"Howard" wrote in message
om...
Snip


Final point-In states where you can buy your own energy (like TX) big
customers are doing relatively well, but the costs of marketing to and
serving small customers chews up a lot of the savings. Unfortunately
for TX they bet on many new natural gas generating units and their
fuel costs have doubled in the last two years raising costs on the
"free market" substantially.


Yup, I live in Texas. I just wish that the power companies would let us buy
electricity when we needed it. During peak periods the price world be more
expansive and during the winter, weekends, and night hours the price would
be cheaper. I was part of a pilot program in 1996-1997 that my local
electricity company tried out. My electric bill was less than $1,077.00 for
that whole that year. My electric bill the following year after the program
was terminated went up to $1,339.00 with only a 5% increase of usage.

That said, my electric rates last year were basically the same as they were
in 1998.