Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) is handing the reins to its Energy Marketplace e-commerce portal over to Excelergy, which intends to take it nationwide.

Since 1997, Energymarketplace.com has provided West Coast consumers with energy choice information and allowed energy service providers to bid for new energy customers over the Internet. SoCalGas signed an agreement with Excelergy (www.excelergy.com) in mid-September clearing the way for Excelergy to launch Energymarketplace.com as a nationwide service.

"We are very proud of our pioneering effort to develop and launch Energy Marketplace for California`s consumers," said Lee Stewart, SoCalGas` president of energy transportation services. "With deregulation of the energy industry spreading to the rest of the nation, the opportunity to expand Energy Marketplace is tremendous and we believe Excelergy is ideally suited to take advantage of that opportunity."

SoCalGas is expected to continue sponsoring the e-commerce site, promoting it among its customers. Excelergy has assumed development, marketing and sales responsibilities for Energy Marketplace.

Energy Marketplace provides real-time, interactive consumer and supplier price information and allows energy service providers to acquire new customers at low cost. The system offers residential customers utility choices and allows energy service providers a secure, direct route by which to receive and respond to requests for proposals (RFP) from commercial and industrial customers.

"Energy Marketplace functions as a market-maker, matching energy buyers and sellers in an auction fashion," said Cary Bullock, president of Excelergy.

Excelergy is expected to continue expanding the site to include other utilities and energy service companies. Several SoCalGas employees involved in Energy Marketplace have joined Excelergy staff.

Excelergy`s transaction management systems reduce processing costs by integrating e-business processes into clients` billing and customer information systems. The company also provides utilities with an electronic information-processing engine for managing their trading-partner relationships.