PECO Customers Can Soon Shop Around

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - PECO energy customers will soon have the opportunity to shop for another electricity supplier.

PECO is rolling out the price it will charge customers per kilowatt-hour beginning in January. It's expected to be about 9 cents.

Pennsylvania's consumer advocate Sonny Popowsky says PECO customers will be offered a chance to buy power from another supplier which might be able to offer electricity at a lower price:

"People should look on this as a choice, as an opportunity. It's not something that they should worry about if they don't want to switch right away or don't feel comfortable switching. The idea is that this is an option for people."

Popowsky says PECO customers will likely get mail solicitations from companies offering to beat PECO's price.

But the bottom line, while a customer could choose to get their power from some other company, Popowsky says the customer will still be connected to the PECO system, receive a PECO bill, and have PECO respond to repair any outages caused by storms.

Popowsky's office will prepare a price shopping guide in the coming weeks, geared toward PECO customers.

Reported by Mark Abrams, KYW Newsradio