The Only Correct Deregulated States Map

This blog post is shorter than most, but it addresses a problem for many in the energy industry. There are no correct maps anywhere on the internet that indicate which states/provinces are open for deregulated energy supply. The map below is correct because Energy Tariff Experts has experience in almost every open market.

There is a lot of nuance to this map and we used multiple colors to bring that out. The blue states are wide open for customer choice for gas and electricity for all customer levels. Despite this, buying third party electricity supply in Ontario makes absolutely no sense due to flaws in the market structure (but you are still free to choose, ....sort of). In Oregon, you can switch electricity suppliers if you are in the Portland General service territory, not PacifiCorp.  In Arizona, the market is just beginning to open up, and you need to be a very large commercial or industrial customer to switch to a third party electricity supplier. In Michigan and California, there is a cap on the number of customers eligible to switch to competitive power suppliers.

For natural gas, there is significant nuance as well. In Georgia, everyone is forced to purchase natural gas from a competitive gas supplier and the utilities have exited the supply function (unless they are municipals). Most of the large states listed as open for natural gas in the middle of the US are really only open for larger commercial and industrial customers. Other states that are shown as being closed to natural gas supply (e.g., Montana) could have opportunity if you were an enormous customer located adjacent to a natural gas pipeline, but for 99% of customers the market is closed to competition. Even socialist Quebec is open for competitive natural gas supply, but the gas infrastructure is only in metro-Montreal and the St. Lawrence river valley.

If you ever need help understanding an unfamiliar energy market, call us. We probably know enough to help you.