FAQ & Data Sources

All supplier offers are sourced from the Energy Choice Ohio website, which is maintained by the Ohio Public Utilities Commission (PUCO). Ohio law requires every certified retail electric supplier to list their current residential offers there.

We fetch the comparison pages for all six major Ohio electric utility territories each morning and store the offers in a local database. The data reflects whatever is live on energychoice.ohio.gov at the time of the last refresh.

The supplier offer data is refreshed once daily. The timestamp shown on the comparison page reflects when the data was last fetched. PUCO updates energychoice.ohio.gov on an ongoing basis — suppliers can add, remove, or change offers at any time.

The “Price to Compare” (your utility's default generation rate) changes every 2–3 months when PUCO approves a new Standard Service Offer procurement period.

The Price to Compare is the generation supply rate your utility charges if you don't choose a third-party supplier. It's set by PUCO through a competitive auction process and changes every billing period.

It's the only part of your bill that changes when you switch suppliers. All distribution charges, riders, and the customer charge stay the same regardless of which supplier you use.

Current values (updated each billing period):

Riders are additional line items that utilities use to recover specific costs outside their base rate — things like storm repairs, smart meter deployment, low-income assistance programs, and state taxes. Each utility has different riders with different codes.

They stay on your bill when you switch suppliers because they're “non-bypassable” distribution charges — the utility still delivers electricity to your home regardless of who supplies it, and these costs are tied to that delivery infrastructure.

The only charge that goes away when you switch is the generation supply charge (labeled “Rider GEN” or similar) — your supplier's rate replaces it. See the Riders Explained page for a full breakdown by utility.

NOPEC (Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council) is a non-profit governmental energy aggregation program. Unlike retail suppliers, NOPEC negotiates bulk electricity rates on behalf of ~240 member communities across 19 counties in northeast Ohio.

If your municipality is a NOPEC member, you are automatically enrolled unless you opt out. You don't sign up — it happens through your city or township. Check nopec.org/check-rates to see if your address is covered.

NOPEC rates shown on this site are sourced from NOPEC's published rate announcements and are updated manually. They may not reflect the most current offering — always verify at nopec.org.

Confidence varies by utility:

• High
  FirstEnergy (Ohio Edison, CEI, Toledo Edison) — Sourced directly from FirstEnergy's publicly filed Ohio tariff documents.
• Medium-High
  AES Ohio — Sourced from AES Ohio's published tariff sheets and rate announcements. Rates reflect the November 2025 distribution rate case settlement.
• Medium
  AEP Ohio — The BTCR transmission rate (4.34¢/kWh) is confirmed from multiple sources. Other riders (KWH Tax, USF) are estimated from tariff structure — exact rates require access to AEP Ohio tariff sheets 402-1 and 404-1.
• Low-Medium
  Duke Energy Ohio — Rider names and bypassable/non-bypassable classification are confirmed. Exact per-kWh rates for DDR and UE-ED are estimates — verify against Duke's current RS rate schedule from the PUCO tariff portal.

All rider rates are subject to change with PUCO approval. The bill calculator is a good-faith estimate, not a guaranteed quote.

All suppliers listed on energychoice.ohio.gov are certified by PUCO and legally permitted to serve Ohio customers. That said, rates can vary widely and some important things to check before enrolling:

• Fixed vs. variable: Variable rates can change month to month and may spike in high-demand periods. Fixed rates are locked for the contract term.
• Early termination fees: Some contracts charge $50–$200+ to cancel early. Check the ETF column before committing.
• Monthly service fees: A low per-kWh rate can be offset by a high monthly fee, especially at lower usage levels.
• Introductory pricing: Some offers are introductory rates that change after a few months.

The Find My Best Rate page factors in monthly fees and your actual usage pattern to give a true annual cost comparison.

Ohio Energy Guide is a free, independent tool built for Ohio residents. We don't sell electricity, work for any utility or supplier, or earn referral fees. The site exists because Ohio's electricity choice program is genuinely useful — most people can save money by switching — but the official comparison tool is hard to use and doesn't explain the bill math.

All the data used here is publicly available from PUCO and utility tariff documents. We just make it easier to read.