Bargain Shopping for Power
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Connecticut power customers are shopping around for a cheaper provider.
Money is tight. That's why customers want to reduce their electric bills as much as possible. And customers of United Illuminating Co. and Connecticut Light & Power have been actively seeking new power providers. Since late May, 2008 over 11,000 UI customers have signed up with a new power provider. The reason? Connecticut lawmakers deregulated the electric generation business and customers have demanded better rates.
UI spokesman, Al Carbone says the company is taking the loss of customers in stride. “If you can save on the generation charge, you’re doing a good thing,” says Carbone. He argues that UI has to buy the electricity in a prescribed manner, something the alternate suppliers don’t have to do. ”That’s where people can save,” says Carbone. Meanwhile, CL&P has lost nearly 50,000 customers in the past year as the second largest electric utility company in the state.
Mitch Gross, a CL&P spokesman, says even though thousands of customers of both utilities are switching, it doesn’t mean bad news for the companies bottom line. “No matter who supplies your electricity, we are the delivery company and the business model is based on the earnings from providing that service,” Gross said.
Of the 134,000 CL&P customers who use alternative power providers, 92,000 of them are business customers, Gross said. UI has more residential customers making the switch: 31,084 of the 43,330 who have signed up with alternative power providers.
Both UI and CL&P say customers who did not switch power providers will see their utility bills decrease over the second half of this year. Carbone says UI transmission rates dropped to just under 1.7 cents per kilowatt but rates will increase again in October by nearly .30 per kilowatt hour.
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