Successful start for Kane County electric aggregation program
Thousands of residents and small businesses in unincorporated Kane County will save money on their electric bills starting in August, due to the new rate negotiated under the county's electric aggregation program kicking in this month.
Back in June, Kane County signed a two-year contract with Dynegy Energy Services for a fixed electric rate of 6.533 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 12 months and 6.065 cents per kilowatt-hour for the last 12 months of the contract.
The ComEd price to compare for August is 7.18 cents per kilowatt-hour, thus the customers in Kane County's program will experience a 9 percent savings over what they would've paid without aggregation.
"Kane County's rate of 6.533 cents per kWh is one of the lowest rates currently available in the ComEd territory - both for individual offerings and compared to other municipal aggregation programs," stated Sharon Durling from the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative, Kane County's consultant for the program.
Approximately 15,350 households and small businesses in unincorporated Kane County were eligible for automatic enrollment into the electric aggregation program. Of those accounts, 2,750 took action over the past two months to opt out.
"That is a participation rate of over 82 percent, which we are very pleased with," stated Ken Anderson, director of the Kane County Division of Environmental & Water Resources. "It's 12,600 households and small businesses that will see real cost savings because of this program."
Kane County does not have information yet on how many customers were already enrolled in contracts with other electric suppliers and made a choice to opt in to the county's aggregation program.
The number of those participants is also likely to rise over time as customers' contracts with other suppliers expire and they take action to switch to Dynegy instead.
Even if residents already chose to opt out of Kane County's electric aggregation program, they are still able to opt back in by calling Dynegy Energy.
It would take one to two billing cycles to be enrolled, but residents could still choose to receive the lower electric supply rates and save money through Kane County's program.
For information about the Kane County's electric aggregation program, visit www.dynegyenergyservices.com/community/kane-county.php, call the DES Customer Care line at (866) 694-1262 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, or email DESCustCare@Dynegy.com.