Utility.com has signed up Sempra Energy Trading to become thepreferred wholesale natural gas provider behind the growing retailenergy and communications website.

Utility.com, which bills itself as the “world’s first Internetutility company,” signed with Southern Company Energy Marketing inMarch to provide wholesale power for the site. Last month it announcedits first two partners in the retail market, FirstEnergy and KansasCity Power & Light. (See Daily GPI, April 26)

Through its eUtilities Program, Utility.com is partnering withtraditional utility companies to offer services online, includingthe individual services provided by a traditional utility andadd-ons such as customer enrollments, service, bill presentation,payment collection, e-mail statements and online bill storage.Along with energy, 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.

In April Utility.com said it had completed its second round ofventure financing, raising $30 million from leading Internet andenergy investors. The deal was led by Trident Capital and included asnew investors Sempra and Southern along with Kinetic Ventures andNatural Gas Partners. Idealab! (cq), which creates and operatesInternet businesses, was among the founders of Utility.com. The sitewill be picking up some stiff competition soon. Enron, with the helpof AOL and IBM, announced earlier this week it was launching anational retail energy transaction website, starting in August in NewJersey and Pennsylvania. (See Daily GPI, May17)

Meanwhile, Sempra’s regulated subsidiary Southern California Gas isselling its interest in one of the first online retail web sites,energymarketplace.com, which was set up in the fall of 1997.Excelergy has taken over operating the site, which has been renamed www.echoicenet.com, and is seeking to purchaseSoCal’s interest.

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