North Carolina and South Carolina, both relatively low-cost power states, recently have made moves toward competition. In North Carolina, bills calling for the formation of a study commission to examine the introduction of electric supplier choice in that state were introduced in the House (H.B. 12) and Senate (S.B. 38). The intent to introduce choice has prompted the North Carolina Coalition for Customer Choice in Electricity to call on legislators to develop a report by April 1998, in time for a bill to be considered by the General Assembly that same year.
Pursuant to a market analysis performed by Brubaker & Associates, and figures gathered from public institutions, the coalition projects $275 million in annual savings for the state's household electric bills, $19 million for public schools and $6.9 million for the municipal governments of Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Winston-Salem.