Energy Choice 101
What is Electricity Choice?
Electricity choice gives eligible customers the ability to choose who supplies their electricity without changing the utility that delivers it.
The short answer
One electric bill.
Two different jobs.
Electricity has to be both supplied and delivered. In a traditional regulated market, the local utility generally handles both. In a competitive market, licensed electricity suppliers can compete for the supply portion of your bill.
Your utility still delivers the power, maintains the local grid, reads the meter, and responds to outages. The supplier determines the price and terms for the electricity you buy.
The ability to select an electricity supplier in an eligible market. You may also hear it called energy choice, retail electric choice, customer choice, or electricity deregulation.
Supply vs. delivery
What changes and what doesn’t.
Electricity supplier
- Sets your electricity supply rate
- Offers contract terms and products
- May offer fixed, index, or blended pricing
- Coordinates enrollment with your utility
Local utility
- Delivers electricity to the property
- Maintains poles, wires, and meters
- Reads your meter
- Restores power after an outage
No new wires. No interruption. No change in reliability. Switching suppliers changes the commercial arrangement, not the electrical system connected to your building.
Energy choice by state
Where is energy choice available?
Retail electricity and natural gas choice varies by state. This simplified map shows where full retail choice is available.
U.S. energy choice map
Full retail-choice markets.
Availability can vary by service territory, customer class, account size, and program rules.
Pennsylvania electric choice
Can you choose your electricity supplier in Pennsylvania?
For most Pennsylvania customers, yes. Businesses and residents in participating utility territories can shop among licensed electric generation suppliers while their local utility continues delivering electricity.
If you do not select a competitive supplier, you generally receive default supply from your utility. The utility’s benchmark supply rate is called the Price to Compare. It is a useful starting point, but businesses should also compare what each offer includes, what can change, and how the product fits their actual usage.
Before you choose
A lower rate is not always a better contract.
Electric choice creates competition and more ways to buy. It does not guarantee savings. Compare the full product, not only the headline rate.
What is included?
Energy, capacity, transmission, line losses, and other market costs may be treated differently.
What can change?
Review capacity, transmission, change-in-law, bandwidth, and regulatory adjustment provisions.
How long is the term?
Make sure the start date and contract length fit your existing agreement, budget, and market strategy.
Does it fit your usage?
Commercial offers should be evaluated against when and how your organization actually uses electricity.
What happens at expiration?
Understand renewal notices, holdover pricing, cancellation requirements, and termination fees.
Using your power to choose
An energy advisor can help you put electric choice to work.
You can shop for electricity on your own. You can also authorize an energy advisor to request bids from multiple suppliers, compare products, explain contract terms, and help determine when to purchase. For organizations with multiple accounts or significant usage, that support can make a complicated market easier to navigate.
Understand your usage
Your load profile influences how suppliers price your account.
Compare the whole offer
The rate matters, but so do included components and contract protections.
Choose when to buy
Market timing can have a major impact on your final energy cost.
Customers are often asked to trust a recommendation without seeing every supplier bid, every embedded cost, or every contract tradeoff.
Why Meter was created
Energy choice created competition. It did not create transparency.
Supplier offers can be difficult to compare. Important differences in capacity, transmission, renewal language, adjustment clauses, and product structure may not be obvious. And many customers only see the market when a contract deadline forces them to buy.
Meter was built to make supplier bids, pricing components, contract risk, and market timing easier to understand. The goal is simple: put the power of energy choice back in the hands of the people paying the bill.
Common questions
Electric choice, answered.
What is electric choice?⌄
Electric choice is the ability of an eligible customer to select the company that supplies its electricity. The local utility continues to deliver electricity and maintain the distribution system.
Is electric choice the same as electricity deregulation?⌄
They are closely related. Deregulation or restructuring creates a competitive electricity supply market. Electric choice is the customer’s ability to select a supplier within that market.
Can I choose my electric utility?⌄
Usually, no. Your utility is determined by your location. In a choice market, you select the supplier while your local utility continues to deliver electricity.
Will switching suppliers affect reliability?⌄
No. Your utility still maintains the poles and wires and restores power after an outage, regardless of which supplier you choose.
Does choosing a supplier guarantee savings?⌄
No. A competitive offer may save money, but the result depends on the rate, market timing, product structure, contract language, and your organization’s usage profile.
Can I choose my electric supplier in Pennsylvania?⌄
Most Pennsylvania customers in participating utility territories can choose a licensed electric generation supplier. Eligibility varies by utility territory and account type.
Sources & further reading
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Don’t Waste
Your Choice.
Energy choice gives you the power to make suppliers compete for your business. Meter helps you use it to buy smarter and spend less.