Customer Engagement & Experience
Sat, Oct 24
Molly Glick
Molly Glick
Energy Central Team
·Posted in Customer Engagement & Experience

NEWS: Are retail suppliers to blame for rising bills in PA? FirstEnergy thinks so.

  • The background: In Pennsylvania, ratepayers can receive default service from their utility or shop for retail electric suppliers. The latter leads to higher costs and greater risks of shutoffs, according to FirstEnergy, PA’s biggest electric company.

  • The numbers: FirstEnergy said that its PA residential customers served by retail suppliers paid $82M more in net generation charges in 2025 than they would at the company’s default rates. Plus, FirstEnergy claimed, these customers were around 9x more likely to experience power shutoffs in recent years. But retail suppliers have criticized these claims.

  • The latest: FirstEnergy asked the PA Public Utility Commission to boost ratepayer protections with regulatory shifts opposed by suppliers. Last week, the commission approved several of these proposals, including the recommendation to cap retail suppliers’ rates at or below FirstEnergy prices in a key competitive market program (beginning in June 2027).

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