Start-up EnergyBidder Launches Online Brokering Website

Atlanta-based EnergyBidder announced that the company will launch a new online brokering website: www.energybidder.com.

The start-up is led by founder and President Rick Woodward, a 30-year industry veteran who has held a variety of positions in retail energy marketing, including at AGL and recently with Energy Advisory Service.

Initially, EnergyBidder will offer natural gas to customers in Georgia and Florida. Over the next 12 to 18 months, EnergyBidder.com said that it will "aggressively" expand into additional deregulated electric and gas markets throughout the United States and Canada.

In particular, Woodward cited Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as the most immediate expansion targets. Woodward is not prioritizing expansion in the Northeast due to the competitive intensity in those markets.

EnergyBidder will serve all energy consumers but will target the small commercial and residential markets.

EnergyBidder also said that it will target the needs of small commercial and residential customers by bundling multiple accounts in order to capture the lowest rates from energy marketers. Aggregation efforts will be ramped up over time, Woodward said.

For commercial accounts, EnergyBidder will bid out each customer's account to multiple suppliers and then report results to the customer, with a summary of bids and an executable contract for the lowest bidder. If the customer chooses to accept the low bid, the customer must only execute the contract and return it to EnergyBidder.

For residential customers, EnergyBidder will initially have multiple suppliers compete to provide a single rate (typically good for a month) which EnergyBidder will then make available to customers.

Unless other terms are requested, EnergyBidder will solicit fixed pricing for one and two year periods on behalf of its customers.

Woodward is a former senior executive at Atlanta Gas Light Company where he managed a wide variety of energy functions. Woodward was previously President of AGL Investments and managed the creation of one of the largest unregulated marketers of natural gas in the United States, and was also a director of Sonat Marketing.

Woodward has also served as President of Luminor Inc., a provider of billing software to energy marketers, and was a founding partner of Energy Advisory Service LLC, an aggregator of gas and electricity for multifamily properties throughout the United States.

"The benefits of energy deregulation have mostly gone to the sophisticated large commercial and industrial users of natural gas and electricity," said Woodward. "We will use our market knowledge and the power of bundling to bring similar benefits to the small commercial and residential segment."