Villages asking residents if they want to seek alternative to ComEd

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Four Kane County municipalities are asking voters for permission to bargain hunt this election season.

North Aurora, Sugar Grove, Elburn and Campton Hills will be asking voters on the April 5 ballot for a chance to shop for bids on residential and small-business electricity providers.

This question comes after recent legislation deregulating the power industry.

Currently, ComEd provides electricity to these municipalities. This legislation opened the door for competition.

“If you get ComEd, they’ll charge you what they charge you,” Sugar Grove Village Administrator Brent Eichelberger said. “If you bid on the open market, you may get better rates.”

There’s no commitment in the referendum language by the municipalities to switch providers, and residents can opt out of the program if they want to stay with ComEd. The question is simply required before a municipality can move forward with bids.

“There’s very little if any risk to it,” Eichelberger said. “We’ve yet to see the downside.”

The program created by passage of the legislation is called the Community Choice Aggregation, and the goal is to allow local governments to offer their residents a cheaper energy supply.

Sugar Grove could move quickly after the election to find that cheaper energy supply, provided the referendum passes. They may seek bids in the weeks following the election, Eichelberger said.

“We just want the residents to be informed one way or the other,” he said.

If the referendum passes, Sugar Grove would likely join up with other communities in the area for the bidding process, he said.

The village alone with its 3,200 to 3,300 households may not be extremely attractive to bidders, but the attractiveness would increase with more prospective customers, he said.

This election is the first chance since the legislation for municipalities to investigate their power purchasing situation, according to Wes Karnowske, North Aurora chief administrative officer. The referendum does not guarantee a decrease in cost, he said.

The referendum question on the ballot in Campton Hills is non-binding, Mayor Patsy Smith said. It would move the purchase of electricity more in line with the purchase of other village services such as trash haulers or cable providers, according to Smith.

“We’re simply asking: Do you want us to pursue this?” she said. “We wouldn’t even look until after they passed it.”