Maryland Business

By: Danielle Ulman

If you’re like most people in Maryland, chances are you haven’t switched your business or home over from your regular power supplier — BGE, Pepco, Delmarva, etc. — to a competitive supplier.

As of the end of August, the Public Service Commission reports that 28.8 percent of the state’s 239,031 commercial and industrial businesses prefer competitive supply and that 4.1 percent of the state’s nearly 2 million residential customers are shopping for power (that’s an increase from 2.8 percent of homeowners who had switched as of January).

With so many options and little effort by the state to educate consumers, it’s not too surprising that Marylanders haven’t jumped on the competitive supply bandwagon.

To clear up all that confusion,  a company called BidURenergy.com has created a service that lets businesses and residents plug in their information and do little other work to get a good deal.

The staff at BidURenergy.com will analyze electricity and gas use over the last 12 to 24 months, identify incorrect charges from the utility and recoup any overcharges, and then issue a request for proposals to suppliers licensed in the customer’s state within a few days.

The service is free, and the company says it doesn’t get paid based on getting contracts signed between suppliers and customers — suppliers pay a uniform fee — so there’s no bias when it zeroes in on the best contract for the customer.

I haven’t tried it, but it sounds like an easy way to see if competitive supply might save you or your business money.