Jun 24, 2021 | Customer Service
Summer is moving season in Pennsylvania. Whether you’re helping your child move into a new college house, trading your home for an apartment downtown, or building a house for your growing family, we have tips to make transferring your electric service simple.
1. Ask your realtor or landlord for the meter number at your new residence so there’s no confusion about the address.
2. Confirm with prior tenants or homeowners when they are planning to request to stop service in their names. Then you can request the same date to prevent a gap in service.
3. Decide which of the following requests works best for your family:
- Start service: You can start service at any address within our territory without stopping service at another property.
- Stop service: Moving out of the area? You can simply stop your existing service and we’ll send you a final bill.
- Transfer service: Stop service at your existing property and start service at a new home with just a few clicks.
4. Visit pplelectric.com/moving up to 40 days before you move to process a request to start, stop or transfer your electric service.
New! If someone requests to start service at your existing address, you may receive a text or email from us to confirm. If you’re moving, there’s no need to take action. If the change was requested in error, let us know so we can prevent a new customer from starting service at the wrong address.
Moving requests only take a few minutes on our website, so there’s no need to wait. Cross this off your moving to-do list and get back to packing!
May 6, 2021 | Energy Efficiency
Flowers and candy are Mother’s Day mainstays, but this year try something new— make energy-efficient changes around your mom’s house for a gift that keeps on giving all year long. But, don’t forget the flowers. She’s your mom, after all.
Here are a few tips:
Clean the ceiling fans and vents.
- Not only can they be hard to reach, but they’re prone to dust buildup. Clogged vents could make Mom’s heating and cooling systems work harder to move air through the house. By using the ceiling fan and turning up the thermostat by only two degrees, your mom can lower air conditioning costs by up to 14%.
Install and fine-tune her window AC unit.
- If your mom lives in a home without central air, save her the hard work of installing window units. Be sure she knows how to use the timer settings to keep the unit running efficiently. Setting the timer to turn on the unit when she arrives home instead of running when the house is empty, for instance, will save money.
Change the lightbulbs.
- Swapping out costly and inefficient incandescent lightbulbs in Mom’s home with LED bulbs can save up to $75 each year, and they can last 3 to 25 times longer.
Landscape for efficiency.
- Planting trees, shrubs and other landscaping features in appropriate places brings a bounty of energy savings, from cutting heating and cooling costs to reducing noise and air pollution. On average, a well-designed landscape saves enough energy to pay for itself in eight years.
Install a programmable thermostat.
- Help Mom set it and forget it. Programmable thermostats adjust when the heat or air conditioning turns on according to a preset schedule. Keeping the house warmer than normal when she is away and at 78°F when she’s home can save Mom up to 10% on her energy bill every year.
May 5, 2021 | Community Involvement, Environment
Thousands of blueberry, serviceberry, eastern redbud, river oak and sycamore trees are getting planted across our territory, thanks to our Community Roots program.
Just this week, our employees distributed nearly 12,000 tree seedlings to conservation organizations, such as Wildlands Conservancy in Lehigh County, where they’re being prepared for spring planting.
Since 2017, we have distributed more than 105,000 free trees to help preserve the environment by reducing greenhouse gases, promoting healthy waterways, and giving birds, bees, and butterflies a natural food source.
The trees, which also help to beautify parks and other public spaces, are given to environmentally focused groups, municipal and county governments and fourth grade students at schools in our service territory.
“Community Roots is a great way for us to promote trees and their benefits and reinforce to the public our commitment to the environment,” said Lori Burkert, manager of Environmental Compliance.
Apr 27, 2021 | Bill Help
Here in Pennsylvania, you can shop for your electricity supply. Just like you would shop for a car, you compare different offers and choose what is right for you at the lowest cost. Then, PPL Electric Utilities delivers the electricity to you.
We support shopping for electricity supply, but because we deliver the electricity, we have no vested interest in which supplier you choose. But we do care whether you’re paying a reasonable rate.
We’ve been monitoring the rates shopping customers pay compared to the default rate, which is the rate charged if you do not choose a supplier.
We’ve found many of our residential customers are paying more for electricity through their supplier than they would have on the default rate. Over a one-year period, our residential customers paid about $97 million more than they would have paid on the default rate. Small business customers paid $34 million more.
This is alarming.
The data really made me stop and take a step back. How is this happening? One of the biggest issues I find is that suppliers sometimes use deceptive marketing tactics to attract customers.
I am sure we all know someone — or you yourself — who received a phone call or letter claiming to provide a new and better rate. Often these solicitations are disguised as a PPL-endorsed communication, using our logo or stating that the call is about your PPL bill. You may be told that if you switch now, you can get $300 in gift card rewards.
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Those gift cards they offer you are often short-term discounts to mask higher rates. And the low rates they offer you are often teaser rates. They only last a short while and then they skyrocket.
Suppliers are intentionally vague in hopes you won’t understand the long-term cost increase or aren’t monitoring your electric bill closely. In fact, there are more than 26,000 PPL customers paying double the price of default energy.
I recently appeared in front of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to encourage our representatives to take steps to protect our customers from this type of deceptive marketing.
We’re committed to advocating for our customers. In the meantime, it’s critical you continue to shop smart. Read the fine print, be aware of deceptive marketing tactics and check your electric bill regularly to see how much you are being charged.
The time for change is now or Pennsylvania customers will continue paying the price. I encourage you to speak to your local officials to raise awareness about the consumer protections that are needed and continue to shop smart.
To learn more about how to check your electricity supply rate and make informed decisions, visit pplelectric.com/shopsmart today.
By: Greg Dudkin, Chief Operating Officer, PPL Corporation
Apr 27, 2021 | Customer Service
We’re committed to delivering an effortless customer experience, whether we chat on social media, speak over the phone, or interact with you on our website. We’re also committed to continuous learning and improvement. So, when we received customer feedback regarding accessibility issues with our website, we took action.
Here’s what we learned:
- A legally blind customer made us aware that she was having difficulty using her screen reader to pay her bill online.
- Another customer with red and green colorblindness was having difficulty interpreting certain message banners on our website.
Here’s what we’re doing about it:
- Updating our online bill pay section to better support those who are visually impaired.
- To help overcome the color hurdle, we’re testing and implementing designs that use larger icons, which are more noticeable and legible for users with colorblindness.
Taking it a step further:
- We’ll continue checking-in with customers who have disabilities and design our website with accessibility in mind.
- We’re establishing panels of customers who can provide us guidance and insight on accessibility issues as we’re making routine improvements to the website.
We’re continuously learning from customers who access our website differently, so we can make the web experience inclusive for all.
