Washington (Platts)--17Dec2012/1258 pm EST/1758 GMT

Residential customers in several US states and in Alberta with retail choice are buying power from marketers at higher levels and the services being offered by marketers in restructured states are evolving to meet consumer needs, according to a report released Monday.

Residential switching has lagged switching levels of commercial and industrial customers in restructured retail markets in North America. But with aggregation programs in Illinois, Massachusetts and Ohio, along with market reforms in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Alberta, more residents are turning to competitive suppliers, said the report from Distributed Energy Financial Group.

DEFG's "Annual Baseline Assessment of Choice in Canada and the US" shows residential customer switching above 30% in Texas, Connecticut, Ohio, Alberta and Pennsylvania and residential switching above 20% in New York, Illinois, Maryland and Maine.

Article continues below...

Request a free trial of: Electric Power Daily
	No other daily publication delivers so complete an account of North American power industry news as Electric Power Daily. For those who need solid grounding every day in this complex arena where so much is at stake, Electric Power Daily is a must read.

Switching among large commercial and industrial customers is above 60% in about 12 states and provinces with retail competition, with several markets showing large customer switching above 80%, DEFG said.

In Pennsylvania, more than 1.9 million customers, representing almost 60% of the electricity used in the state, are buying power from marketers, Public Utility Commission Chairman Robert Powelson said in a statement. "In the coming year, we will be moving forward with recommendations that have grown out of our retail markets investigation," he said.

Beyond the switching figures, marketers in some states are offering prepaid service, energy usage reports, fixed-price or variable-price contracts, mobile phone payment options and other services to meet consumer preferences, the report said.

Businesses in jurisdictions with retail competition have an advantage over those in utility territories with traditional regulation because they have more choices among power suppliers, an increased ability to manage electricity like other costs, lower or declining prices and greater responsiveness to changes in market prices, DEFG said.

DEFG is a consulting firm with clients that include utilities and marketers in restructured markets.

The DEFG report ranks jurisdictions' based on market conditions, regulatory policies and switching figures, and there were very few changes in the rankings for 2012. The top five states among the 18 ranked for commercial and industrial customers were unchanged with Texas topping the list for the sixth straight year, followed by Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

The bottom five jurisdictions are California, Ontario, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Michigan. The jurisdictions in the middle, in descending order with a few changes from last year are Connecticut, Alberta, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, the District of Columbia and Delaware.

--Tom Tiernan, tom_tiernan@platts.com
--Edited by Richard Rubin, richard_rubin@platts.com

Tweet