Originally Posted by
Seat13c
Just out of curiosity, is New York regulated to the point where it's just one service provider (i.e. National Grid) or does the consumer have a choice?
(here in NJ, Its PSEG (or whatever company depending on your area) or nothing when it comes to your power bill).
Not exactly...
PSE&G is the power DISTRIBUTOR for northern New Jersey, but your power SUPPLIER/GENERATOR can be chosen amongst several. You pay PSE&G the part of your bill dedicated to getting the energy supply to your home and to maintain the wires, but you can opt to pay someone else to generate it. My guess is that New York's deregulation works in a similar fashion--it would be virtually impossible to have some other set-up where neighbors could get their energy generated, distributed, and maintained by different companies.
At our home, for example, we participate in the NJ Clean Energy Power Choice program. For 2.0 cents extra per kWh, or about $10 extra in a typical month (when we started, it was an absurdly reasonable 0.9 cents per kWh, or about $4 extra per month), we buy all our energy from Green Mountain Energy, 50% small hydro and 50% wind. PSE&G still pipes the electricity to our house, and still responds to service calls, and technically still provides us with a mix of whatever energy's going onto the grid--but our energy purchase offsets our use by putting that much renewable energy onto the grid, which is shared by other NJ households. I can't imagine the NY program working much differently--the energy on the grid is shared, but an individual household or business can choose to purchase their share of electricity generation from a particular supplier.
Though, it would be nice if PSE&G customers could participate in this offer!
Off topic #1: Here is
info for PSE&G customers about energy choice in NJ.
Off topic #2: If you live in New Jersey and want to do your small (and affordable) part to save the earth, check out
CleanPower Choice. Frankly, it's a much more direct offset than flying and planting some trees on another continent, and it's a lot cheaper than buying a Prius.