Market price for electricity in Southeast Texas is about 14.5 per kilowatt-hour.
We were able to lock in a 3-year rate contract yesterday for 10.6 per kwh. The rate can't increase even if electricity prices double in the next 2-3 years, which they will.
My advice is to call your energy providers now, and see about extending your current contracts or get on a plan with fixed, low rate for at least the next 2-years if possible. Winter is coming.
If SHTF, you don't want to be paying "market rates". During the Texas Ice Storm earlier this year, some people (without set rates) were being surprised by $4,000 electricity bills. We got the same service, but our entire bill that month was $380. Lock in now.
There is only one electricity provider where I am, and it's the government. There are no "contracts" for electricity. You have to pay what they charge. Period. Anyway, what you're paying seems like a lot. My bill this winter will be less than $100 a month.
How would you buy electricity from someone else anyway? There's only one set of lines going by my house. It's like there's only one cable TV line going by here and only one set of phone lines going by here. They are all monopolies.
It's complicated to explain but the utility doesn't own all of the power plants just like how those who own the oil pipelines don't own the refineries putting their liquids into them.
It's still a monopoly here. There's one electric company, and it's the government. That's who I have to pay, and always have. And they're the ones who fix the lines, unless there's a disaster and out-of-town people come to help.
I don't have any say over who the electric company here gets the electricity from. There are only two suppliers, and I don't see much difference between them.