Union County is considering an electrical aggregation program that could save residents money on electric bills.
At the regular commissioner meeting Wednesday, the board met with members of Palmer Energy, a Toledo based energy consulting firm that partners with the County Commissioners Association of Ohio (CCAO), to discuss joining in the organization’s program.
According to information provided by Palmer, electrical aggregation is allowed “for communities – such as townships, cities, villages and counties – to form aggregated buying groups to purchase electric generation on behalf of their citizens.”
By being part of a larger collective, that gives the group the ability to negotiate a better price with the supplier than individuals, which could potentially lower bills.
Amy Hoffman, with Palmer’s management team, said there is no active aggregation in the county at the moment but several nearby counties including Logan, Madison, Marion and Hardin do have it. There are a total of 34 counties around the state involved.
Union County residents currently receive electric through a number of companies from Ohio Edison/First Energy and AES to cooperatives like Union Rural Electric, though co-ops are not eligible for the program.
If the commissioners were interested in aggregation, Hoffman said they would have to put a measure on the November ballot and the program then would be available countywide.
“So what countywide means is that it’s for all the unincorporated areas, the townships,” she said. “So it’s not by each township it passes, it’s a collective.”
The program is an opt in/opt out offer so while it would go on the ballot for a vote across those areas, residents don’t have to participate and won’t be affected by those that do, Hoffman said.
“There are three sections of an electric bill: your transmission, your distribution and your generation. Generation is what you can shop out, which is what we’re doing,” she said. “What that means is once it passes, then Palmer goes and does an RFP (request for project proposal) to all of our vetted suppliers that do aggregation-type services. We get the pricing back, come back in front of you showing you the results, our recommendation, the prosecutor reviews the supplier contracts of the top two and then we put it into place.”
From that point, every eligible resident and small business would receive an opt-out letter. That letter would also have aggregation information, the term, the fixed rate and supplier. Residents would then have 21 days to decide and if they do nothing, they are automatically enrolled but they can leave at any time with no fees.
Commissioner Steve Robinson said while the program sounded positive, residents would still be concerned with possible savings.
“So, the first question you’re going to get or we’re going to get is, “how much is it going to lower my bill?’” Robinson said.
Hoffman said, looking at other counties, they’re seeing between $10-15 a month but it can fluctuate.
“So, $100 to $125, annually,” she said. As a reference, the program lists the AES price to compare for June 2024 through June 2025 listed as $0.0858 per kilowatt-hour.
Kirk Mizerek, also with Palmer, said there are close to 400,000 households in the state involved with this program so they’ve seen it vary from the $10-15 range to an outlier circumstance in Dayton when AES prices went up, but noted that “wasn’t the norm.”
“The difference in the CCAO program is if we feel the timing is not right in the market and it makes more sense to send your constituents back to the utility temporarily…we recommend that,” he said. “And there’s a lot of things out there that don’t recommend that because obviously it’s in their best interest to keep it going but we don’t do that.”
Before the measure would go on the ballot, Mizerek said there would be discussions with townships to bring everyone up to speed. He said they would work with the county to set up town hall meetings.
If the commissioners decide to take part, they have to pass a resolution to put it on the ballot but Robinson said he wanted to hear from townships before making that decision.
“It sounds okay to me but I’d be a little more comfortable if the townships weighed in ahead of time,” he said. “I’d rather not tell them we’re going to do this, I’d rather them support it.”
Commissioners said they may move to set up an evening meeting in the next month or so to start the discussion.