As a residential energy auditor for 5 years this is by far the easiest way to shave money off your BGE bill. This blog post will talk about third party energy providers in Maryland, potential savings, and help to understand reading your BGE bill. Even if you don’t have a third party supplier this post will keep you protected from potential waste.

What Is A Third Party Energy Supplier

Cutout from a BGE bill with the third party supplier circled.

This post is NOT specifically about Inspire Energy Holdings but they will be used as an example in this post. In Maryland, residential customers have the option to select who supplies them gas and electricity other than the utility. The utility would still apply delivery charges but the customer could select a potentially cheaper supplier of energy. You may already be familiar with this program from door knockers who have told you BGE is charging you extra and that they want to see your bill.

What Is The Problem?

The problem with third party suppliers is that many of them use “variable pricing”. This means that the price may initially be lower than what BGE is charging but after three or six months it usually increases and sometimes significantly. Some people do not understand the terms of the contract or are able to identify that this is the cause of their bills increasing. Additionally, there are instances of deceit by the door knockers, unfortunately.

How To Identify If I have them?

It’s super easy! If there is a different name than the utility under the “Electricity Supply” or “Gas Supply” section of your BGE bill then you have a third party supplier. Please use the picture above as an example. Another way to tell if you have a third party supplier is that the bottom of the second page or the top of the third page is a box listing the supplier’s charge. Please see the image below as an example.

What Are They Charging Me?

Electricity supply rates from a third party supplier on the BGE bill

Whenever you have a third party supplier for either gas or electricity there will be a box listed at the bottom of the second page or top of the third page of your BGE bill. This box will contain the information you need to learn about what they are charging you. In the example above the customer is being charged 13.7 (rounded) cents per kilowatt hour.

What is a kilowatt hour? A kilowatt hour is the unit of measurement for electricity usage. This customer used 248 KH in the month of February which multiplied by 13.7 cents equals the electricity supply charge of $34.20.

How do I determine Savings?

BGE electricity supply price comparison information

Now that we know what we’re being charged that doesn’t quite tell us what our savings could be if we switched. Before we jump into the example lets learn what BGE is charging for your electricity supply. The above image is included in every bill and provides price information now and what it will be in the near future.

Using the information from the above image BGE is charging 9.7 cents (rounded down). Now let’s do some simple math. The difference between what Inspire Holdings (13.7 cents) is charging and what BGE (9.7 cents) is charging is 4 cents. If we multiply 4 cents by the amount of electricity used in the month of February (248 kilowatt hours") we get $9.92.

Image from a BGE bill showing a customers electricity usage over the last 13 months.

The above math shows that specific month’s savings. Let's determine savings for the year for this customer. The image above shows the customer’s electricity usage over the last 13 months (this same image is found on every BGE bill). The last 12 months added together show a total usage of 4,767 kilowatt hours. If we multiply that by the 4 cent difference then this customer overpaid by $190.68 (assuming that they had it for those 12 months) over the course of the year.

Something that needs to be emphasized is that this is VERY LOW electricity usage. This is a person living by themselves who likes to limit AC usage in the summer resulting in uncommonly low electricity usage. It is common for a family of four to use three or four times this amount of electricity.

One more thing is that in my experience I have seen numerous occasions of a third party supplier charging more than double what BGE is charging. I have even seen savings of over three thousand dollars in a year for one customer.

How Do I Remove My Third Party Supplier?

If you have one then you will need to call them and NOT BGE or your utility. Unfortunately, there will be a cancellation fee

What About Gas Supply?

Image from a BGE bill showing gas usage over the last 13 months.

Before we jump in I want to define therm. Therm is the unit of measurement for natural gas consumption. If you have gas in your home then there will be a chart like the one above that lists out your gas usage over the last 13 months. The comparison between what BGE and a third party supplier are charging is much more difficult.

If you have a third party supplier then there will be a box listing what they are charging you by the therm. Unfortunately, there is no information on your bill to compare it to what BGE is charging. Luckily, this link on the BGE website does provide the last months rate and some historical data.

OVERALL

Third party suppliers can provide some benefits such as 100% renewable energy (it is recommended that customers do research to confirm this) and there are a few that provide cheaper rates than BGE. I have not done exhaustive research on what third party suppliers are charging but what I have seen from customer’s bills is only marginal savings.

If you would like to explore third party suppliers then please check out this website for electricity and this one for gas. My only recommendations when searching for a plan is to set the “Type of Plan” to “Fixed Price”.

If you are interested in finding ways to lower your energy usage and improve your home’s comfort then please consider requesting an energy audit through Smart Energy Pros!