While Oregon instituted some competition in its electric industry in 1999, only medium to large business customers can choose their electricity provider for the supply, or commodity, portion of their bill.

Business customers must have a demand greater than 30 kilowatts (kW) to shop for power. The ability to choose an alternate provider depends on your utility territory.

At Portland General Electric (PGE), there are four set times during the year, or shopping windows, when you can choose to take supply from an alternative energy provider. Outside of these windows, you must stay with PGE.

At Pacificorp, you may only choose an alternative electric supplier during a once-annual, three-day shopping window in November. Outside of this window, you may not leave Pacificorp.

Customers above 30 kW and less than 1 megawatt (MW) are eligible for a 'shopping credit' on their bill of 5¢/kWh, which is a line item reduction in their charges for choosing an alternate electric supplier. The credit is limited to the first 10% customers of each utility who shop.

Both utilities also cap the total number of customers who can choose an alternative supplier.

Customers who choose an alternate energy provider still have their power delivered to them by their utility, and contact their utility for all outage reporting. Customers can choose to receive either a single bill from their utility for their delivery service and energy supply service, or can receive two bills, one from each company.