WattClear
Menu

Delivery and supply: the two prices inside one electricity rate

By DueRiva · Published · Updated · Figures from data retrieved

A utility’s published rate is not always the whole price of electricity. 15 utilities in this data publish a residential schedule twice on the same day, once as their delivery charges alone and once with the electricity included, in records that say what the difference is. Priced at 1,000 kWh a month, the delivery-only version leaves out between 32% and 73% of the whole price — $1,791 a year on Jersey Central Power & Lt Co (New Jersey)’s Residential Service.

Two prices in one rate

Delivery is what a utility charges for bringing electricity to the home: the lines, the transformers, the meter. Supply is the electricity itself. A household that buys its power from the utility pays for both on one bill. In states that let households buy from a competing supplier, the utility still delivers the power and still bills for delivery, and the supplier’s price takes the place of the supply part.

The utilities below call the supply part by different names: “Basic Generation Service”, “Generation Service (Capacity”, “Standard Offer Service”, “Generation”, “Basic Service”, “Default Service Supply”, “Total Supply”, “Energy Supply Charge”, “Power Supply Charge”, and “Generation Service”. Both records in every pair carry the same schedule name and the same effective date; only the notes attached to them say which one includes the electricity.

The same schedule priced both ways, at 1,000 kWh a month
UtilityScheduleDelivery onlyWhole priceLeft outWhat the whole record adds
Jersey Central Power & Lt Co (New Jersey)New JerseyResidential Service+1 more schedule published both ways$6495.4¢/kWh$2,44020.3¢/kWh$1,79173% of the wholeTransmission + Basic Generation Service
Ohio Edison CoOhioRS (Residential Service)$8867.4¢/kWh$3,17126.4¢/kWh$2,28672% of the wholeDistribution + Generation Service (Capacity + Energy) ‡
Public Service Elec & Gas CoNew JerseyRS - Residential Service+2 more schedules published both ways$9407.8¢/kWh$3,32627.7¢/kWh$2,38772% of the wholeBasic Generation Service + Transmission
Baltimore Gas & Electric CoMarylandResidential Optional Time of Use (Schedule RL)+1 more schedule published both ways$8937.4¢/kWh$2,83523.6¢/kWh$1,94268% of the wholeStandard Offer Service †
Potomac Electric Power CoWashington, DCResidential - Schedule R$7816.5¢/kWh$2,33319.4¢/kWh$1,55267% of the wholeGeneration + Transmission + Procurement Cost Adjustment
PPL Electric Utilities CorpPennsylvaniaRS (Residential Service)$7926.6¢/kWh$2,34619.6¢/kWh$1,55466% of the wholeTransmission + Distribution + Generation ‡
NSTAR Electric CompanyMassachusettsGreater Boston Residential R-1 (A1)+1 more schedule published both ways$1,24110.3¢/kWh$3,11626.0¢/kWh$1,87560% of the wholeBasic Service ‡
Ameren Illinois CompanyIllinoisDS-1 Residential Zone 3$2,34519.5¢/kWh$5,61646.8¢/kWh$3,27158% of the wholeBasic Generation Service
Duquesne Light CoPennsylvaniaResidential Service$1,35611.3¢/kWh$2,84723.7¢/kWh$1,49152% of the wholeTransmission + Default Service Supply †
DTE ElectricMichiganResidential Service Rate - (Full Service) - D1+1 more schedule published both ways$1,39111.6¢/kWh$2,85323.8¢/kWh$1,46351% of the wholeGeneration + Delivery †
PacifiCorp (Oregon)OregonSchedule 4 - Residential (Single Phase)$1,0028.3¢/kWh$1,87215.6¢/kWh$87147% of the wholeTotal Supply
PECO Energy CoPennsylvaniaResidential Service (R)$1,53312.8¢/kWh$2,76223.0¢/kWh$1,22844% of the wholeEnergy Supply Charge
Long Island Power AuthorityNew York180/183/186 (Residential Service)+4 more schedules published both ways$1,95516.3¢/kWh$3,51329.3¢/kWh$1,55844% of the wholePower Supply Charge †
Connecticut Light & Power CoConnecticutRate 1 - Residential Electric Service+1 more schedule published both ways$2,06817.2¢/kWh$3,62130.2¢/kWh$1,55343% of the wholeGeneration Service †
Southern California Edison CoCaliforniaTOU-D-4-9PM+1 more schedule published both ways$3,52729.4¢/kWh$5,22443.5¢/kWh$1,69732% of the wholeDelivery Service + Generation ‡
A year at 1,000 kWh every month, fixed charges included, taxes excluded. † The two records also list different adjustment riders, so the gap there includes more than the components named. ‡ The records do not list their riders in a form that can be compared.

What the gap means when comparing offers

A household that buys from a competing supplier still pays its utility the delivery-only price, and pays the supplier instead of the utility for the rest. On Ameren Illinois Company’s DS-1 Residential Zone 3, the two records differ by one component, the Basic Generation Service, and list the same riders. There the rest works out to 27.3¢ a kWh at 1,000 kWh a month, against a whole price of 46.8¢.

That smaller figure is the one a supplier’s per-kWh offer is set against. Set against the whole rate instead, an offer can look like a saving while costing more than the charge it replaces.

How this site treats a delivery-only record

Each one stays on its state and utility pages, priced and labelled “delivery charges only”, and none is ranked as a cheapest plan. Ranking one would put a price that leaves out the electricity at the top of a table of whole prices.

Utilities this page cannot measure

These utilities also publish delivery-only records, but none can be measured here: either no record under the same name and date includes the electricity, or the one that does names no supply charge among what it adds. Pairing records under different names would mean guessing which whole price a delivery record belongs to.

Their whole prices are compared on the state pages like any other utility’s.

More guides

How this page was made

Every figure here is computed when the site is built, from the records named below, by the same code that fills the state, utility and cost-to-run pages this guide links to. When those records are refreshed, the figures change with them; the words around them do not, which is why no sentence here states a direction the data has not been checked for.

The methodology page sets out what the rate engine assumes and where its figures stop being reliable.