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About Us - In The NewsThe following article originally appeared in The Waterbury Republican-American on January 31, 2008.Alternative Electricity Provider To Charge Less By David Krechevsky An alternative electricity provider already offering Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating customers a significantly lower rate plans to cut that rate even further on Friday. Public Power & Utility of New Milford, which electrician David Pearsall opened in November to serve as an alterantive for CL&P and UI customers, said this week it will cut its rate by about 2 percent. PP&U currently offers electricity at 10.494 cents per kilowatt hour, nearly 11 percent below CL&P's standard residential rate of 11.78 cents and about 14.5 percent below UI's rate of 12.28 cents. Friday, PP&U will reduce its rate to 10.294 cents/kWh. According to a comparison calculator on the company's Web site, the typical CL&P customer using 700 kilowatt hours a month would save $10.40 per month by switching to electricity supplied by PP&U. The lower rate may be especially appealing to CL&P customers, who on Friday will begin paying an average of $3.65 more per month for the distribution charge on their bills, a line item that covers the cost of maintaining the power distribution system, including power lines, substations and meters. Beryl Lyons, spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Utility Control, said switching to an alternative suppiler affects only the generation line item on a customer's bill. "If you divide the bill into three parts, there are generation, transmission and distribution," she said. "The only part that was deregulated was generation; everything else stays the same. CL&P or UI is still your distribution company, and that's the charge that went up." Pearsall, PP&U's founder and president, said his company is reducing its rate because it is able to buy power more cheaply. "Our rates are relative to market conditions and enrollment volume," he said. "We foresee ourselves being able to purchase power a little cheaper than we were. We're in a better position to negotiate bilateral agreements." PP&U has gained bargaining power because the company has added "thousands" of residential and commerical-industrial customers since its debut three months ago, Pearsall said. The flow of applications from new customers "has never stopped," he said. The New Milford company does not require customers to sign contracts or put down a deposit. Customers can enroll or cancel at any time for any reason. Customers can enroll by calling the company, but Pearsall said the "quickest and easiest way" is to visit its Web site at www.ppandu.com and fill out an application online. Customers who switch still receive their bill from CL&P or UI, but the generation portion will reflect the price offered by PP&U. CL&P and UI collect the money for alternate suppliers and forward the appropriate amount to them. CL&P and UI also continue to handle power outages and other concerns related to delivering electricity. According to the state, there are now about a dozen alternative suppliers providing electricity to CL&P and UI customers. The latest figures provided to the DPUC by the utilities show that about 5 percent of CL&P's 1.2 million customers - about 47,500 residential and 16,900 commerical-industrial customers - have switched to alternative suppliers. For UI, 18,900 residential and 9,000 commercial-industrial customers have switched, or about 8.5 percent or if its nearly 327,000 customers. |