Mayor Addresses Electric Aggregation at Town Hall Meeting

Mayor Terry Weppler wants residents to know something important about the village's recently approved electric aggregation contract with FirstEnergy Solutions: If you want to take advantage of the 44 percent savings, you don't need to do a thing.

Weppler held a town hall meeting Wednesday night at the Libertyville Civic Center to explain the electric aggregation program and answer residents' questions. to supply electricity to Libertyville residents at a rate that is 44 percent lower than that offered by ComEd.

As of June 1, the new ComEd rate will be 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. For the two-year contract with FirstEnergy, the rate will be 4.75 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Weppler explained that if residents have not entered a contract with another electrical supplier, they will "automatically go into the program" with FirstEnergy. Should residents decide they don't want to be part of the FirstEnergy program, they can opt out at no charge and stay with ComEd or enter into a contract with another supplier.

Residents still will receive their electric bills from ComEd, and still will contact ComEd to report power outages, Weppler said.

David Hoover, director of the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative, said the program should be up and running by August, so residents will receive their first bill with the new rates in September. He said the average family with average electric use could see a cost savings of $461 during the first year. Across Libertyville, the savings could total $3.5 million.

Should ComEd's rates drop below those offered by FirstEnergy, FirstEnergy then must drop its rates to match those offered by ComEd or move everybody back over to ComEd as the supplier, Hoover said.

"It's a great program," he said.

Hoover added that the quality of electricity provided will not change.

"This has no impact on the quality," he said.

A resident at the town hall meeting asked where FirstEnergy gets its electricity. Hoover explained that like ComEd, FirstEnergy purchases its electricity from various suppliers on a grid. It's a mixture of electricity generated by coal, nuclear power and natural gas, he said.

"I don't see any risk to Libertyville," he said.

Hoover noted that the electric aggregation program is open only to residents, as well as small businesses that use less than 15,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. Businesses that exceed that amount — and residents who don't want to use FirstEnergy as their supplier — can visit pluginillinois.org to get information about electricity suppliers and rates.

"It's a farmers’ market of rates for all of these suppliers," said Hoover.

He said that residents will receive a letter from the village in about two weeks explaining the program — and how to opt out of it should residents choose to do so. Residents who have already contracted with another supplier will have to cancel their contract with that supplier to opt in to the village program with FirstEnergy. Hoover noted that if the resident's supplier has no early termination fee, the resident simply can contact FirstEnergy "and they'll take care of it for you."

More details will be included in the letter from the village.

"If you do nothing, you will be included in the program," said Hoover. "There are no signatures needed."

Residents can expect to receive a letter from ComEd in about five weeks that will confirm the change in electricity supplier.

"When you get the letter from the village and you get the letter from ComEd, do nothing if you want to be involved," said Weppler.

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