Moving Into A New Apartment

When moving into a new apartment you will likely be given a paper with the main utilities in your area. For Houston this may be Reliant Energy and for Dallas this could be TXU Energy. The problem arises sometimes when you call them thinking they are the only energy provider in that area and they ask for a $300 - $500 deposit. Your head starts to spin and fumes begin to come out of your ears. This is the time when someone needs to tell you to stop and pay attention because you don’t have to call TXU or Reliant to setup electricity at your apartment. There are over 40 retail electric providers in Texas and over 200 different electric rate plans to choose from.

What Electric Company Should I Call Then

If you want to avoid the deposit that makes since but you also want a low rate and good terms and conditions with the contract. If possible you want to have any type of customer service charge waived because this could be as much as $15 extra a month would eat up any type of energy savings you thought you were achieving. So get the customer service charge to zero and then look at the energy rate. The electric rate for a residence in September 2007 is about 11 cents kwh. That is about as low as it has gotten this month. It actually came down to 10.6 cents kwh for a couple days. As you can see electric rates in Texas are volatile but you can lock in on a fixed rate anywhere from 3 months all the way to 36 months with most energy providers. The 12 month rate is the recommended term to get on as it is low and will insure you a decent electricity rate as energy in Texas is expected to go higher for the long term.

A couple electric companies we have researched that offer the type of energy contracts talked about and usually with no deposit and no customer service charge are:

Spark Energy - No Customer Service Charge | Lowest Rate | Deposit waived when agreeing to Auto Draft

More about Spark Energy

Champion Energy - $4.95 Service Charge | No deposit with good credit

Startex Power - Variable Energy Rate | Follows Natural Gas Market