Retail electricity prices for customers enrolled with competitive suppliers in the New England region are less volatile compared to wholesale power prices, although temporary price hikes occur when wholesale prices experience the largest increases, according to an Oct. 31 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. All the New England states except Vermont have deregulated electricity market, where companies compete to generate and sell wholesale electricity to retail suppliers, and customers pay for electricity in the supply portion of their bills. The agency said that retail choice customers sign contracts for fixed or variable prices, which limit the monthly volatility in prices. Commercial and industrial customers in the retail market usually have variable pricing contracts, due to which competitive retail prices in these sectors respond quickly to volatility in wholesale prices. Residential prices remained stable until 2015, when the energy component of the price rose by nearly 20 percent to cover price spikes in the previous winters. Since 2012, there have been four instances when monthly average wholesale prices spiked by over 75 percent from the prior month, but the retail prices in the subsequent three months rose on average 4 percent relative to the three-month period before the spike.