in a rulemaking, as reported by trade journal Energy Choice Matters.

Choosing a new electricity rate isn’t something that can be put off because of the risks in auto-renewals. Although it can be daunting sifting through the myriad of competing offers in the Texas energy market, the price of not picking a new plan, whether with the same energy supplier or a new provider, are too high to not take action.

Additionally, while business owners with a cheap electric rate that’s about to expire may not like the current price climate and want to put off signing another long-term deal to see if prices fall, they should still avoid simply letting their contract auto-renew in order to exercise some control over their price. Even if a business wants to wait and see if prices fall after the summer, they should sign a short-term or variable deal that gives them some certainty as to electricity costs, instead of relying on whatever pricing stipulation their energy supplier can use under their auto-renewal clause, which may include pass-throughs of expensive real-time charges.

SaveOnEnergy.com solves both of these problems for businesses. Its market-leading commercial retail exchange portal gives business owners a variety of competing quotes for cheap electricity with just a few clicks of the mouse, saving business owners time and money in trying to research every energy provider themselves. SaveOnEnergy.com’s commercial retail exchange portal also allows businesses to get custom offers to compare different types of electricity rates. For example, businesses with expiring term deals can ask for energy suppliers to provide quotes for both variable or short-term service, and for longer (12+ month) fixed-price offers, so they can evaluate whether they want to sign a new long-term deal now, or wait a few months. Business owners trying to get all those different, custom quotes from individual electric companies could take weeks if not a month, but SaveOnEnergy.com immediately alerts energy suppliers of the quote request, and suppliers jump into action so they don’t lose their potential customer to one of their competitors.

One more thing to keep in mind is that if a business owner wants to change electric companies, that switch can take time, meaning it’s best to put the switch request in at least 30 days before the expiration of the business’s current fixed-price contract, if not earlier. That will ensure that the switch occurs immediately upon expiration of the current contract, and the customer does not get stuck with their current supplier on a higher rate just because the business missed the switching window to avoid automatically renewing onto a high, variable rate. It’s best to ask your new supplier to do everything they can to expedite your switch if you’re only a few weeks away from your contract expiring to make sure your switch can go into effect when desired at the end of your current contract. But you’ll also want to be sure you don’t prematurely switch before your current fixed-price expires, both because it’s probably cheaper than any current electric rate, and because it could expose you to cancellation penalties. The best thing to do when switching is to share the expiration date of your current contract with your new supplier (which typically coincides with a scheduled meter read) and tell them you need to be switched over right after that date.

Texans who can shop for lower electricity prices through sites like SaveOnEnergy.com may not know it, but not everyone in the state can choose their own energy supplier.

The benefits of that freedom to choose were evident last week, when, right before Independence Day, the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) saddled Northeast Texas customers with a bill for $500 million to pay for a new power plant for SWEPCO, the monopoly electric company in that region. Customers in the SWEPCO territory can’t broadly choose their own energy provider, can’t benefit from customized, lower pricing, and can’t avoid the hefty bill the state’s regulators just handed them. Since customers can’t choose, it means they have to pay for any power plants SWEPCO builds with state approval, even if the plants turn out to be bad investments or more costly than other alternatives.

The new SWEPCO power plant has been the subject of great debate. Many customers, such as industrial users, argue the plant is too expensive and isn’t needed.

"We are clearly disappointed by the commission’s ruling and concerned about the impact it will have on Northeast Texas ratepayers," said Eric Bearse of the consumer group Texas Electric Ratepayers Alliance.

Even the PUC, in approving the plant, raised concerns about potential cost overruns that could leave customers footing the bill for a dinosaur if technical innovations or carbon regulation make the coal-fired power plant obsolete.

But for most Texans, these concerns are a thing of the past. In the 1990s, the PUC stopped guaranteeing profits for electric companies in most of the state by opening the area known as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to competition. ERCOT covers about 75% of Texas’ land area, and includes the utilities Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas Central, AEP Texas North, Texas New Mexico Power and Sharyland. If you’re a customer of one of these utilities, it means you have the power to choose your energy supplier, and have been freed from the burden of guaranteeing profits for power plants.

It also means independent electric companies are competing head to head for your business, which means savings for you.

SaveOnEnergy.com offers customers a quick, reliable and hassle-free way to check out these competing offers, and assure themselves that they’re getting the best deal.

Residential customers can simply select their area and see a list of the best offers out there, with SaveOnEnergy.com highlighting the best deals. From the comfort of their home, anytime of day or night, customers can shop around for cheap electricity prices. Many of the electricity products on SaveOnEnergy.com include valuable bonuses for customers, such as airline miles, gift certificates, cash-back offers, and bill credits. Texans can also choose to help the environment by picking from a selection of renewable and green electricity products.

Business customers get access to SaveOnEnergy.com’s unique commercial retail exchange portal which pits eight energy suppliers against each other to give each business the best rate possible. Rather than having to call a bunch of different energy providers for quotes, business owners can submit their information just once to SaveOnEnergy.com and compare up to eight electricity prices to find the cheapest rate. It couldn’t be easier.

And, with another electric company leaving the market last week, customers can rest easy that SaveOnEnergy.com screens its energy suppliers so only those which are financially robust and reliable are listed. It’s piece of mind customers can’t find when going it alone.

All this is possible because customers in the ERCOT region aren’t tied to specific power plants, and aren’t forced to pay a specific rate of return to a power plant owner. For customers at SWEPCO, this freedom is going to take a bit longer to attain.