Sugar Grove hopeful about electricity discount

Sugar Grove village trustees were encouraged this week to discover how much another town’s residents will save on electricity under an opt-out load aggregation plan like Sugar Grove is considering.

The news came at the first of two public hearings required before the board seeks an entity besides ComEd to provide electricity to residents and small commercial users.

David Hoover from the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative told the board the first city in Illinois had just signed a contract. According to a news release from the city of Fulton, First Energy Services will provide electricity at kilowatt-hour generation rates about 20 percent cheaper than ComEd, in a three-year contract.

Fulton voters gave their leaders permission to negotiate electric rates in a November referendum. Sugar Grove, North Aurora, Elburn and 16 other towns did so in the April election. Fulton, in far western Illinois near Iowa, has a population of 3,481, according to the 2010 Census. Sugar Grove’s population is 8,997.

Previously, customers had to shop for electrical savings on their own. Under an opt-out aggregation plan, a town lumps the customers’ load together and shops around. By buying electricity in bulk, towns hope to get lower rates. Sugar Grove and many other towns already do this for government buildings, through NIMEC.

If a customer doesn’t want to be in the plan, they can opt out. They would then go back to paying ComEd, or could pick another provider.

If that 20 percent cheaper rate were available for Sugar Grove, residential and small commercial customers might save around $500,000 a year, Hoover said. “That would be great. That is somewhat what we had hoped for,” Village President Sean Michels said.

The lower rate would hold, even if a large number of users opt out.

Hoover said the electrical companies have had about a decade of experience with this in other states, including 10 years in Ohio — so they know what to calculate to account for the 10 to 15 percent opt-out rate.

Those might be users who have already purchased electricity from suppliers other than ComEd.

No one from the public spoke at the public hearing Tuesday. The next hearing is at 6 p.m. June 21. The board intends to seek bids June 23.