Monday, 28 January 2013

Connecticut Energy service restructured


Connecticut is relatively an expensive area in the United States of America with all time flying costs in terms of salaries, taxes, land, and other expenses. This area is also rated as the fourth high priced business areas in the country. Certainly, these soaring costs in the state affect electric companies and other participants in the utility market too. Electricity Prices in Connecticut are much higher than the national average thus making the utility a costlier commodity for the residents.

You can also notice that, even though the Connecticut consumers use less power than the nations average consumption there is no big difference in their monthly bills in comparison to other states of the United States. They pay huge amounts on their little usage as compared to the rates in other states. With Connecticut’s rapidly growing Electricity Prices and needs it is becoming difficult for the common man to afford CT energy. Also saving the power is becoming a tough competition for the locals in the city.

Connecticut Electricity Prices increase dramatically during peak demand, particularly during the summer. With soaring temperatures around the rate of consumption consequently rise thus increasing the monthly expense on the whole. Connecticut Electric companies are striving hard to find the possible aids to such huge rising costs thus are enforcing certain conservative measures to help consumers reduce their expenses on utility.

According to CT Energy Info, some of the measures that Connecticut utility companies can implement in order to promote conservation and reduce Electricity Prices are as follows:
·         Mandatory daily time of use rates for large commercial and industrial customers.
·         Voluntary time of use rates for other residential customers.
·         Mandatory seasonal rates for all customers.
·         Implementation of smart meters to allow the consumers to have a track of their consumption rates on a regular basis.

In the past, all the electric companies had a monopoly on selling power in their service territories. They owned and operated generation, transmission, and distribution facilities alone. Their Electricity Prices were regulated by public utility commissions (PUC) on a cost of service basis. But since the deregulation was being implemented in the majority of states in the U.S.A there introduced a trend of consumer choice on energy purchase. The Connecticut Electricity companies as part of deregulation were required to sell their electric generating plants to private firms.  As a result, they no longer one single company both produces and supply utility to the consumers. Instead, they deliver energy produced by others.

This deregulation opened up the power generation market to retail competition that allowed CT utility companies to sell power and compete in the open market. This also allowed the consumers to compare the CT Energy Info and shop around the market looking for the best Electricity Prices available in the area. All the CT consumers were also given by the power to switch to the utility supplier of their choice if they feel the old provider unreliable or costly. However, Deregulation was implemented to encourage competition among multiple electricity suppliers, which would ultimately drive down energy prices and help customers save money on monthly bills by offering cheap and flexible rates.

Now in 2013, Connecticut utility customers have more choices and greater access to cleaner energy than ever before. Also post the deregulation, many new types of Eco friendly power generation technologies are being developed and integrated into the CT Energy market. According to CT Energy Info, different sources of energy like Hydropower, wind energy and biomass are contributing to the state’s goal of generating 27 % of Connecticut’s entire energy production by the end of 2020.

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