Oakwood hears Details on Electric Aggregation

This week, the Oakwood Village Trustees added Oakwood to the growing list of municipalities interested in electric aggregation. Aggregation, which is simply purchasing retail electricity at wholesale rates, is starting to catch on all throughout Illinois. Municipalities all over are considering aggregation as a way to help their residents save money.

Dale Kelley, a consultant with Good Energy of Peoria, presented the benefits of aggregation to the trustees earlier in the week. Good Energy is a municipal aggregation consulting firm with experience helping many other municipalities through the aggregation process. Kelley was unable to say exactly what the rates will be if voters approve aggregation on April 9, but he predicts around a 20 percent savings in energy for residents.

He then explained how aggregation works. Energy is sold on a commodities market, just like many other goods. Because of this, brokers can buy electricity for an entire municipality at a cheaper rate than individual residents can. “Good Energy will go to the marketplace and ask for bids from power companies,” Kelley said. Good Energy and the village trustees will then review the bids from the power companies, and negotiate  the lowest rate.

Kelley also explained that there are a number of “green” options available to municipalities. By law, a minimum of 25 percent of received energy must be renewable. Beyond that, it is up to the discretion of the municipality how much additional green energy is used. Up to 100 percent of received energy through aggregation can be renewable. Because of this, municipalities are able to negotiate however they feel.

For more information on municipal aggregation, click here. For the full article, see below.