Question: Do I have a
choice of who I can select my energy from?
Question: How can you be able to offer me a lower
rate than my utility bill?
Question: How are you able to get the energy to
me?
Question: What if I have an emergency?
Question: What are the risks involved with
switching?
Question: How will you bill me for the energy we
purchase from your supplier?
Question: Is there a chance that your supplier would
cost me more overall than my utility?
Question: Can I purchase natural gas and electricity from
you?
Question: What about the transportation cost of my
natural gas service?
Question: Can I be your customer and participate in
this program while receiving rebates and other
savings program incentives through my utility?
Question: How is my index rate price actually
determined each month?
Question: Do I have a choice of who I
can select my energy from?
Answer:
You certainly do have a choice. The energy (natural gas
and/or electricity)
industry in your area has been deregulated. The
easiest way to understand it is to think of it like
the
telecommunications deregulation, but instead of
using phone lines we are using energy lines. We
are able to sell you energy at a discount
and you continue to use the utilities existing
pipelines to transport the energy to your
facility or residence. There are no setup fees or
connection fees and your utility will not charge you
additional transportation costs. So we are able to
pass on the savings from the actual energy you
use.
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Question: How can you be able to offer me a lower
rate than my utility?
Answer:
The utility is allowed to build in cost of their
infrastructure, bad debts and anything else the
Public Utilities Commission will allow them, into
their actual cost of energy. Our suppliers have
minimal overhead and are much more flexible and able to go
out and get the best price for your energy. We
then pass those savings on to our customers.
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Question: How are you able to get the energy to
me?
Answer:
We will give the energy you buy from us directly to
your utility company and then you will still pay them
to transport the
natural gas through their existing pipelines to your
residence or facility. You will still be a
customer of your local utility, but you will get your
energy from our suppliers.
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Question: What if I have an emergency?
Answer:
If you have an emergency like a gas leak or a fire
you will still call you local utility company and
they will come out and service your pipelines and
meters, you will still be their customer because you
will pay them for transporting your energy to your
residence or facility. They will not charge you more
in a maintenance or emergency situation because you
are purchasing your energy from another company.
However, if you have a billing or customer service
issue you can quickly contact your representative
and be taken care of much quicker and effectively.
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Question: What are the risks involved
with switching?
Answer:
There is essentially no additional risk. Our
personally "hand-picked" suppliers have been in business for
many years and
have thousands of residential and commercial accounts nationwide
and have never received a better business bureau
complaint. That is not the case with other energy
marketers. Our suppliers are truly devoted to customer
satisfaction. They have survived and outlasted many
others in our industry even when most had only been
in business a fraction of the time. They will be
here for a long time to come and in the event they
cannot supply you with gas or electricity, your local utility
company would begin to supply you again
automatically.
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Question: How will you bill me for
the energy we purchase from your supplier?
Answer:
If you are a residential customer you will continue
to receive your single PG&E bill. The only
difference is that instead of having PG&E’s
cost for your natural gas and/or electricity on your bill you
will
have our suppliers cost. Nothing will change from
your prospective and you just pay once using any
current method available to you from PG&E. There is
a $.05 per day customer fee included as well.
If you are a commercial customer in
the PG&E area you be eligible to receive your
charges on your single PG&E bill or you will also have the option to
receive a separate bill from your energy supplier
at no additional cost.
If you are a commercial customer in
the SoCal or SDG&E area you will receive a separate
bill from your supplier at no additional
cost.
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Question: Is there a chance that your supplier would
cost me more overall than my utility.
Answer:
In some months there is a chance that our energy
suppliers could cost
you more, but that does not happen often. We have never
cost our customers more annually than your local utility would have
on a per Therm basis. The suppliers price can
sometimes be more than your local utilities price
because of lags between your local utility price and
actual
current market price. Historically the prices on a
monthly level are most always less than the
utilities but when energy prices rise unexpectedly
and quickly in a matter of a few months it can
result in the price for a month being more than the
utilities. This is because when we were purchasing
our energy at the markets current rates, the utility
was still selling energy at rates below where
the current market was. This is because they must
set their monthly prices well in advance of
when they do and the market was not forecasted to
rise so much or so quickly. This results in their
prices continuing to rise as ours level off or drop
from their highs. That is why we like for our
customers to look at the savings on an annual basis.
Essentially, if their prices are less than ours in
one month then that difference is likely to be made
up in subsequent months.
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Question: Can I purchase natural gas
and electricity
from you?
Answer:
The deregulation of natural gas and electricity
varies from state to state. In California,
natural gas is deregulated. Governor
Schwartzennegger recently signed CA Bill 695 which
will deregulate electricity in coming months which
will allow you to have a choice of who you wish to
purchase electricity from.
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Question: What about the
transportation cost of my energy service?
Answer:
Your local utility will still charge you for the
transportation of the energy to your facility
or residence. You are already paying them for the
transportation of the energy right now and when you
become our customer your utility will not charge you
anything additional for the transportation. So you
can take the transportation out of the equation and
whatever we can save you on the energy supplied is what
you can expect to save overall. Generally, the more
energy you
use the more we can save you.
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Question: Can I be your customer and
participate in this program while receiving rebates
and other savings program incentives through my
utility?
Answer:
Yes, you can purchase your energy at a discount
from us and still be eligible for all the savings
and rebate programs your local utility company offers. This even
includes California’s Care customers. Even if you
signed a contract for a rebate you will remain a
customer of your utility and still be eligible for
the rebate and be able to participate in our
program.
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Question: How is my index rate price
actually determined each month?
Answer:
In California the index’s we use to determine your
price each month is either the Natural Gas
Intelligence (NGI) or Inside FERC (IF) index. These
indexes are third party organizations that look at
all the transactions happening at a particular
geographical delivery point and assign an index
value for that delivery point each month. Both of
these indexes are independent third party
organizations, are highly respected and industry
standards in the areas we use them. Essentially,
they are determining the market based rate for your
area each month.
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