How retail competition will change your electric bill

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Following KCBD’s report on the City of Lubbock’s steps to selecting electric providers to serve as a safety net for customers, a viewer submitted a list of questions about other aspects of the retail electric change coming next year.

Meeting with providers

First was a question about how many electric providers would be in the Lubbock market. Right now, that’s unknown, but Lubbock Power & Light is preparing opportunities for customers to meet with them.

“We expect to open up a shopping window in late Summer of 2023 where customers will have approximately six weeks to go through and pick who they want their next provider to be,” Spokesperson Matt Rose said. “As this is going on, we will have in conjunction with the new retail electric providers in the market, we will be hosting a series of open houses, basically shopping events, where customers can come out and speak with all of these different reps that will be operating in the market.”

LP&L maintaining infrastructure

To the second and third question, Lubbock Power & Light will not be a choice for customers. LP&L will only maintain the power infrastructure in Lubbock. LP&L will charge for that but on your bill from a new provider.

“We will be a wires company,” Rose said. “Whichever provider you choose from the long list of providers that will be out there when the time comes, Lubbock Power & Light will simply be a line item on that bill that you will get from your new provider. Right now, we’re working very hard, working through our rate models, and going through the process to make sure that when we make this transition, that the rate that we charge at, being that wires provider, that delivery system, is at or below what the others across the state charge. That’s very important to us and it’s something that we believe that we can achieve when we make this move in late Fall 2023.”

Final LP&L bill

Rose told KCBD that customers’ final electric bill from LP&L will come in November or December in 2023.

Water, trash bills to continue from City of Lubbock Utilities

To the fourth question from our viewer, residents of Lubbock will continue to receive a bill from City of Lubbock Utilities but it will not be for electricity.

“City of Lubbock Utilities is the department of the city that handles customer service and billing for the four city-owned utilities outside of LP&L: water, wastewater, stormwater and solid waste,” Rose said. “They will continue doing customer service and billing for those different departments of the city but LP&L will no longer be on that bill, because your new electric provider will be whoever you choose.”

Will electric rates go up?

Lastly, KCBD was asked if a customer’s power bill would go up or down based on kilowatt per hour usage. Rose said that will depend on the power provider customers choose. He said LP&L will be able to help customers with their current rate information.

“You logically assume that a lot of customers have no idea what their actual electric rate is,” Rose said. “We’ve got to make sure that we give them that type of information right up front, so that they can start with that base comparison to see who’s got a similar cost to what they’ve been paying with LP&L. When you go look in the open market, you’re going to have providers that may not offer 14, 15, 16-cent deals per kilowatt hour. They may be 22 cents per kilowatt hour. There may be customers out there, and that has no form of relevance to them. We have to make sure that we’ve got our rate out there that they can compare those to, perhaps show them this is what in real dollars, this cost per kilowatt hour means to you. So, when you’re picking your new provider, what you can logically expect in dollars, not just in rate per kilowatt hour.”

That rate information and other retail electric competition information can be found at lpandl.com.

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