[Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from OCC]
Following a conclusion last week from the state Office of Consumer Counsel that third-party energy suppliers milked $58 million out of Connecticut customers last year, suppliers have fired back.
This week, two industry associations representing suppliers, who compete with utilities and each other to procure electricity for customers, released responses to the report.
The National Energy Marketers Association said Monday that its review of publicly listed energy prices available on EnergizeCT’s website determined that if all Connecticut residential customers on standard utility service currently had switched to competitive service on Jan. 1, they would have collectively saved $166 million.
Competitive suppliers often have teaser rates that increase after six months. State regulators have cracked down on variable rates, requiring advance notice and other measures.
NEMA’s calculation was for approximately four months. It did not directly address OCC’s contention, based on data submitted to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, that many consumers using suppliers lost money overall last year.
Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz took issue with NEMA’s calculation.
“NEMA’s calculations are based on a hypothetical, while OCC’s calculations are based on publicly available data regarding what customers actually pay,” Swanson Katz said Friday.
Meanwhile, the Retail Energy Supply Association said approximately 85 percent of the offers on Energize CT’s rate board include some amount of renewable energy, while 22 percent are for 100 percent renewable energy.
“Green energy products are considered a premium product that is generally priced above the utility’s standard service rate,” RESA said in a recent statement.
In addition, suppliers also offer smart thermostats, gift cards and other perks to their customers that weren’t included in OCC’s analysis, RESA said.
“A wealth of competitive electricity products offer Connecticut consumers the opportunity to realize savings on their bill,” Marc Hanks, RESA’s New England chairman, said in a statement. “But there are also a wide range of value-added product offerings, the most prominent among them being ‘green’ energy products that offer consumers an opportunity to buy electricity that meets their environmental preferences.”
Katz also challenged the claims about renewable energy, pointing out that utilities and suppliers alike must include a minimum of 21 percent renewable energy in their offerings, under the state’s renewable portfolio standard.
“In Eversource territory, as of April 29, 2016, only 25 percent of offers (22 out of 88) published on the rate board at energizect.com claim to exceed this requirement,” Katz said Friday. “Of those 22 published offers, OCC could find specific information as to the renewable content of only four offers in the links provided from the rate board, and was unable to verify the availability of several of the offers. If customers wish to pay more for renewable content, they should be fully informed so that they can choose between offers that include more valuable Class I solar RECs, for example, as compared to less valuable Class II RECs for sources such as trash to energy.”
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