What is your utility bill telling you? Two years ago, we did a survey of our customers to get an understanding of their most pressing energy-related questions. Near the top of the list was a general confusion about utilities and utility billing. Today we answer two basic questions about utility invoicing and give you 3 suggestions for […]
Energy cost management: What cold weather can tell you about your building operation Guest post by Tom Leach, Scientific Air Your lobby should be warm even if it is 10 degrees outside. Your tenants and guests expect comfort under the most extreme circumstances. You should too. You know how good your health is after you […]
“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.” ― Edsger W. Dijkstra We are taking a break today from the series on understanding retail supplier pricing to discuss an increasing trend in the energy industry and, more broadly, […]
As we just posted last week in an article titled Fact or Fiction: There is no difference between suppliers, there can be significant differences between suppliers that will result in meaningful price differences when you get quotes from various suppliers. There can be a whole range of reasons for those differences, like: Supplier risk appetite […]
Whenever we poll energy buyers about their biggest concerns about energy, the responses are “controlling costs”, “managing out-of-control costs” or a general concern about “rising costs”. There is always a concern that energy costs are completely out of control, and are impossible to predict and manage. That doesn’t have to be true. The Megawatt Hour […]
“Retail is details.”* That is a true-ism when it comes to buying power and gas in deregulated markets. Last week we talked about the language of energy — and how inscrutable the language of energy can be. This week we transition to the pragmatic and detail-oriented process of preparing for, executing and ensuring a thorough […]
Or.. another example of why honesty is the best policy in electricity contracts. This week we have 2 more real world examples of electricity contracts gone wrong. 1) When is a fully-variable rate contract not a fully-variable rate contract? Back in December 2013, a New York commercial real estate customer signed a contract that they thought […]
The Winter of 2014 may come to be known as a watershed for power markets. Between the Polar Vortex and fuel shortages (in part due to power plant fuel switching from coal to natural gas), this Winter (January, February and even March) resulted in unprecedented high power pricing up and down the East Coast. Why […]
CICU Collaborates with The Megawatt Hour on Innovative Energy Program News Date: 07/11/2013 The Megawatt Hour, the New York-based energy information platform, has signed an agreement with the Albany, New York-based Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (cIcu), which represents more than 100 independent colleges and universities in New York State. The agreement […]
Periodically we post information about experiences customers have when purchasing electricity. The following post describes recent lessons learned from customers who are currently buying electricity from a third party supplier. Here we focus on supplier billing verification and tracking. Verify savings and/or rates A customer recently asked us to help them switch from an index, […]