Electricity Switching Picks Up

August was a good month for California electricity marketers, after a slower pace in June and July. Slightly more than 16,000 homes, businesses and farms switched to a new energy provider other than their traditional utility during the month. That brings the total to about 95,000 customers participating in the state’s new competitive electricity market, or about 1% of those who have been able to switch since deregulation began March 31. Those 95,000 customers represent 8.6% of the electricity used by the nearly 10 million customers in the territory once exclusively serviced by the state’s investor-owned utilities.