How to Switch Electricity Suppliers in New York: ESCO Enrollment for Cannabis Facilities

Who can switch

New York's retail access program has been open since the late 1990s under PSC Cases 94-E-0952 and 98-M-1343, and every customer of the six investor-owned electric utilities can choose a supplier [ny-dps-esco-info]. The suppliers are Energy Service Companies, or ESCOs, and the PSC decides which are eligible to operate in each utility territory [ny-dps-esco-info]. The utility keeps delivering the power and remains responsible for the wires and outages.

The six utilities open to ESCOs are Con Edison, Orange & Rockland, National Grid (Niagara Mohawk), NYSEG, RG&E, and Central Hudson [ny-dps-esco-info]. Long Island customers on PSEG Long Island and LIPA, and customers of municipal systems, cannot use an ESCO [ny-dps-esco-info]. If your facility is in Nassau or Suffolk, the rest of this page does not apply.

For background on why the supply and delivery lines are separate at all, read what energy deregulation is.

Step 1: Confirm your utility

Look at the top of the bill. The utility name tells you three things at once: whether you can switch, which NYISO zone your load is priced in, and which class structure applies. Con Edison territory is New York City (except most of the Rockaways) and most of Westchester, priced in Zones J and I, where delivery and capacity costs are highest in the state [coned-rates]. National Grid's upstate territory sits in Zones A through F, where energy and capacity are far cheaper [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]. Central Hudson and Orange & Rockland are in Zone G inside the G-J capacity locality; NYSEG spans Zones C, E, and G; RG&E is Zone B.

Step 2: Identify your service classification and Reset Order status

The delivery section of the bill names a service classification. That classification decides two things.

First, how the utility bills delivery. Con Edison's SC 2 General Small covers accounts up to 10 kW and SC 9 General Large covers 10 kW and above with per-kW demand charges [coned-rates]. National Grid's SC-2 Non-Demand is for accounts under 100 kW that have not passed 2,000 kWh a month for four consecutive months; above that it is SC-2 Demand, and SC-3 applies once demand exceeds 100 kW in each of the previous 12 months [ngrid-upstate-service-rates].

Second, whether the December 12, 2019 Reset Order applies to you. In Case 15-M-0127 the PSC restricted what ESCOs may sell to mass-market customers, defined as residential and small non-residential, to three product types: a savings-guarantee against the utility price, at least 50 percent renewable content, or a fixed price no more than 5 percent above the trailing utility supply price [ny-psc-reset-order-2019]. The order does not restrict larger commercial and industrial accounts [ny-psc-reset-order-2019].

Step 3: Gather bills and interval data

Collect twelve months of bills for every meter. If the utility has an advanced meter on the account, request the interval data. Indoor and mixed-light cultivators already have an interval meter because OCM requires one, so a grow has this data whether or not it has ever looked at it. Suppliers quote what they can see; a facility that can show 8,760 hours of load gets a price built on its own shape rather than on a class average with margin added for the unknown.

Step 4: Establish the benchmark

New York's utility supply price is not a fixed number. Con Edison and Orange & Rockland bill default supply through the Market Supply Charge, which Con Edison calculates from NYISO day-ahead market prices adjusted for load shape and losses [coned-rates-faq]. For demand-billed plans such as SC 9, that supply is split into an Energy Supply component per kWh and a Demand Supply component per kW, the latter recovering the estimated cost of capacity [coned-rates-faq]. Default-supply customers also pay a Merchant Function Charge and a Clean Energy Standard supply surcharge as part of the supply total [coned-rates-faq]. National Grid, NYSEG, RG&E, and Central Hudson post a monthly supply price; at National Grid the Merchant Function Charge likewise applies only to customers who take supply from the utility [ngrid-upstate-service-rates].

Because all of these track NYISO's monthly results, a fixed ESCO price is being compared against a moving target. Build a trailing twelve-month average of the supply line from your bills and compare offers to that, not to the most recent month. Note what is inside the utility number (energy, capacity, the Merchant Function Charge) so you compare like with like; an ESCO price that excludes capacity is not comparable to a utility number that includes it. NYISO's installed capacity market is locational, and downstate localities price far above the rest of the state [nyiso-markets], so this matters most in Con Edison, O&R, and Central Hudson territory.

Step 5: Pull the eligible ESCO list

The Department of Public Service publishes the list of ESCOs regulated by the PSC and eligible to serve each utility territory, along with each ESCO's environmental disclosure label and the ESCO Consumer Bill of Rights [ny-dps-esco-info]. Every ESCO that wanted to keep serving mass-market customers after the Reset Order had to re-file its Retail Access Application by the revised November 17, 2020 deadline [ny-dps-esco-info], so the current list is shorter than it was in 2019. Only request quotes from ESCOs eligible in your utility; an ESCO eligible at National Grid is not automatically eligible at Con Edison.

Step 6: Request quotes in a common format

Give every ESCO the same package: the bills, the interval data, the term lengths you want priced (12, 24, and 36 months is typical), and the product type. Ask each to state:

• Whether capacity is fixed in the price or passed through.
• Whether transmission and ancillary services are fixed or passed through.
• The price by meter, not a blended portfolio number.
• Whether the quote is under the mass-market rules or the unrestricted commercial rules.

The fixed vs index vs block-and-index page explains the structures. For a demand-metered account all of them are available in New York [ny-psc-reset-order-2019].

Step 7: Review the contract terms

Read the term, the renewal clause, the notice window, the early termination fee, and the billing arrangement. New York ESCOs can bill through the utility (utility consolidated billing, one bill with the ESCO's supply charge on it) or separately (dual billing); the DPS lists competitive customer billing arrangements as part of the framework [ny-dps-esco-info]. Consolidated billing is simpler for a multi-site operator. The contract fine print page covers what an evergreen clause does at the end of the term.

Step 8: Sign and let the ESCO enroll you

The ESCO submits the enrollment to the utility under the Uniform Business Practices; you do not contact the utility to switch [ny-dps-esco-info]. The change takes effect on a scheduled meter-read date, so plan on one billing cycle. No new meter, no service interruption, and the utility keeps outage responsibility. The what happens to my utility FAQ covers this in plain terms.

Step 9: Calendar the end date

At the end of a term one of three things happens: you re-sign, the contract renews under its own clause, or the account returns to utility supply. Returning means going back to the Market Supply Charge or monthly supply price at whatever NYISO produced that month [coned-rates-faq]. Put the end date and the notice deadline on a calendar someone owns, and start re-bidding 60 to 90 days ahead.

Uniform Business Practices enrollment

Retail access follows PSC Uniform Business Practices under Cases 94-E-0952 and 98-M-1343 [ny-dps-esco-info]. ESCOs must be PSC-eligible; consolidated billing is common on IOU bills [ny-dps-esco-info]. Dual billing ESCOs invoice supply separately while the utility bills delivery [ny-dps-esco-info].

Capacity pass-through checklist

Require written ICAP treatment for Zone J, G-J, and upstate zones [nyiso-markets]. Block-and-index products should define NYISO day-ahead energy index and capacity index separately [nyiso-markets]. Compare trailing Market Supply Charge average, not one month [coned-rates].

Mistakes New York operators make

• Comparing a fixed offer to last month's utility price. The utility number moves monthly. One cheap month makes every fixed offer look bad; one expensive month makes every fixed offer look good. Use a trailing average.
• Ignoring capacity downstate. A Zone J or G-J locality contract with capacity passed through can move by more than the energy price. Know which you signed.
• Assuming the Reset Order blocks commercial contracts. It restricts mass-market products. A demand-metered facility can sign any structure [ny-psc-reset-order-2019].
• Letting a small store's ESCO drop it. Some ESCOs left the mass-market segment after 2019. If yours does, the meter reverts to utility supply without a decision on your part.
• Signing at 23.56 cents as the baseline. The June 2026 statewide commercial average of 23.56 cents per kWh [eia-epm-5-6-a] is an all-in number dominated by Con Edison territory. Your benchmark is the supply line on your own bill, not the state average.

For timing questions see how long switching takes. For the utility-specific mechanics, see the Con Edison and National Grid upstate pages.