Newtown Rep Is A Real Energy Company Power Broker

By John Voket

You can practically feel the electricity when Newtown resident Brandon Sheehan talks about his new job. For the past two months, he has traded in his career as a customer service rep with a landscape company for the title of senior broker with New Milford-based Public Power & Utility, Inc (PP&U).

The company offers competitive electricity generation rates along with a convenient transfer of service for residential, commercial, and industrial customers who might be looking for an alternative to either Connecticut Light & Power or United Illuminating, the state’s two largest and longest-tenured electrical utilities.

“I liked the focus on green energy, an eco-friendly means of producing power,” Mr Sheehan told The Newtown Bee this week. “It’s pretty forward thinking — negotiating lower rates for the users by buying in bulk.”

Recent legislative changes allow for Connecticut customers to select the energy supplier of their choice. As a result, earlier this year, Public Power & Utility sought and received its license to become a retail electrical supplier from the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control.

As a result, the company was permitted to enroll new customers.

“Public Power & Utility is ready to transfer customers without service interruption or at any additional cost,” Mr Sheehan said.

In just the past few weeks, Mr Sheehan said he is getting nothing but fantastic reactions from customers receiving their first discounted electric bill.

“More and more people keep telling me they wished we were around a lot sooner,” he said.

Mr Sheehan said tracking anticipated savings is easy via the company’s website www.ppandu.com, because PP&U posts its monthly kilowatt per hour charge online, and even speculates its Kwh price projected two months out.

“I’m not sure any other electric utility is doing that,” he said. “Currently we are the lowest priced electric company doing business in Connecticut. It’s exciting to me to be able to offer a regular consumer the same generation rate as a multinational conglomerate. It’s a win for the little guy.”

The company was founded by New Milford resident David Pearsall, an electrician who said he was always interested in the supply side of the business.

“We are offering our customers a savings on the generation service charge without requiring deposits or long-term contracts,” he explained, adding that Public Power & Utility customers continue to receive just one bill from Connecticut Light & Power or United Illuminating.

“The savings shows up in the generation line of the bill,” Mr Pearsall said.

By quickly finding and comparing available rates and contracts, PP&U can help choose the competitive electricity supplier best suited to a Connecticut business or residential client’s needs. The company offers a no-risk, no-obligation electricity assessment, which includes a detailed history of existing electricity consumption, a complete summary of the competitive supply offers, and information regarding switching providers.

Connecticut deregulated its wholesale electricity market in 1998, and retail-level consumers of power have had the right to switch providers since July 2000. As part of Connecticut’s electricity deregulation process, the standard offer rates available to the incumbent utility companies’ customers were frozen at rates ten percent below 1996 levels.

This price cap has made it more challenging for competitive utility companies to serve customers in Connecticut because the price to beat in that market was frozen at such a low level. But deregulation has attracted several alternate power generation brokers to the field, including PP&U.

The DPUC reports other licensed residential customers in Connecticut include Stamford-based MXEnergy, Pennsylvania-based Community Energy, Houston-based Direct Energy, and Virginia-based Sterling Planet.

According to Mr Pearsall, his company has almost two dozen employees at its New Milford headquarters, and he plans to open satellite offices in New Haven, Waterbury, and Danbury. For more information or to enroll with Public Power & Utility, call 860-354-4415, email service@ppandu.com, or sign up on the website ppandu.com.