SELECTING GENERATION SUPPLIERS AND SOLICITING BIDS

General Information

All electric suppliers and aggregators must be certified by the PUCO. Certification is an ongoing process to make sure each supplier or aggregator is qualified to provide electricity in Ohio. You can find a list of certified suppliers and their current prices by calling the Ohio Electric Choice answer center at 1-888-OEC-1314 (1-888-632-1314) of by visiting their website at http://www.ohioelectricchoice.com/

As a business, you may want to send out requests for proposals (RFPs) to seek offers from electric suppliers, instead of waiting for suppliers to approach you. RFPs can be developed to address the specific energy usage and service needs of your business. You can then compare the offers to negotiate a contract that is best for your business.

In Ohio, the EDU required to include your companies' name, address and usage information on a list of eligible customers that is made available to other electric suppliers. If you do not wish to be included on this list, you must contact your EDU and request that this information not be released to suppliers.

Depending on the amount of electricity used at a facility, and others factors such as whether your company receives service under a written agreement or contract; you may be required to provide advance notice to your EDU of plans to switch to a competitive generation supplier. Facilities that consume large amounts of power may also be required to have specific electricity metering equipment installed to obtain power from a competitive supplier. If you switch to a competitive supplier, you may choose to return to standard offer service from your EDU under certain circumstances. However if you choose to return to standard offer service, it may trigger a minimum stay requirement to remain on standard offer service before you will be permitted to switch to another competitive supplier. Contact your EDU to obtain specific requirements before soliciting proposals from suppliers.

Once you have selected a competitive supplier and the supplier has notified the EDU of you decision, you should receive written confirmation of your election that identifies your choice of supplier from the EDU.

Competitive Retail Electric Suppliers are commonly referred to as marketers or brokers. Suppliers who take title to the generation commodity for resale are called marketers, while suppliers who do not take title are called brokers. However, this distinction may be irrelevant for most consumers who tend to use the terms interchangeably.

End-users may wish to select a supplier based on the quality of service, experience, the financial strength of the organization, and the ability and willingness to structure the transaction to best satisfy end-user needs. Bids for competitive generation supply are obtainable based on a fixed price for a term, an index price, or a variable price. As discussed herein, the bids may apply to the delivered price of gas to the EDU facilities, and do not include the distribution and/or transmission charges of the EDU. This is because the EDU will commonly charge a standard tariff regulated price for the transmission and distribution of electricity over their facilities, and these charges are independent of the supplier's price for the commodity and transmission delivery to the EDU.

Soliciting Bids

The competitive electricity market in Ohio is in its infancy and lacks transactional liquidity. At this time, there are very few suppliers soliciting commercial and industrial customers. We will update this information with additional guidance as suppliers enter the market.