Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana continue to slip behind Illinois’ electric prices
Over 10 years ago, Illinois had some of the highest rates in the Midwest; today not so much, as they are below their neighboring states.
What did Illinois do that Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana haven’t; implement customer choice.
Customer choice enable businesses and residents to buy energy directly from the wholesale market without having the utility put any additional costs or taxes on top of the energy cost.
Its work so well in Illinois that its residents and business have saved over $37 billion and counting.
http://realgyenergyservices.com/competition-work-tune-37-billion/
Comparing current (2016) electric rates:
| Electric cost | |
| Illinois | $0.063 |
| Indiana | $0.071 |
| Ohio | $0.068 |
Illinois is leading the Midwest in energy costs, solely due to customer choice.
The arguments made against customer choice programs are always based upon the impact it would have on the incumbent utility(s) and creating doubt whether customers can buy energy. The first thing to overcome in customer choice, is that utilities don’t want competition and that they are major contributors to politicians. The politicians have to believe in technology and that residents can buy energy like they buy everything else.
In Illinois, what are the drivers lowering cost;
- Competition: there are over 30 energy marketers offering over 100 types of agreements for residents to buy energy. Abundant choices, lower costs.
- Technology: Illinois has deployed more smart meters enabling real-time pricing, time-of-use pricing offering numerous advances to marketers and the utility to reduce costs to residents.
Illinois has its issues but offering customer choice isn’t one of them.
The economic benefits will soon require other states implement customer choice, the sooner they do so the better it will be for their residents.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer in the states of Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM
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