CLEVELAND — Last month, 3News revealed how many Northeast Ohioans could find some savings on their electric bill by simply making a phone call.
Thanks to the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council (NOPEC), that process is about to become seamless.
NOPEC has announced that it is transitioning electric customers enrolled in its Standard Program Price option back to the utility default service, allowing its customers to take advantage of the utilities’ currently lower monthly rate. NOPEC says roughly 550,000 customers in Ohio should expect to save money on their electric bills for the remainder of this year and into next spring.
The largest nonprofit governmental energy aggregator in Ohio, NOPEC supplies electricity and natural gas to over one million residential and small business accounts in 242 communities and 19 counties statewide.
“As a consumer-focused non-profit, NOPEC is always operating and advocating for what’s best for our communities and customers,” says Chuck Keiper, NOPEC’s Executive Director. “When we looked at the price forecasts, it became increasingly apparent that the Price to Compare rate would be a better place for our customers to be through Winter 2023 to save significant money during these economically challenging times.”
While individual customers who previously contacted NOPEC could change their rate to the lower utility rate at no charge, Keiper says the organization decided “it was in all our consumers’ best interest” to make the wholesale change and temporarily switch its more than a half-million customers to the utility service.
NOPEC says its electric customers do not have to do anything to start getting the lower rates and will not be charged any fee to transfer. NOPEC will immediately notify the electric utilities to return its Standard Program Price accounts to the default service.
Depending on each customer’s meter read date, it may take one to two billing cycles for the transfer to take effect. Customers will receive a letter from NOPEC detailing the reason for the change and direction regarding where they can go for more information.
Customers may also receive a notice from their utility confirming the change.
"It's a pro-consumer, preemptive move by NOPEC to give our consumers some relief at a time where they're seeing high bills everywhere," adds David Jankowski, NOPEC's chief marketing and communications officer.
NOPEC says customers can click here or call their customer care center at 855-667-3201.
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