Electricity

A Shocking Truth About Electricity

Unlike natural gas, electricity cannot be stored for later delivery, it must be balanced instantly each and every minute. Suppliers, whether the Utility or Commercial Energy, must hold not only baseload supplies, but also capacity to meet hourly peaks on hot summer days, generally through natural gas generators for almost half of total supply. Some business’ energy usage can be five times higher in the summer afternoons than the nights or weekends. Given that, it is easy to understand why the price of power can be incredibly volatile on an hourly basis, as shown on the graph below. Commercial Energy meets this demand by leveraging our natural gas portfolio in the summer months and when renewable sourced power can’t meet all of this peak demand. Coupled with selecting “better-than-average” clients, Commercial Energy can guarantee a certain price or range of prices for all of the power delivered to your meters.

Experience Really Matters

Selling electricity is not new for us. From 1998 to 2004, Commercial Energy provided electricity to over 200 businesses in Montana. When the western power crisis first hit in the summer of 2000, causing blackouts in California as well as PG&E’s bankruptcy, we struggled through it while honoring ALL of our contracts at fixed prices that were 1/10th of the spot market price. The lesson? Never, ever, hold an open position for power. Always match the price we sell with a contract to buy (and a small margin). We call that back-to-backing contracts so that you can rest assured we will manage the risks, both yours and ours, prudently. Our experience buying and selling power helps us provide your company guidance in evaluating its electricity options. We also continue to advocate California Public Utility Commission rules that give customers a fair chance to benefit from electricity deregulation.

Buying Power in California Today

As part of that effort, Senate Bill 695 was passed and signed into law last fall that allows 6% of the existing electricity customer load to pick an electricity supplier over the next four years, beginning April 11, 2010. This limited opening of the market is planned to insure that no costs are shifted to those that do not choose while we prove that all customers deserve a choice. If you are interested in comparing our price and services against the Utility, the process is as follows:

1. Contact us and we will work with you to send in a Notice of Intent (NOI) to the Utility. The NOI holds a spot in the first year queue, starting July 1, 2010.

2. Once the Utility confirms space is available, your business has 60 days to decide whether you want to switch to us. Our Account team will come out with contract options for you to consider, just like we do with natural gas.

3. If it makes sense, we will start shipping power to you this year. If not, you can look at it next year, starting January 2011.

This process will continue for two more years. Our hope is that the queue does not fill too fast so everyone can take their time and make a well thought decision. Our desire is that we prove to the regulators and legislators that all customers deserve the right to choose a supplier, just as we have in natural gas for the past decade. With your support, we will prove that.