Naperville council directs staff to look at two electricity options
After reviewing multiple options for how to proceed with obtaining electricity in the future, the Naperville City Council directed staff Monday to look into joining a new joint action agency or buying power directly on the wholesale market.
Since April, the council has been evaluating its choices for when its contract with the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) ends in 2035.
While not yet committing to any one plan, a majority of the council indicated it would prefer to pursue a new joint action agency or to purchase power from the wholesale energy market without owning energy-generating infrastructure.
Council members also settled on a vision statement Monday that will serve as a “north star” as the city reevaluates its decision framework and mission statement for the city’s electric utility, Naperville City Manager Doug Krieger said.
The goals are to secure an energy future that prioritizes reliability, sustainability, affordability, flexibility and local control, the statement said.
“A good vision statement won’t just be symbolic, but that it’s really those next steps that are critical. That (is) where we delineate and operationalize, make these terms more concrete and then we live up to that,” said Councilwoman Supna Jain, who suggested that statement.
What each of those terms means will be more clearly defined as city staff and council settle on a revised mission statement and decision framework.
Councilwoman Mary Gibson said she particularly liked the statement because it includes five pillars that are related to each other and can apply to both the city’s electric utility and the energy procurement decision.
Councilmen Josh McBroom and Nate Wilson did not support the statement and expressed hesitancy at including the term “sustainability” due to a lack of clarity on its meaning. Councilman Benny White pushed back, arguing that data from Naperville’s most recent community survey show that sustainability is a priority to Naperville residents and should be included.
Krieger said staff specifically recommended the council proceed with joining a new joint action agency — a group of member utilities that pool their resources to secure electricity — rather than “reinventing the wheel” and creating a new one.
The city is already part of a joint action agency through its participation in the IMEA. Benefits of a joint action agency include shared staffing and economies of scale that would be difficult to achieve alone, while the cons include significant negotiations to become a member and requiring other utilities to agree to agency requirements and Naperville’s desired goals, officials said.
Market participation without asset ownership would allow the city to pursue new technologies, like a battery energy storage system, while not locking the city into one long-term energy mix, Krieger said. Challenges with this option include price volatility in the wholesale market and the creation of a new energy management office.
The other two options, market participation with asset ownership and selling the electric utility, were discouraged by staff.
For the former, Krieger said that most of the benefits of market participation can be accomplished through power purchase agreements or energy contracts with power suppliers.
He described the difference as being akin to a buy or lease scenario.
“From a flexibility standpoint, I think (market participation without asset ownership) has that advantage over (market participation with asset ownership) because if we do have asset ownership, those are typically like 15-, 20-year deals and it’s going to reduce our flexibility moving forward,” Krieger said.
For the latter, he said, selling the electric utility would mean loss of local control over everything from future rates to energy mix, something council members on Monday unanimously rejected.
Reopening negotiations with IMEA remains an option.
The council authorized city staff to negotiate a new contract with IMEA in August 2025, but negotiations were halted in February. Council members have been resistant to IMEA’s request for a contract extension through 2055, in part because some want to obtain electricity from sources cleaner than the coal-generated power IMEA provides.
As for next steps, staff will further research the feasibility of joining a new joint action agency and participating in the wholesale energy market. Council will hear staff’s findings in summer 2027, alongside recommendations from the city’s next rate study.
Before then, the council will also refine the decision framework and mission statement for the electric utility.
“We will internally take a look at the mission statement in light of the vision statement to say, ‘Hey, how does this fit? Or do we need to tweak it or make any changes to it?’ and then bring those forward,” Krieger said.
cstein@chicagotribune.com