Corrections or additions?
These articles by Melinda Sherwood were published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on July 28,
1999. All rights reserved.
Energy Deregulation: 15 Percent Off — Then What?
When was the last time you got something for nothing?
With energy deregulation, you will get just that on August 1, when
the state imposes a 5 percent drop in electric bills as part of the
Electric Discount & Energy Competition Act. And the deal gets better
yet: Over the next three years another 5 percent will be mandated,
and a 5 percent tax will be phased out. That’s a total reduction of
15 percent for doing nothing at all.
Meanwhile, as competition in the energy industry heats up, consumers
may even be able to find better deals yet. Let’s hope so because in
August of 2003 the other shoe falls: At that time the mandatory reductions
will be lifted and utilities will be free to set whatever rates the
market will bear.
To really take advantage of this broken-up monopoly, businesses should
combine forces and use aggregators, or middlemen, to force energy
companies to offer even better rates, says Ray Disch, an energy
consultant and founder of Power Works LLC at 156 West State Street
in Trenton (609-695-8100). “Maybe you go with your church, maybe
you can go with your town, maybe you do it with everyone in your building,”
says Disch. His company currently helps the New Jersey Food Council,
comprised of many of the state’s grocery stores and food chains, to
shop around for energy suppliers.
It is in the interest of power companies to deal with blocks of consumers,
even if it means offering much lower rates, Disch says. “It reduces
the acquisition cost of individual customers, which is very attractive
to energy companies,” he says. “It also increases your buying
power.
To find out more about New Jersey Energy Choice, you can attend the
PSEG Energy Technologies free seminar on energy deregulation on Thursday,
July 29, at the Princeton Marriott at 8 a.m. Call 800-336-7734. You
can also call the Board of Public Utilities consumer hotline (877-655-5678)
or visit the new consumer education website at https://www.njenergychoice.com.
This is what you need to know about New Jersey Energy Choice. Your
current electric and gas provider remains in charge of energy distribution
— the pipes and wires, etc. — but later this fall you get
a choice of which company generates the actual electrons. The four
power utilities in the state will offer its customers a “price
to compare” or “shopping credit,” a per kWh rate that becomes
the benchmark competitive rate for all the other companies. You don’t
have to worry about “slamming,” because the law requires a “wet
signature” from consumers who wish to change energy providers.
It’s too early to start shopping around for a new energy provider,
however. “Nobody’s pricing yet” says Disch. “I think everyone
is waiting to see what the big companies do.” Disch expects to
see some jockeying between subsidiaries. “PSEG Energy Technologies
(a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, parent company of
PSE&G, the largest and oldest publicly-held energy utility) could
conceivably bid and underbid their parent company,” he says. “Are
you going to see much of that? Only time will tell. What’s more likely
is GPU’s subsidiary would offer a price below PSEG.”
Disch, the founder and former owner of the Triumph Brewing Company
on Nassau Street, earned a BS in industrial relations from Cornell
University, Class of 1984. He worked as a staff assistant to the assistant
secretary for labor management relations at the U.S. Department of
Labor, and later taught as an adjunct at Rutgers while working in
a labor relations consulting firm in Princeton. In 1993, he left Merck,
where he was an employee trainer, to start Triumph, but not before
some considerable political maneuvering to allow microbreweries in
the state.
Disch tapped into the same political power sources — Dale Florio,
chairman of the Somerset County Republican Committee, and Bradley
Brewster, former executive director of the General Assembly —
to form Power Works. Disch’s third partner is Thomas Byrne Jr., son
of the former governor.
As an aggregator, or energy agent, Power Works will compete with subsidiaries
of large utility companies beginning August 1 to reach the newly created
market of energy “customers.” “There’s a big difference
between a rate payer and a customer,” says Disch. “A customer
asks questions, a customer has choice.” His firm, he maintains,
will pool together customers, handle their questions, and shop around
for the best deals.
Meanwhile, to avoid getting bogged down in all the complexities surrounding
deregulation, Disch suggests that consumers do the following:
Keep your eye on the different suppliers. At the timeof interview, Disch knew of 18 companies applying for licenses, andfour were companies he’d never heard of before. “This is goingto be a very volatile market,” he says.Negotiate rates in groups such as trade associations.”Associations are a really natural way of taking advantage ofderegulation,” says Disch, because they can lobby on the behalfof several businesses. “It’s attractive to the suppliers, becauseeven though they have to pay a fee to the energy agent, it’s stillless than it would take to market to all of those consumers.”Hire an energy agent or aggregator (such as Disch himself)who is familiar with the energy providers and can negotiate betterrate on the behalf of your business.Energy Choice, says Disch, is going to mean a lot of new opportunitiesfor the entrepreneur and consumers. “Deregulation spurs a lotof creativity and innovation and brings a lot of technology to bearbecause now there’s new markets being created,” he says. “Soit’s going to be a great boom to lots of start-up companies to createnew technologies and solve problems in new ways because it’s no longera monopoly. The holy grail is how to get that residential customer.”It’s also going to get very confusing quickly. “In another year,you’re going to have an option to who reads your meter, and who providesyour billing service,” says Disch. “The credit cards willbe selling you power, Triple A will be selling you power, maybe yourchurch will be selling you power.” The telemarketers aren’t onthe loose yet, but keep your Caller ID turned on.Top Of PageE-Commerce EssentialsUncle Sam wants you . . . online. The federal governmentis now offering free E-Commerce training for businesses. The programis funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. The idea is that at somepoint or another, businesses may end up somewhere in the defense department’ssupply chain, says Mark Butler, manager of education and trainingat the University of Scranton Electronic Commerce Resource Center(https://www.ecrc.uofs.edu).”The government doesn’t know what it needs,” he says. “Theybuy just about everything, from guns tanks and airplanes, to paperflowers for the cafeteria.” The more businesses use E-Commerce,the more effective E-Mall, a government-sponsored electronic catalog,becomes.The Scranton-based ECRC, which oversees the greater portion of theregion between New York and Maine, is sending a trainer to teach AdvancedHome Page Development on Wednesday, August 11, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.at the Trenton Business and Technology Center at 36 South Broad Street.The three-hour class covers links, frames, and image maps, and youdon’t need more than a basic knowledge of Windows plus keyboardingand mousing skills to join in. The session is free with registration.Call 800-575-3272 to reserve a computer.Butler holds a BS in physics from Penn State, Class of 1982, and workedin Philadelphia five years before returning to hometown Scranton,where the state university now holds a $1.7 million contract withthe Department of Defense. “As the largest purchaser in the world,”says Butler, “they want to do paperless business because it’sbetter, faster, and cheaper. In order for them to become better atit, they need to convince businesses to be electronic.”The ECRC’s four trainers provide over-the-phone technical advice andteach courses throughout the area on the essentials of E-Commerce.Even today Butler sees some elementary mistakes on professional homepages:Missing address/telephone information. “One of themost common mistakes that people make is that they lose sight of whatthey want to accomplish, and put up home pages without any way forpeople to contact them,” Butler says. “It’s painful, especiallywhen you look and say this is a great product.”Missing company mission. “When people are surfing,generally they’re pretty busy, so very early on you need to give avery succinct explanation of what your company does.”Too many pictures. Skip the slick graphics that make peoplewait minutes for a page to download.Too many frames. “There are folks out there who thinkthat everyone has those 18 or 21 inch screens,” says Butler. “Whenyou split the page up into frames, we don’t have enough real estateleft to see the message.”Scranton ECRC courses emphasize both the mechanics and designaspects of building a website, and some basic marketing skills. But,says Butler, when it’s done, web developers still have to do theirhomework.Top Of PageMommy of the ’90sMom is a corporate executive in a high-tech company.Dad is an engineer. Who takes care of baby?Diana Bendz, a senior location executive with IBM, is concernedthat the demanding pace of technical careers may keep women from enteringthe field. “It seems one of their biggest fears and excuses innot accepting a technical career is fear of not being able to havea family,” she says, “but many times you can overcome thosedifficulties.” She did.In typical supermom fashion, Bendz stayed up late to sterilize bottles,brought the kids on business trips in the family motor home, and packedFriday’s lunch on Sunday. “The entire thing is a balancing actand you have to make use of opportunities at work to make it happen,”she says.If you are still skeptical, listen to what her 18-year-old daughter,Kathrina Bendz, has to say when she joins her mother for a “shesays, she says” session at the International Symposium on Technologyand Society, “Women and Technology: Historical, Societal, andProfessional Perspectives,” on Friday, July 30, at 10:30 a.m.at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick. Sponsored by the Institutefor Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the symposium brings in dozensof scholars and professionals in industry and women’s studies forthree days of lecturing and presentations that begins on Thursday,July 29. Cost: $375. Call 732-932-1066. https://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/j/jherkert/program99.htm.Bendz, who has a BS in polymer chemistry, works out of IBM’s Endicott,New York, office, and is also director of environmentally consciousproducts for corporate operations and environmental affairs. She andher husband, also an IBM engineer, adopted their first child earlyon in their marriage. “Career became more work, work, work, anda little less enjoyable,” she says, “but of course you findmore enjoyment with family so it’s a substitution. The key is we hadno choice, and it forced us to find solutions.”There were plenty of mistakes along the way, to be sure. In one fitof parental ambition, Bendz made 15 lunches on Sunday night to feedher three kids for the entire week. “I thought I was doing a greatjob,” she says, “but finally one came to me and said `do youhave any idea what that Thursday lunch was like?’ It’s humorous insome cases, but in some cases it was the opposite.”Bendz manages to find a silver lining in the occasional domestic glitch,though. Example: watching her kids achieve maturity and independenceat an early age. “They have to learn to think for themselves,”she says. “Not only do they become more responsible younger, Ifound out I was able to talk to them at a younger age than most.”Kathrina Bendz is a beneficiary of the independence her mother fostered.She is entering her freshman year at the University of Buffalo, whereshe plans to study biology. “I’ve always been scientifically guided,but other girls would just give up from the beginning,” she says.”Kids can be independent and make the right decisions,” sheadds, “as long as there are a lot of hugs and `I love yous’.”With the invaluable input from her kids, Bendz offers some creativeways to close the gap between family and career:Take kids on business trips, a practice that is more widely-acceptedtoday than ever before.Don’t think too far ahead. “One mistake that mothersand fathers make is they look at the whole picture and they see ahuge task in front of you and get discouraged,” she says. “Wewere kind of impulsive about thing, and solved problems along theway.”Maximize the quality of time spent with your children.”Sometimes the guilt makes you do something that makes them feelmore appreciated than normal behavior,” she says. Bendz wouldsend flowers at events she missed, and even developed a partnershipwith her daughter designing dresses. “It came out of a desireto do something extra special in her life to make up for some of thethings that I couldn’t do,” says Benz, who’s certain that thegood legacies will outlast the memory of a few soggy lunches.– Melinda SherwoodNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
