In order to create competitive markets, electric utility companies in New York State, including Con Edison, have sold most of their power plants to other parties. Our prices for transmitting and delivering power continue to be set by regulators, but the power plants we sold are no longer regulated. The new owners of the generation set the prices by bidding into the competitive market. ESCOs supply power-authority services but do not generate actual power. There is some volatility in the marketplace.
Prices are up a little bit.
A marketer who is buying power in the marketplace to supply a customer is finding that spot prices are higher. As a middleman, he can't make money and still provide a rate cheaper than staying with the utility. Today we are down just 5 percent from where we were before deregulation. People are starting to come back. Conservation is always a good idea for manufacturing operations such as printing plants.