Frequent Challenges – Ohio

Frequent Challenges in Successfully Completing Contracts / Enrollments – Ohio

Legal Business Name vs. Doing Business As Name

  • The customer may or may not be aware that their “Legal Business Name” is different than their “Doing Business As Name”.  It is the responsibility of the Sale Agent to educate the customer that these may be different, and that AWE requires both names to successfully execute the contract. You can use this link to validate: https://businesssearch.ohiosos.gov/

Start Date and End Date Challenges

Customer knowing the end date of their current contract

  • To execute the contract successfully, the Sales Agent must ensure that the customer provides them with an accurate end date of their (the customer) current utility contract. AWE requires the current End Date information for the correct Start Date to be written into the new contract. 
  • If the customer is not aware of the end date of their current contract the Sales Agent should facilitate the customer calling their retailer to confirm their end date. We do this to avoid putting the customer into an ETF (early transfer fee) scenario.​

Accurate Start Date and End Date being inputted into the contract

  • The end date of a contract is the day before a new month would start based on the start date / flow date.
    • Example:
      • Signing date: February 1, 2024
      • Start Date / Flow Date: March 1, 2024
      • 12-month Flow Period (End Date): February 28, 2025

Maximum Contract Durations and Forward Starts

  • The maximum duration for Power (Electricity) is 60 months.  The forward start maximum is 2 years.  For example: The forward start is 12 months from the signing date, there would be a maximum of 48 months of flow. 12-month forward start + 48-month flow = 60-month max contract term.
    • Signing Date: February 1, 2024
    • 12-month Forward Start (Flow Date): February 1, 2025
    • 48-month Flow Period (End Date): January 31, 2029
    • The maximum duration for Gas is 36 months and the forward start is maximum 3 months, which is current month plus 2 months.
      • Example:
        • Signing Date: February 1, 2024
        • 3-month Forward Start (Flow Date): April 1, 2024
        • 33-month Flow Period (End Date): Jan 31, 2027

Accurate price included on contract

  • The sales agent must include the appropriate price on the contract.
  • All Power / Electricity utilities in Ohio operate with a $/kWh (Example $0.0789/kWh)
  • See Example:

  • Most Gas utilities in Ohio operate with a $/Ccf (Example $0.64740/Ccf)
  • EXCEPTION: Dominion Energy (Enbridge) in Ohio operates in $/Mcf (Example $5.187/Mcf)
    • Note: The price on the contract is reflected in dollars not cents.  See example:

Missing Signatures / Missing Decision Maker

  • The customer must have the right level authority to sign the bill.
  • If there are multiple owners of a business, the Sales Agent must perform due diligence in identifying the owner(s) with the right level of authority to sign the contract.
  • The contract must have a full signature not only initials where appropriate.  For example, NRG specifically requires initials and signatures, please put initials where it says “initials” and a full signature where it requires a signature.

Missing Bills

  • It is the responsibility of the Sales Agent to include the customer’s recent bills along with a completed contract to ensure a successful enrollment. 
  • The submitted bill must be clear and legible.
  • All pages of the bill must be submitted.
  • The submitted bill should be no more than 6 months old.
  • A minimum of one bill for each signed site is required.