Electricity shoppers in the Duquesne Light Co. service area already buying lower-cost electricity will continue to get a price break, though it will smaller than what they currently receive. Allegheny Energy Supply Co. LLC, the last low-cost alternative supplier, expects to preserve an aggregation program that attracted residents of 85 area municipalities. 'We're dotting the 'i's' and crossing the 't's' on a final agreement,' Janice Lantz, a spokeswoman for Allegheny Energy Supply, said Friday. The supply company has provided lower-cost electricity since 1999 in the Duquesne Light service area, which includes most of Allegheny and Beaver counties. Although a final price has not been determined - one is expected Monday - Lantz said it will be lower than the electric generation price paid by those customers who have not chosen an alternative supplier. A customer that uses 500 kilowatts of electricity a month is saving about $4 a month under the current price structure. With the price range now being contemplated, savings for that customer would be less than $1.50. As deregulation is phased in, prices the incumbent utility can charge are capped, in Duquesne Light's case, until the end of 2004. But electricity suppliers nationally say rate caps are too low and do not allow them to simultaneously compete and turn a profit. As a result, few competitive suppliers - Allegheny Energy is the exception - remain in the market for very long. She said the new agreement with an electricity generator she did not identify would be for either two or three years. 'We'll still be able to offer the Duquesne Light customers a price break,' Lantz said. The new prices will go into effect in May for the more than 100,000 customers who use Allegheny Energy Supply. But customers who have not already signed up with Allegheny Energy Supply, either individually or as part of a municipal aggregation program, are still out of luck. The electric generation price posted for those who did not already sign up will be higher than what they are currently paying Duquesne Light, essentially discouraging any shoppers. The supply company already has priced itself out of the market in the rest of Pennsylvania. The the range of prices it can offer will be relatively narrow. The new price will be higher than its most recent offer of 4.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, but lower than the current Duquesne 'price-to-compare' of 4.89 cents per kilowatt-hour. Depending on when customers signed up with Allegheny Energy, or if they are part of a municipal aggregation program, they are paying either 4 cents of 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour. The electricity costs are only a portion of a customer's bill, which also includes charges for transmission and distribution and the recovery of stranded costs for power plant investments under the state's electricity deregulation program.

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