Explaining Municipal Aggregation and You (Illinois Residents)

Over the past year, as more and more Illinois municipalities have been passing and implementing municipal aggregation plans, customers have saved significantly on their at-home energy supply costs. Projections suggest that municipal aggregation implemented in residential areas, could save residents 21 to 30% on the average home's total energy bill, which translates to 35 to 50% saved on just their energy supply usage. 

Still confused by your energy bill? Your bill breaks down charges for different products: the energy used to power your house and the distribution of energy to your house. Municipal aggregation effects the former, the supply. In the past, the supply and distribution of energy in Illinois were both provided by one of two companies: Ameren Illinois, in Southern and Central Illinois, or ComEd, in the North. 

In communities which have recently passed a municipal aggregation plan, energy will no longer be supplied by Ameren Illinois. Instead, the municipality will sign a two-year contract for a fixed energy cost with an independent energy company. And because companies have competed for the contract, they have necessarily had to lower the per kWh cost for energy.

Though the energy will be supplied by a new company, the distribution of energy, or the transfer of energy to your house, will still be under the purvey of either Ameren Illinois or ComEd. Your local energy company, the one to which you've paid energy bills for years, will maintain your lines power lines and will still be the one sending you the bill. 

That is, unless you decide to opt-out. If voters pass municipal aggregation, all residents are automatically enrolled with the new energy company. No extra work needed. If, for some reason, a resident does not want to participate in the program, he or she is able to opt-out. If someone chooses to do so, he or she will need to contact either the new energy company, or Ameren Illinois.

Between June and September 2012, ComEd charged 6.932 cents per kWh. Their projected rate for October 2012 through May 2013 is 8.320 centers per kWh order. While ComEd's price is going up, the price that households which are supplied by independent energy companies pay is going down. In 2012, those companies offered a rate of 4.87 cents per kWh. That's down from 5.81 cents per kWh the year before. In Illinois, because the new energy company's contract is two years, that lower price is locked in until 2014. 

The work of pitching, passing and implementing a municipal aggregation program is much easier with the help of an energy consultant. Good Energy has consulted for municipalities across Illinois and helped to make possible the single biggest residential energy purchase in the history of the United States.

In order for a community to legally qualify for municipal aggregation, they must hold public meetings, in which members of the public can come and ask questions. There are a number of other hoops through which a community must jump to make municipal aggregation possible, and Good Energy has a wealth of experience helping municipalities make sure that all their I's are dotted and T's are crossed.

Source:  GoodEnergy.com