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"I'm actually 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds, but I'm tough enough to take your tree out," he said. And now he's proved tough enough to cut his power bill down to size, too.
Miller, who lives in Decatur, is an enthusiastic participant in Power Smart Pricing, a program that allows consumers to opt out of paying fixed costs for power and take a chance on paying what electricity actually costs on the open market.
This price fluctuates all the time, and while it can spike, especially in the summer, it can often be a lot less than the fixed rate being paid by everybody else. Open market power costs tend to really drop in the winter when electricity demand dies back, and Miller says he's seen some hefty savings.
"I signed up for Power Smart Pricing in December, and I'd say I've probably saved 20 to 30 percent on my bill in the winter, and maybe 13 percent in the summer," explained Miller, 48, who shares his home with daughter Arielle, 9. "It's worked out pretty good for me and that money I'm saving is money I can spend somewhere else."
Power Smart Pricing was introduced by the Ameren utilities -- AmerenIP, AmerenCIPS and AmerenCILCO -- early in 2007 as a way to offer customers an option to lower their bills. The program is administered by a Chicago-based, nonprofit organization called CNT Energy, which last year calculated the average customer's savings at 16 percent.
Participants have to sign up for a year and get a new electricity meter installed, which is free, and then the cost is $2.25 a month. "But those 16 percent savings were calculated after taking the $2.25 fee into account," said CNT spokeswoman, Stephanie Folk.
CNT uses phone and e-mail updates to warn participants when power prices are spiking so they can adjust their electricity usage to compensate. There are also online tools that give participants a real-time readout of what power prices are doing.
"We're at more than 2,000 people on board with Power Smart Pricing right now, and we're launching a fall enrollment campaign," Folk said. "We'd like to double that enrollment level by the end of the year."
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