That’s because Duquesne Light’s Price to Compare, or the electric rate for customers who buy their electric supply from the local utility instead of a competing energy provider, is forecast to increase on June 1 for small and medium business customers.

Pennsylvania electric customers now have a choice when it comes to their electricity provider, and no longer have to buy their power supply from the local utility.  In fact, the local utilities do not even own power plants anymore, and only maintain the poles and wires to deliver electric supplies to customers from competing providers in the market.

If you shop for a lower electric rates in Pittsburgh, the only thing that changes is you get a lower bill; Duquesne Light will continue to deliver your power at rates regulated by the Public Utility Commission (PUC), and will respond to all outages and service interruptions as normal.

Because many customers still have not shopped for an alternative electric supplier, despite the large savings, Duquesne Light provides “default” power supply to customers who have not switched to a competing supplier.  The “default” rate (Price to Compare) changes every three months, and on June 1, the PUC forecasts that the default electric rate will increase for small and mid-sized business customers at Duquesne Light.

Specifically, for Rate GM – General Service Medium customers under 25 kW (including the GMH heating subclass), the Duquesne Light Price to Compare is forecast to increase by about 5% to 6.2¢/kWh.

For Rate GS – General Service Small customers, the Duquesne Light Price to Compare is forecast to increase 4% to nearly 6¢/kWh.

Commercial electric customers in these rate classes can currently find electric rates in the low 5¢/kWh range by shopping for a competing electric supplier with SaveOnEnergy.com.  While that may not seem like big savings, for even the smallest business using 2,000 kWh per month, it means savings of nearly $250 annually.  Business using more power can see savings of thousands of dollars annually.

SaveOnEnergy.com brings business customers the lowest electric rates by pitting up to eight pre-screened energy suppliers in head-to-head competition for your business.  Finding a low electric rate, and avoiding the forecast rate increases at Duquesne Light, is quick and easy with SaveOnEnergy.com’s exclusive online marketplace, and takes just a few minutes.  Competing energy suppliers on SaveOnEnergy.com contact you directly with their lowest electric rates, knowing they have to undercut their competitors to win your business.

Pennsylvania businesses no longer have to buy their power supply from PECO, and instead can choose among competing electric suppliers offering lower rates.  If you shop, PECO still delivers your electricity over its wires with no changes in distribution service.

If you don’t shop for an alternative electric supplier, PECO provides you with power under “default” service.  PECO no longer generates its own power, and buys supplies for “default” service on the open market throughout the year.  Because of the way it buys power, the PECO default service electric rate, called the Price to Compare, can be volatile, and well above-market when compared to competing offers from alternative electric suppliers.

PECO recently posted final Prices to Compare for the three-month period beginning June 1, 2013.

For mid-sized business customers, in the 100 kW to 500 kW General Service (GS) rate class, the new Price to Compare is nearly 40% higher than the current electric rate.

Specifically, starting June 1, the Price to Compare in the PECO General Service 100 kW to 500 kW rate class will be 9.38¢/kWh, a nearly 3¢/kWh jump from the current Price to Compare of 6.81¢/kWh.

Customers don’t have to buy their power from PECO, and can avoid paying the new higher electric rate by shopping with SaveOnEnergy.com for a competing electric supplier offering a lower rate.  While offers from competing energy suppliers will vary with each specific business customer’s usage and characteristics, for mid-sized business customers at PECO, rates are generally in the 7¢/kWh range, or 20% lower than PECO’s new electric rate, with lower rates available for certain types of businesses.

Other commercial rate classes at PECO will see higher electric rates, or continued high rates, under the new June 1 Prices to Compare as well.

For example, for PECO General Service customers in the under 100 kW class, while the new Price to Compare will decrease marginally to 9.24¢/kWh, competing suppliers are offering through SaveOnEnergy.com lower rates in the 7-8¢/kWh range for this customer class.

SaveOnEnergy.com ensures that your business gets the lowest electric rates by pitting numerous, pre-screened energy suppliers in head-to-head competition to win your business.  This makes avoiding PECO’s rate hike fast and easy, so you don’t have to devote time away from running your business to cut your electric bill.

As SaveOnEnergy.com has previously noted, the former Cap Rock Energy service areas — which are now the Brady, Celeste, Colorado City, and Stanton divisions of Sharyland Utilities, L.P. — are to be moved to retail choice starting in May 2014.  There are about 50,000 customers at these divisions of Sharyland Utilities.

Once competition starts, it means customers will be able to choose and switch electricity providers, just as they can pick their cellular provider, long distance provider, cable/satellite company, etc.  Electric choice will provide customers in Brady, Celeste, Colorado City, Stanton and surrounding areas the power to save money on their electric bills — the same savings currently enjoyed by customers in Dallas, Houston, Corpus Christi and other parts of the state.

As part of the transition to retail choice, Sharyland Utilities recently filed a transition plan under which retail electric providers may start submitting electronic transactions for customer switches in February 2014, in advance of the May 2014 opening of competition.

This means that retail electric providers will likely start marketing their offers to customers in January 2014, or even earlier — in less than eight months.

SaveOnEnergy.com has helped thousands of Texas customers save money on their electric bills by shopping for a lower rate, and will do the same once competition starts at Sharyland’s Brady, Celeste, Colorado City, and Stanton divisions.

Customers in these service areas will want to affirmatively choose a retail electric provider by April 2014, because otherwise they will be assigned to a “default” retail electric provider (REP), which can charge a monthly rate determined by the REP.  Customers may always freely switch away from the default REP, but savings can be maximized if the customer is never placed with the default REP in the first place.

And the savings from electric choice are expected to be significant for customers at Sharyland’s Brady, Celeste, Colorado City, and Stanton divisions.  Currently, a residential customer using 1,000 kWh per month at Sharyland pays an average rate of about 10¢/kWh to the monopoly utility.  In the Oncor service area, the service area with electric choice that is closet and most similar to Sharyland, rates from competing electric providers are as low as 8¢/kWh.

That could mean savings of $20 per month, and $240 per year, for residential customers at Sharyland, and much larger savings for business customers who use more energy.

With customer choice, Pennsylvania electric customers no longer have to buy their power supply from PPL, and can choose from among dozens of competing suppliers offering lower electric rates.

If customers don’t choose, however, PPL continues to provide them with electricity supply, under a program known as “default service,” with an electric rate that changes every three months.  Nearly 60% of residential customers at PPL still buy their power from PPL under default service — at higher prices than what’s available from shopping around for a lower rate.

On June 1, PPL’s Price to Compare — the price for default service electricity supply — for residential (RS) customers is estimated to increase nearly 15% to over 8.2 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

Customers don’t have to pay the PPL rate hike, however, and can find lower rates offered by competing electric suppliers using SaveOnEnergy.com.

SaveOnEnergy.com is an online marketplace bringing customers the lowest electric rates in Pennsylvania, and features vetted, pre-screened energy suppliers.

Electric suppliers competing head-to-head on SaveOnEnergy.com are offering rates lower than PPL’s projected new Price to Compare, which can save customers hundreds of dollars per year.

When you shop for a low electric rate on SaveOnEnergy.com, nothing changes except you pay less for your electricity.  PPL still delivers your power over its wires, under terms regulated by the state Public Utility Commission.  PPL will respond to all outages and emergencies as normal, and switching to a different power supplier doesn’t affect your reliability or restoration time from PPL.  In fact, PPL encourages its customers to shop around for the lowest electric rate, because the utility no longer owns power plants and no longer generates its own power.

PPL, formerly Pennsylvania Power & Light, serves 1.4 million customers in Harrisburg, Allentown, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Lancaster, and surrounding areas.

A recent column in the DMN notes that, “some folks are paying substantially more for electricity out of loyalty,” to the old monopoly provider.  “As a result, they eventually were paying almost twice as much for electricity as I was — more than 15 cents per kilowatt-hour vs. a little over 8 cents for me,” DMN columnist Steve Blow noted.

Such a large rate discrepancy isn’t justified, even for value-added products like 100% renewable energy, or products bundled with smart thermostats or other gadgets, which are still well below 15 cents per kWh.

But some Texas electric companies are able to charge high rates because they know their customers aren’t shopping around and checking competitors for the lowest rates.

Customers may not be shopping for a number of reasons.  One reason is that customers mistakenly believe finding a low electric rate is too hard or time consuming, or are worried about picking a new electric provider that they’re not familiar with.

Both of these concerns are answered by shopping with SaveOnEnergy.com, a marketplace for the lowest Texas electric rates.  SaveOnEnergy.com gets Texas electric companies to compete head to head for your business, meaning they offer you their best electric rates.  For residential customers, the rates appear in SaveOnEnergy.com’s simple and sortable comparison chart, so you can easily find the best electric rate and plan that’s right for you.  Instead of taking hours or days to find a low electric rate, shopping with SaveOnEnergy.com takes just a few minutes, all from the comfort of your home.

And if you think switching electric providers isn’t even worth a few minutes of your time on SaveOnEnergy.com, think again.  Switching from a rate of 15 cents per kWh to 8 cents per kWh would save the average Texan $70 per month, or over $800 a year.

Better yet, you don’t have to worry when you shop for a low electric rate with SaveOnEnergy.com.  We understand that customers may be hesitant to shop on their own and sign up with an electric company they’re not familiar with, and that customers don’t have the time or expertise to vet all the electricity providers in the market.  That’s where SaveOnEnergy.com’s comprehensive screening process comes in.

The energy industry experts at SaveOnEnergy.com painstakingly vet all the electric providers in Texas against a rigorous criteria that reviews the entire breadth of the company’s operations — low rates, high quality customer service, managerial competence, and financial wherewithal.  Only the best electric companies can compete for customers on SaveOnEnergy.com.

That means when you see a low rate on SaveOnEnergy.com, it’s being offered by a reputable and trusted company, not a fly-by-night operator. Customers shopping with SaveOnEnergy.com can be confident their chosen electric supplier will be able to deliver on their savings, and won’t leave the customer stranded.

Penelec and West Penn Power, both owned by FirstEnergy Corp., serve over a million customers in central and western Pennsylvania, including Altoona, Johnstown, and the outer suburbs of Pittsburgh.

Thanks to the competition that has been introduced into Pennsylvania’s electric market, customers in Pennsylvania now have the ability to shop for a competing electric supplier offering a lower rate.  However, if a customer does not shop for a competing energy supplier, the local utility provides the customer with their power supply under a program known as “default service.”

The default service electric rate changes every 3 months, and it changed at Penelec and West Penn Power on March 1.  The March 1 changes brought higher business electric rates for many business rate classes if customers continue to buy their power supply from Penelec or West Penn Power.  Customers can avoid these rate increases by shopping for a low electric rate with SaveOnEnergy.com.

For example, at West Penn Power, businesses in the General Power Small Service (WP-GP30S) rate class saw their electric rate increase 18% on March 1, with the rate increasing to over 5¢/kWh.  The West Penn Power General Service (WP-GS20) rate class also saw a rate hike on March 1, though at a smaller level.

At Penelec, the electric rate for non-shopping customers in the General Secondary-Small and General Secondary-Medium customer classes increased to nearly 7¢/kWh on March 1.

Though savings vary by individual customer and the specific rate class, businesses at Penelec and West Penn Power shopping for a low electric rate with SaveOnEnergy.com can save 15-20%, or more, versus the utility rate.  SaveOnEnergy.com unlocks the power of competition for Pennsylvania electric customers by getting individual electric suppliers to compete head-to-head for your business.  This maximizes your savings, and allows you to avoid the utility rate hikes while saving money on your electric bill.

Municipal aggregation is a process in place in Illinois and select other states that allows local governments to choose a customer’s electric supplier without any affirmative consent from the customer.  Essentially, the local government picks an electric supplier for all the customers in the town, to replace the local utility like ComEd or Ameren.  If customers don’t “opt-out” of the town’s supplier, they are automatically switched from the utility to the town’s chosen supplier.

While local governments initially touted claimed savings under the programs, the electric rates are now turning around, and cheaper rates are available by shopping outside of the aggregation.  Crain’s reports that at more than a dozen municipalities, “[c]ontracts they negotiated more than a year ago with power suppliers to lower residents’ electric bills — that until now offered savings from Commonwealth Edison Co.’s energy price — will exceed the costs ComEd customers pay beginning in June.”

“Making matters worse … residents who want to go back to ComEd or find another supplier must pay $50 to exit,” the government program, Crain’s noted.

The results only reinforce that municipal governments are ill-equipped to find the best electric rate.  Local governments are not energy market experts, and should not be making decisions for their residents and businesses about what electricity plan to choose.

If you’re a business owner, would you want the local government selecting and negotiating with your suppliers and vendors?  If you’re a homeowner, would you trust the government to find the best contractor for a remodeling?  That’s essentially what municipal aggregation does with electricity.

Because local governments lack expertise in the energy industry, whatever savings they get for their customers can typically be beat by customers individually shopping around for the best electric rate through a market expert like SaveOnEnergy.com.  And when you shop for a low energy rate with SaveOnEnergy.com, you get the lowest rate that fits your unique needs, not a one-size-fits-all product from the government aggregation that may not produce the lowest savings for you.

While Illinoisans in municipal aggregations are going to see their savings go away, those who shop with SaveOnEnergy.com can still find rates lower than the new ComEd rates, through the power of competition.

These alerts show why Pennsylvania customers shouldn’t just take the first offer of a lower electric rate that comes across their door.

Instead, customers need to actively compare electric rates from competing suppliers, to determine if the rate they are being offered is really a good deal.

That’s where SaveOnEnergy.com is an invaluable resource for customers.

SaveOnEnergy.com offers Pennsylvania customers an online marketplace for their electric and natural gas supply, and forces energy suppliers to compete head-to-head for your business.

Instead of just getting one offer from a cold call that may not be the best rate, customers using SaveOnEnergy.com can instantly find all of the best electric rates in the market, just by entering their zip code.

Customers don’t have to guess how good a deal they will be getting; they can see how each supplier’s offer stacks up against the rest.

SaveOnEnergy.com also screens each supplier in the marketplace, and only lists offers from reputable companies with track records of compliance and customer satisfaction.

By combining the lowest energy rates in the market with its rigorous screening process, SaveOnEnergy.com assures customers that when they shop for a lower energy rate, they’re going to get the best deal, and from an energy company that will treat them right.

With heating-driven demand for natural gas subsiding as temperatures rise, natural gas prices are falling.  Thanks to the revolution in shale natural gas, winter rates were already at historic lows, but Georgia natural gas prices have fallen by about another 10% since December.

However, customers need to actively shop around for the best natural gas rate to take advantage of these savings.

Georgia natural gas customers can easily find the lowest rates in the market by shopping with SaveOnEnergy.com.

SaveOnEnergy.com forces Georgia natural gas marketers to compete for your business, ensuring that you receive the lowest rate.  Because of this head-to-head competition, rates offered by natural gas suppliers on SaveOnEnergy.com are lower than the “standard” rates offered by these same marketers.

SaveOnEnergy.com also takes the hassle out of finding the lowest natural gas rates.  Customers receive the best rates from pre-screened energy suppliers, who are chosen based on a rigorous criteria evaluating each supplier’s price, customer service, financial integrity, and managerial competence.  Customers using SaveOnEnergy.com to find the lowest natural gas rate only receive offers from reputable suppliers that can stand behind their rate and serve the customer for the long-haul.

In doing so, SaveOnEnergy.com takes the guesswork out of finding a new energy supplier, and turns shopping for a low natural gas rate from a chore into a simple task that can be completed any time day or night.

PPL serves 1.4 million customers in Harrisburg, Allentown, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Lancaster, and surrounding areas.

Under the competition that has been introduced into Pennsylvania’s electric market, customers no longer have to buy their electricity supply from PPL.  Customers can choose from dozens of competing electric suppliers offering a lower rate.

If customers don’t shop for a lower electric rate, however, they receive power supply from PPL on a mechanism known as “default service.”  PPL buys power supplies for default service in the wholesale market, and charges non-shopping customers a Price to Compare for their generation supply.  The Price to Compare changes every quarter.

On March 1, the PPL Price to Compare for small and medium business customers (General Service Rate Classes GS1 and GS3) increased 6%, to 10.814¢ per kilowatt-hour.

Although the increase was only 6%, PPL’s existing Price to Compare was already high, and the new rate is likewise significantly higher than electric rates from competing energy suppliers.

Small businesses at PPL can save 35-40% by shopping with SaveOnEnergy.com for a lower electric rate.  Although specific rates will vary with each individual business’s usage and load shape, competing electric suppliers are offering small businesses at PPL electric rates as low as 7¢ or even 6¢ per kilowatt-hour.  SaveOnEnergy.com finds the lowest electric rates in the market for business customers by forcing electric suppliers to directly compete against each other, head-to-head, for your business.

For even the smallest businesses at PPL, shopping for a low electric rate with SaveOnEnergy.com can save over a thousand dollars annually, and for businesses with higher electric usage, the savings can equal tens of thousands of dollars.