Energy Fair Supplies Some Answers as Deadline Nears
Democrat & Chronicle - December 20, 2004 - Enid Arbelo -Staff writer
HENRIETTA — Anxious Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. customers kept a conference room buzzing with questions Sunday as they moved one step closer to making a powerful decision — one that could save them money or one that could ultimately cost them more.
More than 200 customers filled the Holiday Inn Holidome in Henrietta for a state Public Service Commission energy fair to get information that could help them make a choice in RG&E's "Voice Your Choice" program. The program's goal is to give customers more choices for buying electricity, which is mandated by state deregulation of utilities. Customers have to choose a provider and either a fixed or a variable rate.
With only seven days until the deadline to make a choice, Judith Van Mess of Rochester pecked away at her calculator as she surveyed the pile of paperwork in front of her. The 72-year-old came prepared — she had a handwritten chart of this year's utility costs, average usage and rates.
Should she choose variable or fixed? Living on a retirement income makes this a frustrating topic, Van Mess said.
"My income does not go up in the winter. I don't have a snow plow business on the side or teach skiing lessons," she joked.
She eyed the chart. Switching, say, from RG&E to ConEdison Solutions would mean going from an average rate of 7.11 cents to 6.6 cents per kilowatt hour — which ends up being a savings of about $17 a year, she said.
"For me, that's not a lot of money," she said. "It's about half a week's grocery."
Van Mess uses less electricity than the average RG&E customer, who uses about 500 kilowatt-hours a month.
"It's a one-person house. I dress warmly. I don't waste energy," she said.
The main difference between ConEdison and RG&E is that Con-Edison doesn't have a local office, and she was uncertain whether ConEdison offers budget billing. But at least, she said, she was a little closer to making up her mind.
Ralph A. Gaudio sat down for a bit, taking one last glance at a folder bulging with papers. Gaudio, though, was nearing a decision as he narrowed down the list to two possible providers.
"This is just a bunch of horse hockey," said Gaudio, 57, of Rochester. "They should be providing useful information."
He wanted RG&E to provide a price-by-price comparison with the other suppliers instead of mailing confusing literature, he said.
Although Gaudio hasn't decided on a provider, he is sure he wants a variable rate. Gaudio said it's risky to lock into a fixed rate without knowing what the market will do. With a variable rate, the cost of electricity will vary monthly and is based on a 30-day average wholesale price of electricity. A fixed rate won't fluctuate and goes into effect Jan. 1.
"If it goes up, it's going to go down," he said.
On average, Gaudio and his wife pay about $49 a month with a fixed rate of about 7 cents. If they had a variable rate, which was at 6.63 cents per kilowatt-hour Sunday, he would have saved about $10 in the past month. And because the fixed rate is just going to increase about 11 percent because of the utility's increased costs of buying electricity, Gaudio is sold on the variable rate concept.
Some, like 33-year-old Jacob Adams, weren't so certain.
"Basically they are asking us to predict the future," Adams said.
With the 8:30 p.m. Dec. 30 deadline looming, Adams is one step closer to figuring it out, thanks to Sunday's session. Talking face-to-face with a representative made it easy for him to ask questions that specifically catered to his living situation.
That's what made the session so useful, said Alice Miller, chief of the office of retail market and development with the Public Service Commission.
"This is helpful. I think people are finally making a decision," Miller said.
"We were a little concerned that, because of the weather, people weren't going to show up," she said. Of the past 10 informational sessions, this was the first to offer one-on-one time with representatives of the utilities. Agway Energy Services, ECONnergy Energy Co. and NYSEG Solutions Inc. did not have representatives present.
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