Shopping for electricity will be a new experience for residential and commercial customers. This inexperience, together with the fact the product is totally intangible, means the prospect for misleading claims and customer confusion is very high. The three key pieces of information needed to select an energy service provider are the price, risk and environmental characteristics of the product. True Costs Price Plus Risk. For customers to compare one price offer against another, they need basic price information in a common format that reflects the true cost of energy choices.
Monthly bills give a basic cost comparison.
Requiring monthly consumption and average kWh price for each billing cycle will give an even more complete picture. But price information alone is not enough. In the absence of knowing the risk of price changes, customers will misunderstand price terms. The home mortgage market offers a useful analogy for thinking about price and risk. The price of electricity is comparable to the interest rate.