Yes I understand that its only for the supply charges. Good thing about keeping the distribution the same, not that you have a choice to change it, is that all of the services you see with the utility company (repairs, outages, etc) remain the same.
Last month I was charged about 14 cents for 800 kwh and then about 15 cents for everything above that. At Gateway's rate of about 12 cents kwh, I would've saved about $70. Sure, I won't get rich off the savings, but I wouldn't want to throw that money away if I don't have to. Last month is also the highest during the last 13 months with the recent heat wave mania, so savings would be less during the other months when my electric use go down during the cooler months. If I could save $500 a year total and all things remain the same (service, etc), I think that's a good enough reason to switch. People switch other plans (phones, cable, internet, etc) to save a lot less than that. And if I can save a few hundred more by switching my gas supplier, I think it's definitely worth switching or at least looking into it.
I'm not sure if my current company will start to add more fees or increase current fees on the distribution side of the bill if I switched my electric supplier. Also, the new supplier may charge other hidden fees I don't know about. I could lock into a fixed rate with the new supplier, but that doesn't guarantee my savings will continue during the contract period. And if I go with the variable rate, there's no guarantee that it will stay lower than my utility company. I'd definitely want to find out all the details in writing from the supplier before I signed up for anything.
I found this reference site in case anyone's interested:
http://www.state.nj.us/bpu/commercial/shopping.html
I did some googling today, but unfortunately there isn't a lot of information out there about electric supply deregulation, things you should consider and beware of, etc. I was also looking for customer complaints regarding these independent energy suppliers but didn't find much of that either.
One thing that annoyed me during this research is that when I wanted to talk to my current utility company, I had to navigate through so many damn automated menus and when it finally got to "please hold for the next customer service agent" they hung up on me! I called back 6 times trying different menu options and each time it hung up on me when it got to that message. I finally called back to their emergency line, was put on hold and then finally talked to someone after waiting 10 minutes. I mentioned the dropped calls to them and she shrugged it off saying she knows they've been having phone issues.
Anyway, she tried to help me answer questions about switching and ramifications of switching, but she didn't give me much information. She assured me that everything on my bill would remain the same except for the supply charges would not be on the bill, and I would get a billed separately for the supply charges from the company I chose. I asked her if there were any reasons why I should not switch and she said that it was up to me to decide. Wow, what a way to keep a customer. She finally said that one downside she could think of is that I would get 2 separate bills.