Energy Service Companies in New York: what they are, when one saves you money, and when to walk away.

ESCO stands for Energy Service Company. It is a competitive retail supplier you can pick for the energy portion of your bill, which is the kilowatt-hours you actually consume. The wires that bring the power to your home, the meter, the outage crew and the monthly bill all stay with your regulated utility (Con Edison, National Grid, NYSEG, RG&E, Central Hudson, Orange & Rockland or PSEG Long Island). You pay the utility for delivery. You pay the ESCO, through that same utility bill, for supply.

In Con Edison territory, only about 40% of your total bill is the supply line. The rest is delivery, the fixed customer charge, and state riders. A 15% discount on supply is closer to 6% off your total bill. Add the risk that a 12-month fixed plan rolls onto a much higher month-to-month rate at renewal, and the math turns negative fast. The 2023 Reset Order tightened the rules, but it did not make every offer worth taking. Compare against the utility default rate every time.

The Reset Order is the PSC decision that overhauled the residential ESCO market in New York. Three rules matter: every mass-market product must guarantee savings against the utility default rate, every product must be either a fixed price or a true renewable-energy product, and ESCOs cannot sign up customers on a utility low-income program (HEAP or EAP). Variable, indexed and teaser-only residential products were taken off the menu. Read the rules and the current ESCO list on the NY DPS site.

On 16 April 2026 the PSC approved a settlement with nine ESCOs affiliated with NRG (including Green Mountain Energy). The companies agreed to pay $50 million in billing adjustments to about 278,000 residential and small-commercial customers, plus more than $900,000 in adjustments for low-income customers who should never have been on an ESCO. The same settlement mandates a one-year product priced 15% below the utility default rate, worth up to $21 million in further savings. The PSC signalled it will keep enforcing the Reset Order aggressively.

The Department of Public Service publishes the current list of licensed ESCOs and their compliance status on its ESCO Competitive Market Information page. The list shows each company, the territories it is licensed to serve, the product types it can sell, and any open enforcement actions. If a company is not on the list, it has no legal right to sell you supply service in New York. Always check this before you give an ESCO your utility account number.

No. The PSC banned the practice in 2016, and the 2023 Reset Order kept the ban in place. If you are enrolled in HEAP (the Home Energy Assistance Program, administered by NY OTDA) or in EAP (your utility's monthly Energy Affordability Program discount), you stay on utility default service. If you were signed up by an ESCO anyway, you have the right to be returned to utility default. The April 2026 settlement explicitly set aside more than $900,000 in adjustments for HEAP-eligible households who had been wrongly switched.

The Customer Disclosure Statement is a one-page summary that every NY ESCO is required to give you before you sign. It must list the per-kWh price, the contract term, any introductory rate and the date it ends, the renewal terms, and the early-termination fee. The format is set by the PSC under the Uniform Business Practices. If a salesperson cannot show you all five items in writing, refuse to sign and walk away.

Nothing bad. You stay on your utility's default service, where supply is resold at cost through a monthly auction. There is no profit margin built in, but also no price hedge, so the supply rate moves up and down with the wholesale market each month. Roughly 85% of NY residential customers are on utility default at any given time. That is not a failure of retail choice; it is often the right answer.