You know the saying: "It pays to shop around". Your electric provider will neither tell you that they have a lower price plan nor tell you that a rival provider offers a lower price. You see it is simply not in their interest to tell you either.

Electric power industry deregulation in Texas and nationwide has made it possible for consumers to shop around.

Electric power is sold by the unit of measure of KiloWattHour (KWH). Let's determine your unit power cost from your most recent monthly bill: read off the energy charge in dollars; note the power usage in KWH; divide the energy charge in dollars by the power usage in KWH; multiply the result by 100 to obtain your unit power cost in cents/KWH. So if you used 1523 KWH and your energy charge was $209, then your unit cost is 13.7 cents/KWH

Now let's compare your unit cost to what consumers in the greater Houston area are currently paying. Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) created powertochoose.org to compare electric power offers. Browsing electric power offers ordered by price shows unit power is presently selling between 9.9 - 14.2 cents/KWH. The rate can either be variable or fixed depending on the type of plan. Those consumers paying 14.2 cents/KWH can save 30% by switching to a 9.9 cents/KWH plan. Note also that the same electric provider most often offers higher and lower price plans. That same provider sees no vested interest to alert its customers of its lower price plans; it is up to you to "shop around" and insist on lowest unit price provider.

Stay tuned, We soon will have a guest energy observer publish an article on how to cut you power cost $1000.