3 ms·

This makes sense to me on a conceptual level, and I think that's more or less how it works here. The difference is I believe the company you pay is just whoever

This makes sense to me on a conceptual level, and I think that's more or less how it works here. The difference is I believe the company you pay is just whoever owns the local infrastructure, and they take care of buying / supplying on the wholesale market. For example, I live in Iowa, which is a huge wind energy state. Most of the wind farms are actually owned by out of state electric companies though. I'm sure the electricity actually gets used in the strictest sense right here next to the wind mills, but it gets credited to people hundreds of miles away. The wind farm up by where I grew up is actually owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority [1], despite being no where near Tennessee. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Prairie_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Prairie_Wind_Farm

Aaargh20318 6y ago
> . The difference is I believe the company you pay is just whoever owns the local infrastructure, and they take care of buying / supplying on the wholesale market. But in that case there is no competition. They buy on the wholesale market, but since they have a monopoly there is no incentive for them to lower the prices they charge to the customer. Here there is aggressive competition on price.
- war1025 6y ago
  I believe the way it works is there are laws on how much profit they are allowed to make. Our provider is technically a non-profit electric cooperative [1]. Maybe it's dumb, but being from a rural area, I've always been big on cooperatives. [1] https://consumersenergy.coop/ https://consumersenergy.coop/