Fortune 500 Companies: Competition Benefits Consumers

Beware of organized competitive electricity market critics who claim to speak for all consumers. They certainly do not speak for the growing contingent of COMPETE customer members who are helping communicate the economic and environmental benefits, and the technological innovation, that competition in electricity is delivering.

During a recent conference sponsored by Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture), two representatives of COMPETE’s roster of customer members, manufacturer Leggett & Platt and retailer Wal-Mart, discussed how electricity competition saves money for consumers, stimulates renewable energy, and encourages innovation.

Wal-Mart supports organized competitive electricity markets because they help reduce the company’s carbon footprint and create savings that can be passed along to customers, said Chris Hendrix, Wal-Mart’s director of markets & compliance, energy regulation & legislation for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., “If we’re able to save money for stores (by spending less on electricity), we’re able to reduce the prices at that store,” Hendrix said. He also detailed how competition enables Wal-Mart to stimulate renewable power by purchasing different sources of renewable energy in different regions, citing purchases of wind power in Texas through the company's own energy marketing arm.

Clear price signals and price transparency in competitive electricity markets allows Leggett & Platt, Inc., to save money by purchasing power when the company knows costs are low, said Steve Elsea, the company’s director of energy services. “We operate the third largest electric arc furnace in the world,” said Elsea, “so it’s incumbent upon us to know when those coincident power peaks are. If we operate that furnace during a coincident (PJM) peak…it costs us a million bucks.” He went on to explain how competition makes consumer technology choices cost effective, citing multiple energy efficiency services his company employs, including 10 megawatts of demand response, day lighting, compressed air optimization, and high-efficiency lighting.

COMPETE encourages anyone looking for power supply options to listen to what Wal-Mart and Leggett & Platt, as well as other conference participants, have to say to get the full story about the benefits of competitive electricity markets.