How Electricity Choice Works

The two halves of your electric bill

Every residential electric bill in a choice market has two portions:

• Delivery — the regulated charges for transmission and distribution: the wires, the meter, storm response, meter reading. This part is set by your state's public utility commission and does not change when you choose a supplier.
• Supply — the charge for the electricity itself, priced per kilowatt-hour. This is the part you are allowed to shop.

In most markets supply is roughly half of an all-in residential bill. Read more in utility default supply rates, explained.

Default service: what you're on if you've never shopped

If you've never chosen a supplier, your utility buys electricity on your behalf and passes the cost through at whatever rate its state process produces. Each state names this default product differently — Standard Offer Service in Maryland and D.C., the Price to Compare in Pennsylvania, Basic Service in Massachusetts, Basic Generation Service in New Jersey, and default generation service in Ohio. In New York, non-ESCO customers pay a market-pass-through price with no fixed number at all.

Default rates change on a schedule — some markets twice a year, some once, some monthly. You don't choose the number; you find out what it did when the bill arrives.

Competitive supply: what changes when you choose

A licensed competitive supplier contracts to provide the electricity for your home. Only the supply rate changes hands. Your utility keeps delivering, keeps billing (in most cases), and keeps restoring your power after an outage. A supplier never touches the wires.

The most common product is a fixed electricity rate: one price per kilowatt-hour, locked for a set term, usually twelve months. The alternative is a variable rate, which can move month to month — see our fixed vs variable comparison.

How switching actually happens

1. You hear the current offers for your utility — rate, term and any conditions.
2. If you agree, enrollment is confirmed through a recorded third-party verification, handled by an independent company, not the agent who took your call.
3. Your utility is notified and switches your supply account on your next meter read. Nothing is disconnected, nothing is installed, and your power is never interrupted by the switch.
4. The supply line on your bill reflects the new rate. Delivery charges don't change.

Outages, billing and what stays the same

You call the same utility for outages, at the same number printed on your bill. In most markets the utility keeps billing you and the supply charge appears as a line on the same bill. Choice markets provide a cancellation window after enrollment, and early-termination conditions — if any — must be disclosed before you agree.

Where it's available

PowerRelief serves seven markets where residential supply choice exists: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and New York. Each has its own official comparison program run by the state.