If you are a small business consumer of natural gas in Georgia you have several challenges to overcome. Unlike large commercial or industrial users of natural gas, you probably don’t have multiple marketers vying for your business. The reason is obvious. You use a small quantity of gas and the potential profit for the marketer less.

Although natural gas expense is significant to you, your usage is not large enough to get the attention of natural gas marketers. You may find that you have to work quite hard to find “cheap” natural gas. The good news is that low rates are available to consumers who shop. To appreciate the potential savings it helps to consider the way in which marketers set commercial rates. There are basically three rates available from marketers.

1. The “standard” rate that marketers post on their website and quote to new customers that call and apply for service.
2. The “default” rate that marketers apply to customers whose contract has lapsed and have not renewed at competitive rates.
3. The “competitive” rate that marketers will bid when faced with competition for an account.

Clearly it’s to the benefit of small commercial businesses to seek out the competitive natural gas rate when applying for gas service. How do they do that? The best way is to issue a formal request for proposal (RFP) to multiple Georgia natural gas marketers. This is a service provided by EnergyBidder through its website www.energybidder.com.

You might say, “Why can’t I get competitive natural gas quotes myself”? Well, you can but I submit you can get better pricing by using an established service like EnergyBidder. First, it takes experience and knowledge to identify the qualified marketers and to make sure that the quotes are “apples to apples.” Marketers have multiple ways of computing gas rates and it’s important to make sure rate structures, pipeline charges, service charges and contract terms are consistent. Secondly only a service like EnergyBidder can provide you with the power of aggregation. When multiple accounts can be aggregated (or bundled) together, marketers will provide lower pricing for all.

For more information about smart shopping for your natural gas needs visit us at www.energybidder.com.

Welcome to the EnergyBidder Blog. We’ll be commenting on all sorts of topics relating to the deregulated natural gas and electricity markets around the country. Please feel free to comment on any of the topics presented. Deregulation of the energy markets has elicited mixed reviews but one thing is for sure – deals can be had for savvy shoppers that know how to compare offers. For some helpful basic information about the deregulated energy markets let me suggest you go to our website at www.energybidder.com and click on the “Energy Markets” tab.

EnergyBidder will eventually be covering all the major state gas and electric markets but we’re beginning with the natural gas market in Georgia. The Georgia gas market is perhaps the most vibrant and competitive gas market in the Country. The Georgia model is unique in that the gas utility, Atlanta Gas Light, is totally out of the merchant function. AGL now only provides the gas transportation function and multiple marketers are actively soliciting business. Georgia natural gas marketing efforts are at a fever pitch right now since we’re in the “light up season” when everyone is thinking about saving money on winter heating bills.

How does a consumer make a decision about selection of a gas provider? Well, they can go to each of the websites for the ten marketers currently qualified to provide gas service in Georgia. Or they can go to the Georgia Public Service Commission website which lists prices for the different marketers. Doing either of these is time consuming and requires some basic knowledge of the market to make sense of the offers. Even if you do all this you will still probably not get the lowest price for natural gas in Georgia because Georgia gas companies DO NOT POST THEIR LOWEST PRICES ON THEIR WEBSITE OR THE PSC WEBSITE!!! The lowest prices are obtained by consumers that SHOP for the best energy deal. Shopping requires quite a bit of knowledge and time. This fact is the force which drives EnergyBidder. Consumers looking for the best gas deal in Georgia have only to go to www.energybidder.com to find the best offer from a Georgia gas company.

How large can the savings be by using the EnergyBidder service? Residential consumers typically save 10% – 15%. Commercial businesses can often save much more. EnergyBidder has achieved savings in excess of 40% for a number of businesses which had previously been been paying their marketers’ “standard” rate.

In the future we will be sharing more information about the deregulated energy markets and how you can use them to reduce your energy costs. In the meantime we hope you use www.energybidder.com as one of your primary resources for energy information.