Does your business have energy choice?

Choice belongs to the address, not the state

Retail choice exists where a state has restructured its electric utility industry. The customer option that follows is a choice of supplier rather than of delivery utility: the distribution utility still delivers the electricity to your meter and charges for that service, and the supplier is the company that generates or markets what you consume. Two limits matter more than the state name. Choice generally applies only to customers of investor-owned utilities, so cooperatives and municipal utilities may not offer it at all. And in some states the choice is not optional — in Texas, for example, customers of utilities connected to the ERCOT grid are required to choose a provider. EIA's own guidance is to ask the distribution utility or the state commission whether, and to what extent, choice applies. That is the order to follow, and it is why this page does not print a state-by-state table.

• Choice follows the state's restructuring and the utility that serves the address.
• Delivery remains with the distribution utility whichever supplier you pick.
• Cooperative and municipal utility customers are often outside retail choice.
• In Texas ERCOT territory, choosing a provider is a requirement rather than an option.

Three things have to be true before you can actually shop

A state permitting competition is the first condition, not the only one. The second is that the account's rate class is eligible — programmes commonly cover different customer classes differently, and an account can be eligible for gas choice and not electric choice, or the reverse. The third is that a supplier is willing to serve you. EIA notes that some places where choice is available have few, if any, participating marketers, and a supplier's appetite depends on your load, its shape, your credit and the term you want. All three have to line up before a quote exists. Two of them are legal questions about your address, and the third is a commercial question about your account — which is why a destination that markets itself as usable in a state can be unusable for one particular building.

• The state permits retail choice where this address sits.
• Your rate class is eligible for it.
• At least one supplier will bid for the account.
• All three are specific to the location and the account, not to the region.

How to check, in the right order

Start with the distribution utility, because it is the only party that can answer definitively for your meter. Ask two questions and get the answers in writing: whether a competitive supplier can be billed to this account and meter, and which tariff and rate class the account sits in. The first tells you if you can shop at all; the second tells you what the delivery half of your bill will be, which is the part no supplier can change. Then go to the state commission's consumer office and ask for the list of licensed suppliers for your utility's service territory. Finally, read the utility's own tariff for the rate class, which is the document that decides how demand and delivery charges apply to the account.

• Ask the distribution utility: can a competitive supplier be billed to this account and meter?
• Ask the distribution utility: which tariff and rate class applies here?
• Ask the state commission for the licensed supplier list for that territory.
• Read the tariff for the rate class — it governs delivery and demand charges.

Why a choice state can still have no competition

It is a market fact rather than a legal one: permission to compete is not the same as competition. A territory can allow choice while no supplier is actively bidding for accounts of a particular size, shape or credit profile. Small loads are frequently the ones that attract no bidders, because the margin on the account does not cover the cost of serving it, and the same is true for accounts with a spiky load, a short remaining term, or a location in a territory with limited supplier participation. This is worth knowing before spending weeks on a process: if nobody bids, the answer is not a better negotiation, it is a different approach to the account — staying on the utility's default service and attacking the demand side instead.

• Permission to compete does not guarantee bidders.
• Small or spiky accounts are the ones most often left without offers.
• If no supplier bids, the lever is the delivery and demand side, not the supply price.

The one figure EIA publishes, and what it covers

Rather than a status table, EIA publishes a dated statistic for natural gas: as of December 2022, the District of Columbia and 23 states had residential natural gas customer choice programmes. Read the qualifier carefully — that is residential choice, while commercial and industrial programmes are often broader, and EIA notes that some states allow all gas customers to choose a supplier while others limit choice to specific service areas or to a specific category or number of customers. So the statistic is a useful floor rather than a description of your account. For electricity, EIA describes the mechanism and directs readers to their utility and state commission, and we follow the same route rather than assembling a list from secondary sources.

• EIA: DC and 23 states had residential gas choice programmes as of December 2022.
• Commercial and industrial programmes are often broader than the residential count.
• Some states limit choice by service area or by customer category or number.
• EIA publishes no equivalent per-state list for electricity.

Finding your state's regulator

Every state's commission names its choice programmes differently and files them differently, so the fastest route is the commission's consumer pages rather than a search for the state's status. Search the state's public utility commission and look for the consumer or shopping section; that is where the licensed supplier list and the complaint route live. A handful of regulators are linked below because they are the ones with clearly published choice information; others publish equivalent material behind sites that reject automated requests, so we do not link a page we cannot verify. If you would rather skip the search, send us the service address and we will establish it for you as part of a request.

• Search the state's public utility commission, then its consumer section.
• The licensed supplier list lives with the commission, not the utility.
• Where we cannot verify a regulator's page, we do not link it.

What this page does not claim

It does not print a state-by-state status table. The lists that circulate are published by competitors and trade bodies rather than regulators, they disagree with each other, and they would be read as definitive for an address they say nothing about. It does not print prices, because a published rate cannot describe an account it was not built for — the delivery half is set by the utility's tariff and the supply half is quoted against your own usage and load. And it does not promise savings. Eligibility still depends on the service address, the meter and the utility serving it. HighGround may receive compensation from providers on completed purchases. An inquiry places no order and switches no supplier.

Default supply is not always the utility: aggregation by state

In several restructured states the default supplier for a small commercial account is not the utility at all, because a municipal or county programme has already aggregated the load. The mechanism differs enough between states that the name of the programme tells you little. Massachusetts authorises opt-out aggregation under G.L. c. 164, § 134, with plans approved by the DPU, and reaches accounts on Basic Service rather than accounts already on a competitive supply contract. Illinois requires a local referendum before a municipality or county may aggregate under 220 ILCS 5/1-92, and limits the eligible class to residential and small commercial retail customers — defined there by an annual consumption threshold, so a business above it is not enrolled. Ohio authorises governmental aggregation under ORC 4928.20 after voter authorisation, but the statute expressly distinguishes mercantile customers from the class that is enrolled by default, and the PUCO maintains a do-not-aggregate list. New Jersey created governmental energy aggregation in P.L. 2021, c. 169, with NJBPU approval and an opt-out framework. Pennsylvania is the outlier in the other direction: the Commission has said opt-out aggregation needs its explicit approval, and the state's direct-consent switching protections mean programmes are generally opt-in. Maryland authorises county opt-out programmes and defines the eligible small commercial customer by peak load. None of this is a substitute for reading your own supply line — it is the reason reading it matters.

• Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey and Maryland permit opt-out aggregation; Pennsylvania generally does not.
• Illinois and Maryland define the eligible commercial class by a size threshold.
• Ohio excludes mercantile customers from the class enrolled by default.
• A programme can exist and still not cover your account class — that is the common case.

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