Tag Archives: Electricty Savings

Market Prices: Month to Month Plans 4/12

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It’s Monday, and I hope this week’s look at month to month electricity rates finds everyone in good health and coming off a good weekend. Rates are still rock bottom, so now’s the time to take advantage of the market prices that the Texas electricity market is presenting. As always, make sure that you read the fine print for any plan you sign up for, as some of these rates might be promotional and could end up much higher after an introductory time period for the customer.

Cheapest Month to Month Plans:

  • Dynowatt – 7.8
  • StarTex Power – 7.9
  • Bounce Energy – 8.3
  • Stream Energy – 8.6
  • Amigo Energy – 8.7

    • And as always, for comparison, here are the providers with some of the most expensive month to month plans:

    Most Expensive Month to Month plans:

  • Texpo Energy – 12.7
  • Reliant Energy – 12.4

    • Those two are the most expensive. The next on the list are .3 cents cheaper. Hope everyone can make good use of this information when shopping.

    Green Energy and Tax Credit

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    Here’s a post from a Green Energy blog that I read this week. Basically the gist of it is that the people at Bounce Energy posted some information about the benefits of making your home more environmentally friendly, and how you can use this to collect on a tax break from the government for energy conversation, as well as a general estimate on how much money you can save just by greening up your home. There’s a lot of details in the post, and this blog/article at Green.TMC.Net does a great job of breaking down the details.

    The short of it is that it makes a lot of sense for everyone to take the time to make some green upgrades/renovations to your home, which can be as simple as re-caulking windows and vents. It doesn’t have to be something as drastic as installing a windmill or solar panels. The Texas Electricity market offers lots of opportunities to save money just because of the options for electric choice. This is a little bit of a different opportunity on how to save money, but it’s a good opportunity nonetheless. I’d encourage everyone to read the breakdown.

    Newest Electricity Plans on the Market

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    Most of what we post here on the TER blog centered on specific news in the Texas Electricity market, be it provider news or marketplace news. We’re going to take a bit of a different angle today and took a look at some of the different plans that have hit the market from various REPs (Retail Electricity Providers) recently. Also, it should be noted that all of the prices/rates listed below are based on the Houston area market. Rates in Dallas will on average be about approximately half a cent lower, and the rates in Central Texas might be about half a cent higher.

    Ambit:

  • Texas Select Variable Plan – The name says it all on this one, it is a month to month variable rate plan. The current price point for 1,000 Kilowatts-per-hour is at 11.5 cents. The 500 Kilowatt-per-hour price point is at 12.3 cents.
  • Certified Green Texas Variable Plan – This is Ambit’s other new plan, which is also a month to month variable plan. It is a 100% renewable green plan, so that’s always a nice product to offer for people looking to reduce their carbon footprint. The 1,000 Kilowatt-per-hour price point is 12.8 cents, and the 500 Kilowatt-per-hour price point is 13.6 cents.

    Bounce Energy:

  • Fantastic Fixed Six – Bounce’s new plan sounds more like a superhero team than an electricity plan, but beneath the catchy name is actually a pretty good price plan. It is a 6 month fixed plan with a $4.95 monthly fee that is waived if the customer utilizes the 1,000 Killowatt-per-hour energy range. The 1,000 KwH rate is 11 cents, and the 500 KwH rate is 12 cents. Good rates. And on top of that, this new plan comes with Bounce’s usual goody bag of items like potential bill credits, free magazine subscriptions, and enrollment into their loyalty rewards program.

    First Choice:

  • Simply Better Price Plan 12 – This is a 12 month fixed rate plan that comes with a $4.95 monthly charge. What it offers is pretty straightforward, and the price plans are as follows: 13.6 cents for 1,000 Kilowatts-per-hour, and 14.1 cents for 500 Kilowatts-per-hour. These are not great prices. Gexa has a 2 year Green Energy plan that is cheaper than this, so I’d not recommend this plan.

    Gexa:

  • Gexa Guaranteed 24 – One of Gexa’s two new plans is the Guaranteed 24 plan, which is a 2 year fixed rate plan Gexa has started offering. The price point is 12.7 cents per 1,000 Kilowatt-per-hour, while the 500 Kilowatt-per-hour rate is 13.9 cents.
  • Gexa Green 24 – This is Gexa’s new fixed rate plan for green energy. The plan is 2 years fixed, and the energy is 100% Green energy. The price points are 13.1 cents and 14.5 cents for 1,000 and 500 Kilowatt-per-hours respectively.

    Just Energy:

  • Electricity Fixed Rate Program – This is definitely a different kind of plan out there. The plans lengths are either 4 or 5 YEARS. So, this is for the really long term commitment and people who have no interest in playing the market. 1,000 Kilowatt-per-hour usage is set at 14 cents, and 500 Kilowatt-per-hour usage is tabbed at 14.5 cents. There’s also a monthly $4.95 fee.

    StarTex:

  • Star “Summer Sizzle” 4 Month Plan – Well, in today’s humorous note comes StarTex Power. I went to their website to find more information on this plan, only to discover that this plan isn’t listed (at least not in this verbiage) on their website. Way to be consistent StarTex. I’ll assume this is what on their website is listed as the Secure 4 plan. It’s a 4 month plan which they advertise as 9.9 cents, but this if for the 2,000 Kilowatt-per-hour price, so be careful there. The 1,000 Kilowatt-per-hour plan is 10.1, and the 500 Kilowatt-per-hour plan is 10.4 cents. All in all, that’s pretty good prices, even if they’re not sure what to call the plan.

    So here’s some of the latest plans to hit the market from various REPs. Keep in mind, all of the other REP’s on the market will likely have changed the price points on their plans as well, so that is worth checking into as well if you want to get the cheapest electricity service possible.

    • Smarter Thermostats Roll out in TXU

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    Texas Electricity Ratings stumbled across an interesting article this week discussing the use of “Smart Thermostats” and how TXU is rolling them out in some of their territories. The notion here is that, essentially, TXU is rolling out a Thermostat that will leverage a customer’s home broadband service to monitor their home electricity.

    So what does that mean to the customer, exactly? Well, in short, imagine how Tivo operates, or those sometimes amusing DirecTV commercials where guys in the middle of a crisis set their DVR from their phone or laptop. This is a similar principle. The customer can log on and monitor their home electric usage. They can see what they’re using, and potentially how much it’s costing them, and they can adjust their electricity usage accordingly. If there’s peak times when costs are at the highest, a customer can program their thermostat to shut itself off for a 10 or 15 minute and then start back up again, prompting potentially substantial electricity savings.

    Hats off the TXU for finding a new way to leverage technology to potentially give customers greater savings. This will act as an excellent stop-gap until (or even after) Oncor (and Centerpoint and all the rest) get their Smart Meter’s completely installed and functional throughout their footprints. Of course, any promise of cheap electricity typically comes with some kind of price, and this instance is no different. In this case, the cost is the broadband thermostat itself, which costs $75.