Off Peak

Deck: 
Should PUCs teach customers that the market doesn't want them?
Fortnightly Magazine - July 1 2000
This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.

Off Peak

July 1, 2000

Managed Expectations

By Regina R. Johnson

Should PUCs teach customers that the market doesn't want them?

You know the flight of suppliers from a deregulated market is having an impact when surviving marketers issue press releases to let customers know they're still in the game.

That was the situation in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic in mid-June, on the heals of reports that a handful of electric suppliers in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York were returning customers to default utilities. They blamed soaring wholesale prices caused by expected tight supply in the region this summer. Some default suppliers were in a pinch too, as their projected demand rose, leaving them to scramble for sufficient supply at the high wholesale prices.

"Prices in the wholesale market are just too high to price [electricity] lower than the price to compare and still make a profit," explained Tim Brown, a spokesman for Conectiv Energy Services. In early June, the supplier notified 35,000 residential customers in the PECO service area that they would be returned to the incumbent utility after the July 1 meter reading.

This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.