A tool, not a course

The news says what a rate hike does to a typical home. This works out what it does to yours.

Put in the numbers from your own bill and get your own answer. Then look up who decides your rates in your state, who argues for households, and whether you can pick your supplier. Press the source button beside any figure and you get the government body, the document, the link, and the day it was read.

You are not behind. Nobody shows you this part.

A rate case runs for months in a file almost no household opens. The notice, when there is one, is a line on a bill insert. The utility files with a team of lawyers and consultants; you hear about it on the news, as one number for a home that is not yours.

And that number is often a request, not a decision. It is the company's estimate, for a typical bill, before the commission has ruled. What reaches your bill depends on what the commission decides, how much electricity you use, and which part of the bill the change lands on.

So this is a tool for checking, not a course to sit through. You open it, you put in your bill, you get your number, and you can see the page behind every figure that is not yours.

Half one

My state

Pick your state. You get four answers, each with its own document:

• Who decides your electricity rates — and a direct link to search its cases, so the case number in the news takes you straight to the file.
• Who argues for households when a utility asks for more.
• Whether you can pick who supplies your electricity, and the state's own page to compare offers.
• Whether the commission sets co-op and city utility rates at all. If yours is a co-op, a rate-case story may not be about your bill.

Print a sheet for your state with every source listed.

Half two

My bill

Three calculators. You type in your own numbers; every figure that comes back from us has a source button beside it.

What does this rate change do to my bill?

The news gives a percentage, a price per kilowatt-hour, a new monthly charge, or a dollar figure for an example home. Pick whichever it gave you, put in your own bill, and get your increase a month and a year — with a reminder of whether that number is still a request.

Am I paying my supplier more than the utility's own price?

In states where you can pick a supplier, your bill prints the utility's own price — often called the "price to compare" — beside your supplier's. Put both in with your use and see what the gap costs over a year. It does not tell you to switch, and nobody behind it earns anything if you do.

Which heating costs less at my prices?

Oil, propane, natural gas, electric heat or a heat pump. Type in what you pay and how much you used last winter, and it works out what the same heat would have cost on each — using the federal government's figures for how much heat each fuel holds and the lowest efficiency new equipment may have.

There are no prices in it, on purpose

Energy prices move every week. A tool that stored them would be wrong a month after you bought it, and you would not know which figures had gone stale. So it stores none. You type in the prices from your own bill, which are the only ones that matter to you anyway.

What it does store are the figures that do not move week to week — how much heat is in a gallon of oil, the lowest efficiency a new furnace may have, who runs the commission in your state — and every one of them names its document and the day it was read.

Why the source button is the whole product

Anybody can put a number on a screen. The question that matters is who says so, and when did they say it.

So the app is built the other way round from most: a figure of ours cannot be displayed at all unless a document is attached to it. If the paperwork is missing, the app says "Not checked yet". It never guesses.

Every source record carries the date it was read. When something changes, the date moves where you can see it.

And it prints something worth keeping

Not a screenshot of a web page. A clean record: your numbers, the answer, and a sources page listing every document behind every figure, with the date it was read. Take it to a hearing, a utility call or a family conversation.

What you actually get

A link. It opens in the browser you already use, on a phone, a tablet or a computer. There is nothing to download and nothing to unzip.

It is a web app, not a phone app. No App Store, no Google Play, no account to create. If you want it on your home screen, your browser will put it there in two taps, and after that it opens like anything else on the screen — with the internet switched off.

Nothing you type leaves your device. There is no login, no cloud, no analytics on your figures. The arithmetic happens in your own browser.

What this is not

• Not advice. It shows arithmetic and names the documents behind it. Nobody here is a financial adviser or an attorney, and nobody here knows your situation.
• Not help with shutoffs or heating assistance. That stays free and stays on the channel. None of it is behind a payment, ever. If you are behind on a bill, call your utility and ask about payment plans and assistance programs.
• Not an energy seller. Nobody behind this sells electricity, gas, solar panels or a switching service, or earns anything when you switch.
• Not a subscription. One payment. Nothing renews.
• Not discounted. There is no launch offer, no countdown and no coupon. A discount next month is a tax on whoever trusted you first.
• Not a promise about your bill. It will not lower it. It tells you what a change does to it and where to read the decision.

$49, once

That is the price today and the price in six months. If you buy it now and a neighbor buys it in March, you both paid $49.

Questions people ask

One more thing, and then I will stop

If you take nothing else from this page, take the habit: when the news gives a number for your bill, check whether it is a request or a decision, and whose document it comes from. You can do that without buying anything. It is slow, and that is the only reason this exists.