Glenview is preparing to quit a 4-year-old electricity rate aggregation program and return residential customers to ComEd because there is no longer a tangible savings to be enjoyed, officials said Tuesday.
If village trustees approve the plan later this year, residents will be automatically returned to ComEd for electricity from Chicago-based MC Squared Energy Services after the May meter reading unless they opt to remain with that company or choose another supplier.
Glenview joined Kenilworth, Northfield and Wilmette in November 2012 in the Lakeshore Power Alliance, a consortium that signed a 3-year contract with MC Squared to supply electricity over ComEd-owned power lines.
That contract was renewed in May 2015 and expires this coming May. Kenilworth opted to not renew, and returned to ComEd service last year.
Under that program, the villages agreed to switch residential customers from ComEd-supplied electricity to electricity from MC Squared. Residents were free to opt out and remain with ComEd, or switch to another supplier, as they saw fit.
Glenview residents who switched to MC Squared in 2012 have saved about $326 compared to ComEd’s default rate, said Sarah Kuechler, assistant to the village manager. Overall community-wide aggregate savings have reached about $4.3 million, she added.
From January to May 2013, the program saved 4 cents per kilowatt hour, or 50 percent from both ComEd’s base rate and its “effective” rate, which includes a monthly half-cent per kW/h fluctuation, Kuechler said.
But that saving dropped to just under a cent versus ComEd’s effective rate (16 percent) in the second year from June 2013 to May 2014, and to half a cent in the third year (7 percent), Kuechler said. In this fourth year, the companies’ rates are effectively equal, she added.
While MC Squared quoted the consortium a fifth-year rate of about 6.45 cents per kilowatt hour, a consultant to the Lakeshore Power Alliance predicted that would save just 3 percent from ComEd’s projected base rate of 6.65 cents, Kuechler said.
And given the monthly half-cent fluctuation in that rate, Kuechler said that means ComEd’s effective rate could actually come in lower than the MC Squared rate.
Moreover, she added, other suburban consortiums have found that vendor margin costs are rising, which would further erode any potential savings.
Village trustees indicated they won’t oppose the planned move; Village Manager Todd Hileman said he will present a formal resolution to do so in conjunction with Northfield and Wilmette.
The Wilmette Village Board’s Administration Committee gave its informal consensus to leave the consortium “unless there’s something that changes between now and the expiration of the contract,” so Wilmette will simply let the current contract lapse, said John Prejzner, assistant to the village manager.
Northfield village trustees are scheduled to discuss the question on Jan. 19, village officials said.
Jon Davis is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
