What Do Electricity Supply Companies Do

1
How Do Electricity Supply Companies Operate?
2

• At the end of the nineteenth century, electricity
  supply companies were formed. Once they were put
  in place, power was available for the first time
  to the public whereas before it was primarily
  used just to run street cars and power lighting
  on city streets.
• In these early days, even businesses only relied
  on electricity supply companies for lighting
  needs. It wasnt until the industrial age when
  machinery and equipment became used on a large
  scale that these entities provided power for more
  than lighting. Now they had other needs such as
  power for different kinds of motors and heating
  devices.
• Modern Power Company still does business much in
  the same way they did when they first began. They
  still rely on a metering device to keep track of
  the consumption, and this is how they know how
  much usage to bill the consumer for at the end of
  a billing cycle. Of course, over time metering
  has improved and instead of needing to be
  manually read, it is possible to now get the read
  outs from simply pulling it up on a computer.
• The residential consumer has a rate that they are
  billed at per kilowatt of power used. Business,
  commercial and industrial consumers often have a
  much more complex type of billing process which
  is based on bandwidth and size of the company.
  The meters used in these types of settings are
  very different from the ones that that may be
  found outside of a residence.
• In other countries, electricity supply companies
  may be limited to a monopoly type of situation,
  but in the United States that was not the case.
  There have always been regulatory bodies in place
  to make sure that there are no anti-competition
  situations taking place. After many states
  participated in deregulation of energy,
  competition was imminent.

• In the beginning, power generation was quite
  simple and only involved sending out a bill to
  the consumer and hooking up or disconnecting
  service as needed. This was done by the power
  supplier that was assigned to the area.
• Today electricity supply companies in many states
  enter into a market that is packed full with
  competitors, so they must do their best to
  generate power as efficiently and as safely as
  possible. This allows them to keeps the costs low
  so that they can remain competitive. They know
  that the consumer can easily switch providers in
  a deregulated market, so this is their motivation
  to continue to provide their customers with low
  rates and great service.
• Power providers have come a long way since the
  beginning of the market. They have had to find
  new ways to stay afloat in these tough economic
  times, as well as finding better fuel sources
  along the way for the sake of saving the
  environment and keeping prices as low as
  possible. This in essence means that the consumer
  will end up the winner because of this extremely
  volatile and competitive market. Saving money is
  as easy as doing a little bit of wise comparison
  shopping for most consumers