How are there multiple electricity companies if the power comes from one line?

Question

I don’t understand how there can be multiple electricity companies if the power comes from the same power line.

What I mean is, how is the power I’m getting different from the power my neighbors are getting? It’s the same power, so how can so many different
companies charge different amounts for it?

In: Economics

Answer 1

Electricity is a pure commodity… one watt is the same as the next. So it doesn’t matter that you got ComEd’s electricity or GreenEnergy’s electricity, just that you used X watts and your company generated X watts of energy into the grid for use on your behalf, and billed you for that amount of energy. So if you choose a green energy supplier you personally aren’t getting just renewable generated energy, but an amount of renewable energy was generated and supplied to the grid in general, which is the same effect.