Akron, OH-based FirstEnergy last week became one of the firstutilities to offer its services through Utility.com, a one-stoputility shopping website. Under an alliance with the web site,FirstEnergy will sell its electricity, gas and energy-relatedservices through Utility.com to customers in Ohio, Delaware andMaryland. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The alliance enters FirstEnergy into Utility.com’s eUtilitiesprogram. FirstEnergy’s services will be live in June. ForeUtilities program partners, Utility.com will provide access to awebsite offering a variety of services, including customerenrollments, customer service, bill presentation, paymentcollection, e-mail statements and online bill storage. Along withenergy, the program will offer long distance, DSL,voice-over-Internet protocol and dial-up Internet access.

“The website is zip code driven,” said Chris King, CEO ofUtility.com. “A customer would go to our website and enter his/herzip code, taking the customer to a list of services offered forthat area. It would include anything from electricity service, toan entire package including electric, gas, phone, Internet accessand others.” King said the goal of the eUtilities program is tosign enough utilities so that Utility.com has a presence in everystate.

A customer who selects multiple services from eUtilities wouldget a consolidated bill, and would have the option to pay online.”This is how we are hoping to enter into markets ahead ofderegulation,” said Laurie Ann Ryan, a spokeswoman for Utility.com.”We intend to partner with some utilities who still operate inregulated areas. But they may not offer online bill payment. Theymay not offer these other telecommunications services.We’d gain amarket presence in regulated areas, because we can offer theseextra services.”

So far, only FirstEnergy and Kansas City Power & Light(KCPL) have officially entered the program. More utilities willmake announcements soon, said a Utility.com spokesperson.Utility.com bills itself as the first Internet utility company, andjust recently raised more than $30 million in venture capital.Investors such as Sempra Energy and Southern Company EnergyMarketing contributed to the financing.

John Norris

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