NJ Electric Rates by Utility: Can You Save?

Two neighbors in Woodbridge open the same style of PSE&G bill every month. One switched to a competitive electric supplier two years ago and quietly saves money on supply. The other switched too, but lives across the border in JCP&L territory and ended up paying more. Same state, same deregulated market, very different outcomes.

That gap is not a fluke. In New Jersey, whether shopping for electricity actually saves you money depends almost entirely on which utility territory you live in. The NJ Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) oversees the market and sets the rules, but each utility administers its own Basic Generation Service (BGS) rate, and those rates land in very different places. Some are high enough that competitive suppliers can undercut them. Others are already so low that almost no supplier can match them.

Here is a utility-by-utility breakdown of where things stand as of June 2026, so you can make a call based on your actual service territory rather than a generic pitch.

New Jersey deregulated its electricity market so that residential customers can choose who generates their power. Your utility, whether PSE&G, JCP&L, Atlantic City Electric, or Rockland Electric, still owns the wires, handles outages, and delivers electricity to your home. That part never changes.

What you can shop for is the supply portion of your bill. If you do nothing, your utility provides supply at the BGS rate, which the NJBPU reviews and resets periodically through a competitive auction process. If you sign with a third-party supplier, that supplier's rate replaces the BGS rate on your bill. Delivery charges, taxes, and other utility fees stay exactly the same either way.

The math question is simple: is the supplier's rate lower than the BGS rate in your territory? The answer varies by utility, and in some territories right now, it is a clear no. You can check current supplier offers for your specific zip code at ElectricRates.org's New Jersey page.

PSE&G serves more New Jersey customers than any other utility, covering much of northern and central Jersey. As of June 2026, the PSE&G BGS rate sits at roughly 19.9 cents per kWh for supply.

That is a relatively high default rate, which is exactly why competitive suppliers can compete here. The lowest supplier rate available in PSE&G territory is approximately 17.6 cents per kWh, a difference of about 11 percent on the supply portion of the bill.

To put that in household terms: if a PSE&G customer uses 700 kWh in a month, the supply portion at BGS costs roughly $139. At 17.6 cents, it drops to about $123. That is not a dramatic number month to month, but over a full year it adds up to real money.

The caveat: supplier rates can change at the end of a contract term. Anyone switching should read the contract length, understand whether the rate is fixed or variable, and know what the cancellation terms are. The NJBPU maintains licensing information on suppliers operating in the state.

Atlantic City Electric serves southern New Jersey, including Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and parts of several other counties. Its BGS rate is approximately 18.2 cents per kWh as of June 2026.

The lowest competitive supplier in this territory comes in around 16.7 cents per kWh, representing roughly 8 percent savings on the supply component. That is a smaller spread than PSE&G territory, but it is still real.

Atlantic City Electric customers who have never compared rates are likely leaving some savings on the table. The savings are not dramatic, and a variable-rate contract that creeps up could erase the advantage quickly. Fixed-rate offers for one or two years are worth looking at if the upfront rate is genuinely below 18.2 cents.

Jersey Central Power and Light serves central New Jersey and portions of the Shore region. Here the picture flips entirely. As of June 2026, JCP&L's BGS rate is approximately 14.6 cents per kWh.

The lowest competitive supplier rate available in JCP&L territory is around 16.0 cents per kWh. That means switching to a competitive supplier would cost JCP&L customers more, not less.

This is an important point because some door-to-door solicitations and online offers do not clarify which territory they are pricing for. A rate of 16.0 cents might sound reasonable in the abstract, and it would be a decent deal in PSE&G territory. In JCP&L territory, it represents a step backward from a BGS rate that is already among the lowest in the state.

JCP&L customers should stay on BGS for supply unless and until a supplier can clearly beat 14.6 cents. Check current offers for your area before making any decision.

Rockland Electric serves a small slice of northeastern New Jersey, primarily Bergen County near the New York border. It is the smallest of the four NJBPU-regulated utilities.

As of June 2026, Rockland Electric's BGS rate is approximately 18.8 cents per kWh. That sounds like it should leave room for competition. In practice, very few third-party suppliers file rates for Rockland territory, and the lowest available sits at roughly 18.9 cents per kWh, essentially the same as BGS.

The limited supplier participation reflects the small customer base. Suppliers have less incentive to compete aggressively in a territory where the addressable market is small. Rockland Electric customers are not doing anything wrong by staying on BGS, and right now that appears to be the sensible default.

The NJBPU resets BGS rates through an annual auction. Utilities procure supply on behalf of customers who do not choose a supplier, and the results of that auction set the BGS rate for the coming period. When wholesale energy markets move, BGS rates move too, sometimes significantly.

This matters in two ways. First, a territory where shopping makes sense today might not offer the same savings after the next BGS reset. Second, a customer locked into a fixed-rate supplier contract at today's supplier rate will keep paying that rate even if BGS drops below it.

Neither outcome makes shopping bad in principle. It means you should treat your electricity supply rate the way you treat any recurring expense worth reviewing periodically, rather than signing once and forgetting it. The NJBPU provides information on current BGS rates and the auction process on its official website.

For customers who qualify based on income, New Jersey has programs that can reduce electric bills more reliably than switching suppliers. The Universal Service Fund (USF) provides a credit on utility bills for eligible low-income customers. LIHEAP (the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) offers one-time or seasonal assistance with energy costs.

These programs are administered separately from the competitive supply market. A customer who qualifies for USF may find that the assistance more than offsets any supply savings a competitive supplier could offer. The NJ Board of Public Utilities has information on these programs, and your utility's customer service line can explain what you may be eligible for.

If you do not qualify for assistance programs, then comparing supply rates through a source like ElectricRates.org is worth a few minutes of your time, particularly if you are in PSE&G or Atlantic City Electric territory.

The rates in this post are supply-only figures as of June 2026. Delivery charges, taxes, and other fixed fees are set separately and do not change based on which supplier you choose.

To compare actual offers for your home, you need your utility territory and your average monthly usage, which you can find on any recent bill. From there, the comparison is straightforward: look for fixed-rate offers that are clearly below your utility's current BGS rate, read the contract terms, and avoid variable-rate plans unless you are comfortable with the risk that the rate can move.

ElectricRates.org's New Jersey rate comparison tool shows live supplier offers filtered by zip code. For regulatory questions, supplier complaints, or information on whether a specific supplier is licensed to operate in New Jersey, the NJ Board of Public Utilities is the authoritative source.