Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

This paper reviews the experience with retail choice of non-residential electricity customers during the period from early 1998 through the first few months of 2000. Key findings include: (1) customers in California received a significantly smaller discount from utility tariffs than customers in other competitive markets; (2) this sample of large commercial/industrial customers believed they were benefiting significantly more from commodity savings from contracts with retail electricity service providers (RESP) than from value-added services; and, (3) market rules appear to be critical to customer experiences with retail competition, yet the relationship between market rules and market development is inadequately understood.