Best Friends? – Natural Gas and Electricity Prices

We have looked at historical and forward natural gas prices. How have electricity prices been behaving? The graph above shows the monthly average of electricity prices at PJM West (a trading hub where electric generation is concentrated) spanning the 131 month period of time of January 2001 through November 2011. Like natural gas, electricity prices…

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Trade Association Buying Groups – Who Benefits?

Do businesses benefit by purchasing energy through trade association buying groups? In many cases “no.” How can that be? First, some background. The term “load profile” refers to the variation of an electricity user’s electrical load versus time. Load profiles vary by customer categories (residential, commercial and industrial) and by individual customer within those categories.…

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Fixed Price versus Variable Price Energy Supply Contracts

When purchasing energy, there is a price/risk continuum between fixed price contracts and variable price contracts. Fixed price contracts allow you to minimize your exposure to price risk by transferring this risk to a supplier. With a variable price contract, you are accepting the risk associated with changes in the market price of electricity. This…

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Constellation Electric Offer (continued)

Both of our last two blog entries have generated a great deal of interest. Jay Hancock of the Baltimore Sun picked up on our write-up on Constellation Electric’s offer to customers in Pepco’s territory. Below is a link to his article: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/hancock/blog/2010/08/avalon_energy_constellation_of.html You can scroll down to our original article or access it by going…

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PECO – Life After the Rate Caps

Electricity markets were deregulated in Pennsylvania over ten years ago. At that time, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission implemented two measures. They allowed electric utilities to recover their “stranded costs” or the cost of investments they had made that they, the utilities, argued would no longer be of value in a deregulated environment. These costs…

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Constellation Electric Offer

A number of people in Pepco’s service territory have asked about Constellation Electric’s (Constellation) fixed price electricity offer. In the commercial world, most customers view the likelihood that energy prices will go up as much greater than the likelihood that energy prices will fall further. I think this makes sense. Energy prices are currently low,…

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Welcome

Welcome to Avalon’s energy blog. Get the latest news and information in the energy sector from an expert in the industry. Our blog will discuss ways to save, new technologies and the latest in legislation for both commercial and residential.

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