Geneva pleased with cost-savings electrical decisions

It appears decisions by Geneva city officials the last decade on how to supply electricity accomplished the goal of saving money, according to a report presented to the city council this week.

Over the past five years, the city spent 4 percent less for electricity, with its combo method, than if it had bought all its power from the market. That’s even with some periods where market power costs were less than what Geneva had contracted to pay.

From 2007 to 2011 Geneva bought power from Exelon. It now buys that power from the Northern Illinois Municipal Power Agency. It also gets 10 percent from the Waste Management Renewable Energy methane-burning generator at Settler’s Hill Landfill; 24 percent from purchases on the PJM Interconnection wholesale spot market; and 3 percent from its own natural gas-fired generation plant.

The various methods cap costs for capacity, fuel and transmission in different combinations, according to Electrical Superintendent Michael Buffington.

“It’s the mix of things. It’s not just one thing,” he said.

Geneva agreed in 2007 to buy $100 million worth of electricity from NIMPA, intending it to come from the Prairie State coal-fired plant in Washington County near St. Louis. The plant is finished and being tested, according to Buffington, and might come online as soon as June. But because there is a “flood of energy” in the state, right now it is cheaper for NIMPA to buy power on the market than from the plant, Buffington said.

The Geneva plant is typically used during peak demand times, such as hot weather, when the cost of running it is cheaper than the cost of buying electricity from PJM. It was built in 2004 with $17.6 million in borrowed funds.

The contract with Waste Management expires this year, Buffington said.