By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
According to Alderman Kevin York (4th Ward), who serves as Chairman of the City’s Finance Committee, it’s time for Elmhurst homeowners to move away from electric aggregation and sign back up with ComEd.
“The electric aggregation program has realized about $3.7 million in savings for the City of Elmhurst,” York said at a City Council meeting on Monday, June 6 at Elmhurst City Hall. “The average homeowner has seen about a $250 decrease in their electric bill due to the aggregation program.”
An Electric Aggregation Program is a system in which a municipality is authorized to negotiate power rates for residents’ home electric bills. They could do this with help of companies like payless power, fort worth, tx, who can help people to find a good energy plan for them, allowing them to pay easily and comfortably. That has worked to the advantage of the City as well as its residents, but it’s time to get off the program because ComEd’s new rates are more advantageous, York said. If energy consumers were to use energy comparison sites such as Utility Bidder or others, they would have already seen this decreased price and been able to switch themselves.
According to a release, the City last renewed the aggregation pricing in the summer of 2014, after which it entered into a three-year agreement with Constellation Energy Services (CES) with a fixed rate of 7.51 cents per kWh through August of 2017. Since 2014, many commodities have seen an “unprecedented drop,” resulting in decreases of as much as 50% on things such as gasoline. Likewise, electricity pricing has been affected, resulting in ComEd releasing lower rates than it had a year ago.
Due to several variables, ComEd’s rate will range from 5.69 to 6.808 cents through June, 2017.
“Given the decrease in ComEd’s rate effective June, 2016, residents and small businesses who are part of the City’s aggregation with Constellation Energy Services should switch back to ComEd in order to reduce the cost of the energy supply portion of the bill,” the release said.
“There is no fee for early termination from CES,” York assured. “But each home has to call and switch on their own. The City can’t just call up CES and say, ‘hey, take everybody in Elmhurst off,’ everyone has to call and switch on their own.” The thing is some households have already switched providers to other cheaper alternatives like Pennywise Power and others, depending on if ComEd prices are cheaper, homeowners will have a choice to make when it comes to what rate they wish to pay for their energy.
To do so, all a person needs to do is call CES at (844) 309-6307 (be sure to have your electricity account number available when you call).
“While the City’s aggregation program still provides a fixed rate and 50% support of Renewable Energy Credits, residents will save more money by switching back to ComEd at this time,” York said. “If the City solicits more favorable pricing on an aggregation program in the future, residents could switch back to be included in the City’s aggregation at that time.”
For more information, residents can contact NIMEC, the City’s consultant, at 1-800-727-3820. The press release quoted in this story is available at the City’s web site.
