The City of Monroe will have two questions on the November 7, 2023, General Election ballot to aggregate the retail natural gas customers and the electric customers, enter into service agreements to facilitate for those customers the sale and purchase of electric and natural gas, conversion to the aggregation program will occur automatically unless the customers choose to opt out of the program.
A public meeting will held on October 18, 2023, beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers at the City Building located at 233 South Main Street, Monroe. This will provide an opportunity to get more information and ask any questions you may have.
There has been an uptick in solicitors reaching out to residents in the City about contracts and pricing for your electric and natural gas rates. Here are a few things that you should be asking when they try to sign you up:
-Is this pricing fixed for the term?
Most of the time when these solicitors are trying to get you to sign up, they will offer an intro rate. This rate looks great but they fail to mention to you that this rate is only good for 3 months or 6 months of a 12- or 24-month contract. You will get this rate for the beginning of the contract but will be locked in at whatever rate they would like to charge you after. You could go from a 6 cents rate to an 11 or 12 cents rate after the intro period is up.
-How long is the term for?
The price to compare (PTC), or price that is offered if you are directly with Duke Energy, is $0.0994/kWh. These solicitors may come to you with the offer of savings with rates at $0.09/kWh or $0.08/kWh. Obviously with the rate being lower there are savings to be had. The issue is the PTC changes several times over the year. If you lock in at the $0.09 or $0.08 rate for 2 or 3 years and the PTC drops below that you could be stuck paying a higher rate through the end of the term. Also, it is important to know when your contract is up as you can be charged an auto-renew rate when it expires. This rate can be whatever the supplier would like to charge you so it could go from $0.09/kWh or $0.08/kWh to $0.12/kWh or $0.13/kWh. The supplier will not be contacting you to when the contract is up, it is on the consumer to re-sign or find another agreement at the end of the term.
-Is there an early termination fee?
This is most important question. If there is no early termination fee than you will be able to exit the contract whenever you like free of charge. It is highly recommended to find contracts with no early termination fee so that if you find a better deal or you would like to join the City’s aggregation program if it passes you can join at any time. If the market changes and it is better to go back with Duke directly you could also get out of these contracts at any time with no fee. Make sure to find out if the contract has an early termination fee.
Be diligent when receiving offers from solicitors. You can always tell them that you are perfectly fine with what you currently have. You do not have to sign a contract.