Electricity (Austin, Round Rock, Pflugerville: apartment complexes, power lines, how much)

[seyareno]

We will be living in a apartment in North Austin just south of Round Rock. Who would you recommend for electricity? Which is better a one year plan or a month to month plan?

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by seyareno

We will be living in a apartment in North Austin just south of Round Rock. Who would you recommend for electricity? Which is better a one year plan or a month to month plan?

They have a year plan?

Never heard of paying by the year??

[kenneth.richard]

^^ I'm with you. How much is the year plan? It sounds like it's a fixed rate...which could be awesome if it isn't crazy expensive. How many roommates? Do you guys watch a lot of TV? Use the oven? Leave lights on without thinking twice? Leave computers running 24/7? Like the A/C to colder the majority of the time?

I wish I had the option to pay a fixed rate. But if its more than 150 bucks a month, I'd say go for the month-to-month (I assume variable rate). But it all depends on how you and your roommates live (along with the number of roommates you have). I lived with my wife in an apartment in NW Austin and paid about $90-150 a month. Summer months were higher as the A/C ran at a cool 69 degrees. We like it cold.

What company is it going through anyways? If you don't mind me asking...

[another_hot-day]

You probably won't have a choice on who you use. It will either be Austin Energy's territory or it will be PEC's.

Occasional exception is a MUD neigborhood.

[CptnRn]

Everything I have read in other similar threads indicates Austin Energy has the best rates around.

[robino2001]

If you're in Austin city limits, you more than likely are not deregulated and will not have a choice. Similarly, I believe most of the apartment complexes restrict you to one provider.

[datacity]

As it has been said, if you are in the city of Austin and certain MUDs in other cities bordering Austin, you will be served by Austin Energy, who tends to have the cheapest residential rates in the state.

If you are not in the Austin Energy service area, you will have to choose from the many other private companies; all will be more expensive than Austin Energy for residential service, so choose the one with the best rate given your expected usage and length of stay in the apartment.

[rmverdugo]

We have Reliant and live in Pflugerville. Does anyone have any experience with them? We recently got on their secure 12 plan, which keeps us at 15cents/kwh for the entire year...up from 11/kwh for a couple months last summer, but down from almost 20/kwh from October through February. Does anyone have any experience with them? I am not sure what an average cost per kwh is. We have a 2800 sq. ft. house, and keep the ac at about 79-80 during the day. Thanks for your help.

[robino2001]

15 cents is pretty high. The main companies - Reliant, TXU, etc - charge much more than the smaller companies typically. I've said this many times before on here... every year we lock in for 12 months with whoever is cheapest at the time, whether large or small. Arguments against that typically are based on the lines saying that the smaller companies won't fix the power lines if it goes out in the middle of the night, etc - that is all wrong because one company (TXU I think) maintains all of the powerlines anyways.

Anyway - we just locked in a 100% green energy plan at 10.1 cents (YEP energy)... so 15 cents for probably a 0 or 1% green plan is pretty crappy. That said, no matter who you use, locking in for 12 months is the smart way to go if you're not planing on moving - just be proactive on locking in again somewhere at the end of the 12 months or you'll have one horrible bill at the current rate.