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My City Electricity
Comparing Electricity Companies
Make sure it's Apples to Apples
When shopping for Residential Electricity, comparing Apples to Apples can be very confusing. The lowest numbers sound like they are the best deal, but many times are vital mistakes! Many Electricity Providers quote only the Energy Charge (a low number) for Residential without including adding delivery charges making them look like a better deal while comparing to companies who quote the Energy Charge + the Delivery Charges. This seems to have become a common practice for companies who actually have higher rates. They only quote part of your final bill. If you are shopping online, look for the Electricity Facts Label (EFL) along with the Service Agreements. The EFL is required by the state of Texas to have the Electricity Providers detail the Charges, Terms & Terminaion of the contract for each Package Option. We pride ourselves for having one of the shortest descriptive EFLs with straight talk and no extra stipulations or wording. Many other companies have extra stipulations not usually discuss over the phone.
There are basically four common prices for electricity - The “Unbundled” Energy Charge without the Delivery Fees and three other prices based on the volume of usage which includes the delivery fees, usually listed as 500 kWh, 1,000 kWh and 2,000 kWh.
For any assistance on further explanations of your prices or options for electricity, please contact us at 888-535-1837 and speak to one of our Energy Consultants.
How to do a quick read of your Existing Bill for comparision
Find your latest bill and look for a phrase that starts something like: ”The average price you paid for electricity service…” This should be somewhere on your bill and what you are paying per kWh delivered at your volume of usage that month.
If you can't not find the Average Price (NOT Energy Charge) on your bill, you can calculate it with the following steps:
Keep it simple! Usually there is no need to breakdown every line item by line item. The best way is to:
(1) Take the Amount Owed and subtract any Taxes & Late Fees for the Owed Amount.
(2) Find the amount of Kilowatts Used that Billing Period.
(3) Divide the Sub-Total Amount (without Taxes & Penalties) in (1) by the Amount of Kilowatts used.
This will give you your Average Cost per Kilowatt Delivered for that billing cycle. This number is what you want to use to compare with the EFLs based on the usage volume of your bill. You may want to average all year’s usage if you have your 13 month histogram bar chart for each month’s usages.
For any assistance on further explanations of your prices or options for electricity, please contact us at 888-535-1837 and speak to one of our Energy Consultants.