School districts in Lebanon and Lancaster County have saved over $2 million on their electric bills since 2009. Imagine how many text books $2 million dollars would buy or the number of teachers districts could hire, or even the property taxes hikes that have been prevented.

A few months before rate caps expired, the Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit began searching for a way to lower electric bills for schools. They decided to form the Electricity Procurement Program and selected Direct Energy as their alternative supplier. Direct Energy was able to capitalize on their experience with schools and their unique needs; schools use little electricity during summer months when demand is high. Unfortunately, the majority of schools have not taken advantage of the available savings from electric choice in Pennsylvania.

Switching to a competitive electricity supplier has been a slow but steady process across Pennsylvania. Currently, the majority of industrial consumers are shopping, but the number of resident and business consumers remains in the 20 to 30 percent range. The worse shopping rates come from the Met-Ed utility region, where less than three percent of residential consumers are shopping.

Why the slow pace in Pennsylvania? That?s a question Public Utility Commission is trying to answer. Some of the sluggish growth may be due to slowly emerging competition. Beginning in November, Con Edison Solutions began serving Met-Ed residential customers with an offer of 8.05 cents per kilowatt-hour, a 11.5 percent savings compared with the current Met-Ed Price to Compare.

When polled about electric shopping, the vast majority of Pennsylvania residents know they have a choice when it comes to electricity generation, yet they still have not switched. When asked why they are not shopping, many said they didn?t think the amount of savings was worth the hassle. Others reported the switching process was overwhelming or too complicated with so many choices.

While there is little the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) can or should do about the low amount of savings in some areas, websites like ElectricChoice.com specialize in making the shopping process for homes and businesses simple and effective. The PUC will continue to work on other ways to facilitate easy shopping.

One suggestion is to change the frequency of rate recalculations. Instead of utility companies adjusting rates to reflect market prices every quarter, the PUC is considering limiting rate adjustments to twice a year. This policy could induce more shopping by giving consumers less data to consume, but it could also backfire.

Decreasing the amount of price adjustments could make electricity prices less reflective of the marketplace and prevent switching, or make it less likely consumers will be aware of lower rates since their utility bills will rarely change.

The PUC will continue to study this and other recommendations for improving the state?s electricity market, a process that won?t be completed anytime soon. Meanwhile, the electricity market will continue to grow and expand as new suppliers enter the marketplace.