Aurora to ask voters about power aggregation

Aurora will ask voters in the March 20 primary election if they want the city to combine their electric accounts and seek savings from suppliers other than ComEd.

Electric aggregation figures to be a popular referendum question this spring as many municipalities ask permission to choose a new electricity supplier on behalf of residents and small businesses.

Combining accounts also combines buying power and can result in lower rates from companies that supply electricity, Finance Director Brian Caputo said.

Of about 20 Illinois municipalities that already have negotiated contracts with suppliers other than ComEd, Caputo said most have seen a 25 percent decrease in the power supply section of the bill. But the largest among those towns has a population of about 50,000, well below Aurora’s 197,900.

“Whether we’ll get larger (savings) than that because we’re a larger municipality, I don’t know,” Caputo said.

Costs of distribution and other fees aren’t affected by the aggregation process, a fact Alderman Rick Lawrence said should be made clear.

“I think that statement of 25 percent (savings) is misleading,” Lawrence said. “I don’t think we should oversell the results here.”

If voters support electric aggregation, Aurora’s next step will be to seek bids from about 35 suppliers in the state and negotiate a contract. Mayor Tom Weisner said the contract could include a clause guaranteeing the new power supplier’s rates won’t equal or surpass ComEd’s rates.

If a contract is reached, residents and small business owners would be given two chances to remove their account from the aggregated group and choose their own power supplier.

“Clearly it’s in the best interest of everyone to make sure that the opt-out procedure is very well-known and well-understood,” Weisner said.