{"id":40372,"date":"2015-08-03T09:37:21","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T14:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=40372"},"modified":"2015-08-03T09:37:21","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T14:37:21","slug":"power-to-choose-or-to-pay-more-state-of-texas-website-faulted-by-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2015\/08\/03\/power-to-choose-or-to-pay-more-state-of-texas-website-faulted-by-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Power To Choose -Or To Pay More? State Of Texas Website Faulted By Consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_40373\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-40373\" alt=\"Power to Choose Homepage\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/08\/power_to_choose_web-300x185.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/08\/power_to_choose_web-300x185.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/08\/power_to_choose_web-620x383.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/08\/power_to_choose_web.jpg 1476w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">KUHF<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Power to Choose Homepage<\/p><\/div>\n<p>With temperatures near 100 degrees, this is the time of year when we spend the most money to run our air conditioners. But are you spending more than you have to because you used the state\u2019s Power to Choose website to pick your electricity provider?<\/p>\n<p>Frank St. Claire knows numbers and contracts. He graduated from MIT and became a lawyer and did big real estate deals. He\u2019s now retired. Which is all good to know as you consider what now is challenging his analytical abilities. He\u2019s been spending hours reviewing complicated contracts and pricing formulas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is labor intensive. I had to do a spreadsheet in order to make any sense of it,\u201d St. Claire told News 88.7.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s taking up so much of this retiree\u2019s time? It\u2019s his electricity bill.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/216935913&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!--more-->St. Claire lives in Dallas, which like Houston and much of Texas, is part of the so-called competitive electricity market. That means you pick from dozens of electricity providers who each offer many different billing plans. But despite St. Claire\u2019s hard work, he says he still ended up with bad deals.<\/p>\n<p>How much money does St. Claire think he\u2019s lost by not being signed up with the best plans available over the years?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would amount to the thousands of dollars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>St. Claire says a big problem he found is the state\u2019s own Power to Choose website. It\u2019s supposed to allow you to compare all those rate plans to find the one that\u2019s the best deal for your household. But customers, including St. Claire, have filed formal comments with the Public Utility Commission of Texas.<\/p>\n<p>One customer alleged that electricity providers we\u2019re using \u201cartificial pricing schemes\u201d to mislead consumers who use the Power to Choose website to find the best plans.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/02\/04\/heres-who-in-texas-will-pay-you-to-use-less-power\/\">Here&#8217;s Who Will Pay You to Use Less Power in Texas<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/10\/01\/report-electric-deregulation-drives-complaints\/\">Report: Electric Deregulation Drives Complaints<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/09\/26\/for-texas-electricity-customers-here-comes-the-sun\/\">For Texas Electricity Customers, Here Comes the Sun<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/11\/28\/secret-price-of-power-hides-what-texans-really-pay\/\">Secret Price of Power Hides What Texans Really Pay<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/ERCOT-Power-Electricity-By-Daniel-Reese-05-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/ercot\/\">What Is The Electric Reliability Council Of Texas (ERCOT)?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\u201cAs far as I can tell these plans are designed to make it difficult to compare,\u201d says Robert Poor. He\u2019s not a customer, he\u2019s in Los Angeles where he\u2019s the founder of a web venture called Blue Dot.<\/p>\n<p>His company promises to provide an unbiased analysis comparing your current plan to others. Poor says they\u2019ve found &#8212; by analyzing the electric bills of several hundred Texans &#8212;- that a lot of people are paying way too much.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people can save less, some people can save more, but on average, Texas consumers could cut down on their utility bills by 50 percent, by half,\u201d said Poor.<\/p>\n<p>(For our previous reporting on what Texans actually pay for electricity, click here.)<\/p>\n<p>Poor says the problem is that the state\u2019s Power to Choose website will often pull up plans with what look like cheap rates. But that in the fine print of the contracts you eventually sign, he says there can be fees, or higher rates if you don\u2019t use the amount of electricity the offer was based on. And of course, what you will actually use fluctuates with the weather and other factors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what will happen is you\u2019ll end up paying a lot more,\u201d said Poor.<\/p>\n<p>But state officials defend the way electricity is marketed in Texas. Donna Nelson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, was on a conference call with reporters Tuesday to talk about how she said Texas consumers could be saving money on electricity if they took the time to shop around. The media event was organized by a consulting company, DEFG, which was releasing a report on deregulated utility markets in North America.<\/p>\n<p>But in light of what we\u2019d been hearing, we asked Nelson about those complaints that the Power to Choose website can be deceptive. We asked if it is time to do something about the Power to Choose website to make it more protective of consumers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, I am not aware of what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d responded Nelson.<\/p>\n<p>But nonetheless Nelson told us: \u201cOver the years we\u2019ve worked really hard to make it more and more friendly to customers, and easier to use.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nelson said the utility commission is now making electricity marketers spell out that some rates are just short-term, promotional prices. She also said that a \u201cfact sheet\u201d for each plan should make it easier to compare one plan with another.<\/p>\n<p>That hasn\u2019t been the experience though of some consumers like Frank St. Claire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have to pick up the phone and call each provider,\u201d said St. Claire, explaining that he now goes off-line and calls directly to the companies to find the best deals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With temperatures near 100 degrees, this is the time of year when we spend the most money to run our air conditioners. But are you spending more than you have to because you used the state\u2019s Power to Choose website to pick your electricity provider? Frank St. Claire knows numbers and contracts. He graduated from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[14,76],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40372"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40380,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40372\/revisions\/40380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}