You cannot switch electric companies if you owe money as your current electricity company often places a switch hold on your account when you have delinquent payments, which legally prevents a new electric supplier from taking over your electricity account until the debt is cleared.
Also any unpaid debts to an electric company can also be sent off to collections or result in a disconnection.
To resolve the switch hold, you will need to either pay off the outstanding balance in full or set up a deferred payment plan with your current electric company or submit a new occupant stamen if you recently moved into a property that has a switch hold from the previous tenant.
Although if you move to a different address in a different state or area that is served by a different electric company you can often switch to that electric company if you owe the other electric company money.
For example, if you moved from California to Arkansas and switched to Swepco or Entergy or the local electric company in Arkansas and you owed the electric company in California money, then you can signup for a new account with the new electric company in Arkansas or the other state you moved to.
You will often need to pay a $200.00 or so deposit before establishing electric service.
But you can still sign up and switch over to the new utility company in a completely different state if you owe the other electric company money.
But if you're simply switching to a new electric company at the same address and you owe the old electric company money you won't be able to switch over to the new electric company unless you pay off the past due balance or make arrangements for payments.