Although the public’s overall awareness of energy deregulationhas inched up over the past three years, a majority of residentialand business customers surveyed say they still know next to nothingabout the issue and its potential effect on them, according to theresults of two major surveys issued this week.

Six out of 10 residential energy customers on average still arebasically in the dark on the subjects of electricity and naturalgas deregulation, revealed an annual study by Yankee Energy Systemthat was released Thursday. Despite the poor showing, it foundresidential customers’ awareness has grown since 1996, when abouteight in 10 were unfamiliar with the topic.

The low level of residential awareness is due to the fact that”consumers only become aware of deregulation issues when they arebeing directly affected by them in their own state,” said YankeeEnergy Chairman Branko Terzic at a press briefing in WashingtonD.C. “This is because all utility prices are local – consumersdon’t care about prices in other states. It’s almost irrelevant tothem, like the differences in prices of houses from state tostate.” He noted residential awareness is highest in the West (53%)and Northeast (50.8%) because of greater state activity

At the same time, a national survey by RKS Research &Consulting in North Salem, NY, found only 31% of the medium-sizedbusinesses polled reported receiving information on electricityderegulation, and half had not heard of major national marketerssuch as Enron, Duke Energy or Southern Co. “From this data, it’sclear that mid-sized U.S. businesses have only a blurry view of therealities of energy competition,” said RKS President David J.Reichman. But larger regional businesses (with multiple sites) arefaring better. More than half (59%) have received deregulationinformation from their current suppliers, and 44% already have donebusiness with a major energy marketing company, the survey noted.

The Yankee Energy study, which polled about 1,000 residentialcustomers across the United States, focused on both electricity andnatural gas deregulation. Of those surveyed, it found that only38.1% in 1998 were aware of deregulation, compared to 22.9% in1996. In contrast, the RKS Research survey, which culled responsesfrom 692 mid-sized business and 400 larger regional businesses,concentrated solely on electricity restructuring. Overall, theYankee Energy survey found a majority of residential customers(about 60%) either don’t believe there will be any benefits ordon’t know if there will be any benefits as a result of electricand gas deregulation. On a positive note, however, fewer peoplethis year think electric rates will increase with competition(38.1% in 1998 compared with 50.6% in 1996), and a greater numberbelieve that electric rates will drop (46% this year compared to37.8% in 1996.)

As for the effect of deregulation on gas rates, residentialcustomers were almost evenly split that rates either would increase(37.2%) or decrease (38.4%). The percentage of respondents whothink gas rates will increase under competition has droppedsignificantly since 1996, from 48.9% to 37.2%, according to thesurvey.

Still, the majority of residential consumers (52%) don’t thinkthat they’ll benefit from gas deregulation. The Yankee Energy studypointed out, however, that only about half the these customers havenatural gas available to them or use gas for heating their homes.Approximately 32% said they expected to see benefits from gasderegulation, while 16% said they didn’t know.

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