Harrisburg, PA – The Retail Energy Supply Association (RESA) credited the leadership of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and the pro-consumer policies of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) and the General Assembly for helping the state’s competitive retail electricity market reach a new milestone with 2 million shopping customers benefiting from customer choice.
“Due to the leadership of Governor Corbett and the General Assembly in support of the PUC’s pro-consumer policies, today a record number of suppliers are competing in Pennsylvania to provide energy products and services to more than 2 million residential and business consumers,” said Ron Cerniglia, the Retail Energy Supply Association’s Pennsylvania electricity issues chair.
Cerniglia spoke at a PUC-sponsored press conference after the most recent update of the PUC’s www.papowerswitch.com website, a useful web portal for Pennsylvania electricity customers interested in pursuing the benefits of retail electricity competition, showed that more than 2 million Keystone State electricity customers have elected to switch to a competitive electric generation supplier, including nearly 1.7 million residential customers.
Sixty percent of all the electricity consumed in the state is purchased from competitive electric generation suppliers, according to the PUC web portal.
Pennsylvania’s retail electricity market is widely recognized as among the best in the country. The most recent Annual Baseline Assessment of Choice in Canada and the United States (ABACCUS), an annual scorecard assessing competitive retail electricity programs in North America, listed Pennsylvania among three states with pro-consumer competition policies that ABACCUS said offer “useful best practices for other states.”
“Despite this solid track record of success, Pennsylvania’s policy makers recognize the need to make further enhancements to the laws that govern retail energy choice in the Commonwealth in order to maximize benefits for consumers and complete the transition to a fully competitive market,” Cerniglia noted.
Pennsylvania has about 50 active competitive electric generation suppliers, the most of any state in the country. Robust competition among these retail suppliers is driving them to innovate to differentiate themselves and attract and retain customers.
Pennsylvania’s marketplace offers consumers choices among 59 different innovative product and service offerings, including guaranteed savings programs, fixed and variable prices, and green power, the ABACCUS report noted.
About 35 percent of residential electricity supply in Pennsylvania is provided by competitive electric generation suppliers. Nearly two-thirds of commercial customer supply is purchased competitively, and nearly 90 percent of supply to the state’s industrial customers is provided by competitive suppliers.
The Retail Energy Supply Association is the nation’s leading trade association representing competitive retail energy suppliers. RESA members are dedicated to creating vibrant and sustainable competitive electricity markets for the benefit of consumers.
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About RESA
RESA represents competitive energy suppliers dedicated to creating and sustaining vibrantly competitive electricity and natural gas markets for the benefit of consumers. RESA’s members include: Champion Energy Services, LLC; ConEdison Solutions; Constellation NewEnergy, Inc.; Direct Energy Services, LLC; GDF Suez Energy Resources NA, Inc.; Hess Corporation; Integrys Energy Services, Inc.; Just Energy; Liberty Power; MC Squared Energy Services, LLC; Mint Energy, LLC; NextEra Energy Services; Noble Americas Energy Solutions LLC; NRG, Inc.; PPL EnergyPlus, LLC; Stream Gas & Electric, Ltd.; TransCanada Power Marketing Ltd. and TriEagle Energy, L.P.. For more information about RESA please contact Tracy McCormick, Executive Director at (717) 566-5405, or visit www.resausa.org.
