Sunbury step closer to aggregation

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

For nearly two years the Vil­lage of Sun­bury has been explor­ing acquir­ing elec­tric­ity for vil­lage facil­i­ties through an aggre­ga­tion agree­ment as a cost sav­ings mea­sure; and has also moved towards elec­tric and nat­ural gas aggre­ga­tion options for vil­lage res­i­dents by plac­ing elec­tric and gas aggre­ga­tion issues on the Novem­ber 8, 2011, ballot.

Fred Holmes from Vol­un­teer Energy began stump­ing for Vil­lage Coun­cil to place the two res­i­den­tial aggre­ga­tion issues — elec­tric­ity and nat­ural gas — on the bal­lot well over a year and a half ago; and when the issues reached vot­ers they approved allow­ing the vil­lage to nego­ti­ate res­i­den­tial elec­tric and gas aggre­ga­tion by sig­nif­i­cant margins.

Scott Bel­cas­tro, Trebel LLC, was in cham­bers at the Wednes­day, Octo­ber 17, Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing to dis­cuss an elec­tric aggre­ga­tion pro­gram for vil­lage facil­i­ties; and in a sep­a­rate dis­cus­sion, about nat­ural gas and elec­tric aggre­ga­tion for vil­lage residents.

Bel­cas­tro, who described him­self as an inde­pen­dent bro­ker, said Trebel LLC is an energy-consulting firm. Bel­cas­tro explained that he does not work for the energy com­pa­nies buy­ing bulk gas and elec­tric energy at auc­tion and sell­ing it to the vil­lage; he func­tions more like an insur­ance bro­ker. The vil­lage has a need, var­i­ous com­pa­nies could fill that need, Bel­cas­tro would be in the mid­dle hook­ing the two up — hope­fully in the best inter­ests of both parties.

Bel­cas­tro was back in cham­bers last Wednes­day with for­mal res­i­den­tial and small busi­ness elec­tric­ity and gov­er­nance plans for coun­cil member’s con­di­tional approval, an offer for Bor­der Energy to sup­ply elec­tric­ity for vil­lage facil­i­ties, and ask­ing for con­fir­ma­tion for Trebel LLC to serve as the vil­lage energy broker.

Sun­bury Vil­lage Solic­i­tor David Brehm explained that he and Sun­bury Vil­lage Admin­is­tra­tor Dave Mar­tin had met with Bel­cas­tro and talked about specifics of the final proposals.

“Both plans of gov­er­nance are for res­i­den­tial and small busi­ness cus­tomers with a 21-day opt-out,” Brehm said. “If a small busi­ness has an exist­ing agree­ment with another sup­plier it doesn’t apply to them. Res­o­lu­tion 2012–16 autho­rizes the vil­lage to con­tract with Trebel to be our bro­ker and advi­sor in all these ser­vices; Scott Bel­cas­tro has been assist­ing us with the aggre­ga­tion process and the lan­guage, look­ing out for vil­lage interests.”

Brehm said the energy provider, not the vil­lage, pays Trebel LLC; and assured coun­cil mem­bers that final approval for the res­i­den­tial and small busi­ness aggre­ga­tion will not come until after the two pub­lic hearings.

The Elec­tric­ity Plan of Gov­er­nance guar­an­tees vil­lage res­i­dents 15 per­cent off gen­er­a­tion and trans­mis­sion of elec­tric­ity (AEP remains the local dis­trib­u­tor so AEP’s dis­tri­b­u­tion charge will remain unchanged), and 10 per­cent off gen­er­a­tion and trans­mis­sion for small busi­nesses, both on a 12-month term with Bor­der Energy as the provider.

Vol­un­teer Energy will pro­vide nat­ural gas for 12 months with a guar­an­teed 7 per­cent off Colum­bia Gas rates.

“Vol­un­teer Energy has a pretty unique pro­gram; Seven per­cent lower than Colum­bia Gas through­out the year,” Bel­cas­tro said. “I’ve not seen this any­where else.”

Bel­cas­tro said after the ini­tial 21-day opt-out the res­i­den­tial elec­tric­ity opt-out fee will be $50, and every 12 months for free; the small business/commercial opt-out fee would be $150.

Sun­bury mayor Tommy Hat­field said what he likes about the plans on the table is that any res­i­den­tial cus­tomer or small busi­ness has the right to opt-out and stay with the utility.

“This lan­guage includes any­body who wants to be in or be out,” Hat­field said. “And if they’re on a do-not aggre­gate list or have another agree­ment it doesn’t apply to them.”

There were ques­tions about some res­i­dents not being aware of the ini­tial opt-out option. Bel­cas­tro said Bor­der Energy would be accom­mo­dat­ing and within 30 days put peo­ple back in the util­ity for no cost.

“We have to fol­low Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion of Ohio rules for noti­fi­ca­tion, but you’re always wel­come to do more,” Bel­cas­tro said. “Res­i­dents will be sent a let­ter, you can put it on your vil­lage web­site, it will be in the news­pa­per, two pub­lic hear­ings — there will be plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to hear about this.”

Coun­cil mem­bers approved motions to accept the elec­tric and gas plans of governance.

Coun­cil mem­bers also held a first read­ing on a res­o­lu­tion to enter into a con­tract with Trebel LLC; and a first read­ing on a res­o­lu­tion to enter into a con­tract with Bor­der Energy to pro­vide elec­tric­ity for vil­lage facil­i­ties for 24 months with a pro­jected sav­ings of $21,000 each year.

Mem­bers of Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil will hold a nat­ural gas and elec­tric­ity aggre­ga­tion pub­lic hear­ing and spe­cial meet­ing at 7 p.m., Tues­day, Novem­ber 20; and a sec­ond pub­lic hear­ing and coun­cil meet­ing at 7:30 p.m., Wednes­day, Novem­ber 28 (Finance meet­ing at 6:30). A meet­ing will not be held on Wednes­day, Novem­ber 21, to accom­mo­date the Thanks­giv­ing holiday.

Bel­cas­tro said if coun­cil approves the res­o­lu­tion approv­ing a con­tract with Trebel LLC at the Novem­ber 20 ses­sion, and the plans of gov­er­nance fol­low­ing the Novem­ber 28 pub­lic hear­ing, energy could be flow­ing at the new rates by March 1, 2013.

“Trebel is going to man­age your energy for you,” Bel­cas­tro added. “It’s a pretty com­plex mar­ket; there’s a lot of mov­ing pieces to it.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.