Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. filed an application Wednesday (4/16) with the state Public Utility Commission to sell electricity and related services throughout Pennsylvania.
The license would allow PP&L to sell electricity and related services outside of its current 29-county service territory in the central and eastern part of the state.
The competitive selling of electricity could begin as early as this summer with customer choice pilot programs throughout the state. Pennsylvania law phases in customer choice beginning as early as 1999 with about one-third of the state's electric customers. All customers will have choice as early as 2001.
"With the advent of customer choice in Pennsylvania, PP&L intends to sell generation priced at competitive market levels to customers throughout the commonwealth," said John Sipics, PP&L's vice president of Retail Energy Supply. "Competition in the industry gives us a chance to expand our customer base. We're confident that PP&L will be very competitive in the Pennsylvania marketplace."
Under state law, any company — including existing electric utilities — need to apply for a PUC license to sell electricity in the new competitive market. Review of the application is expected to take about 45 days.
Along with selling electric energy and capacity, PP&L intends to sell related services to customers, such as energy efficiency, energy auditing and energy consulting services.
"Filing this application is one more step in our effort to become an electricity supplier throughout Pennsylvania," Sipics said.
The Pennsylvania pilot program will be the largest in the United States. About 250,000 electric customers from all the major investor-owned electric utilities in Pennsylvania will be able to choose from among competing suppliers of electricity, including PP&L. The various utility programs are under review by the PUC.
PP&L's customer choice pilot program would allow more than 54,000 PP&L customers to choose their electricity supplier. The license also would allow PP&L to sell electricity to customers participating in its own pilot program at competitive market prices.