So, prompted by this article at KHOU, I was checking on the Mayor’s program to advertise electric companies at our expense, and I noticed something really weird on this page.

Note the rates for the Reliant “Price to Beat” program:

1-250 kWh: $0.122159
251 – 800: $0.164428
800 + : $0.1564136

But here are the rates that appear on my bill, and in my earlier post:
PTB
1 – 250 : $0.29441
251-800: $0.077171
801 + : $0.0489826

Secure Plan
1-500 $0.058823
500-1000 $0.08567
1000+ $0.06533

After a half hour of puzzling it out, I finally figured out that it was because the website already adds the fuel factor into each rate, but it’s the variable piece of the puzzle which could invalidate the entire comparison. The website doesn’t mention this. So what’s the point of spending taxpayer money on a worthless tool?

(And in a sideline note, I may soon upgrade this site to WP2.x and it’s wysiwyg editing. Those tables were such a damn pain, I only now realized I left out the size of the brackets in each rate plan. Grrrrrr. I’ll have to work on the formatting later.