Electric Commodity Prices to Decrease for Residential Customers Beginning Jan 1, 2012; PECO adjusts its residential Price to Compare to 9.96 cents per kilowatt hour

PECO has filed its quarterly electric commodity adjustment request with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). This change affects only the cost of the electricity used by customers not purchasing their electricity from a competitive supplier. These charges are passed along directly to customers at exactly the price that PECO pays. This change does not affect PECO’s rates to deliver electricity to customers.

Electric commodity costs fluctuate – either increasing or decreasing – based on many factors including wholesale prices when purchases are made, the amount of wholesale electricity purchased, the length of contracts, weather, reconciliation of collections for actual versus forecasted energy use, and other calculations. Based on this adjustment, bills for a typical residential customer – not purchasing their electricity from a competitive electric generation supplier – will decrease about 6.6 percent or about $6.10 a month for the first quarter beginning on Jan. 1, 2012. As a result, beginning Jan. 1, PECO’s residential price to compare will be 9.96 cents per kilowatt hour.

Electric commodity costs for business customers also vary based on the total amount of energy they use and their energy usage patterns. Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, prices for small business customers not purchasing their electricity from a competitive supplier will decrease about 9 percent and prices for large business customers not purchasing their electricity from a competitive supplier will decrease about 2.9 percent.

Customers may be able to save money by shopping for electricity with a competitive supplier. More than 381,500 PECO customers are currently purchasing the electricity they use from a competitive supplier – representing about half of all of the electricity delivered by PECO.

To shop:

• Use the PECO Price to Compare to evaluate offers from competitive suppliers.
• A customer’s individual Price to Compare is listed in the Message Center of their monthly bill. Customers also can calculate their individual Price to Compare with PECO’s Price to Compare calculator at www.peco.com.
• To find competitive electric generation suppliers or learn more about shopping for electricity visit the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s website at www.papowerswitch.com.

In total, the electricity used by customers – or the commodity charges – make up about two-thirds of a total bill. This is the portion of the bill customers can purchase from a competitive electric generation supplier. For customers not purchasing their electricity with a competitive supplier, these charges are passed along directly to customers at exactly the price that PECO pays. These costs are adjusted quarterly for residential and business customers, as market prices change. PECO will continue to update its price to compare quarterly to help customers evaluate offers from competitive suppliers.

The delivery charge, or the portion of the bill that covers PECO’s costs to deliver electricity, is about one-third of the bill. Prices charged for both portions of the bill are reviewed and approved by the PUC.

Whether customers are purchasing their electricity from a competitive electric generation supplier or from PECO, PECO will continue to safely deliver electricity, provide billing and customer support, and respond to outages and other emergencies for ALL customers. And, ALL customers also can take advantage of our PECO Smart Ideas suite of programs to save energy and money. To learn more about all of PECO’s programs to help you save energy and money visit www.peco.com/SmartIdeas.

Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC). PECO serves 1.6 million electric and 490,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania and employs about 2,400 people in the region. PECO delivered 87.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 39.5 billion kilowatt-hours-hours of electricity in 2010. Founded in 1881, PECO is one of the Greater Philadelphia Region's most active corporate citizens, providing leadership, volunteer and financial support to numerous arts and culture, education, environmental, economic development and community programs and organizations.

If you are a member of the media and would like to receive PECO news releases via e-mail please send your e-mail address to PECO.Communication@exeloncorp.com.