Village to proceed with aggregation following second Public Hearing

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Mem­bers of Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil held their sec­ond required pub­lic hear­ing last Wednes­day (Novem­ber 28) before they could vote to pro­ceed with elec­tric and nat­ural gas aggre­ga­tion pro­grams for vil­lage res­i­den­tial and small busi­ness customers.

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.

When the issues reached vot­ers they approved allow­ing the vil­lage to nego­ti­ate res­i­den­tial elec­tric and nat­ural gas aggre­ga­tion by sig­nif­i­cant mar­gins — 925 vil­lage vot­ers said “YES” to elec­tric aggre­ga­tion, 579 said “NO”; 935 vot­ers said “YES” to nat­ural gas aggre­ga­tion, 579 said “NO”.

In June mem­bers of Vil­lage Coun­cil and vil­lage admin­is­tra­tors inter­viewed poten­tial sup­pli­ers for the village’s elec­tric and national gas aggre­ga­tion pro­grams. In July, with the assis­tance of energy bro­ker Scott Bel­cas­tro, Trebel, Inc., they began cre­at­ing a plan of oper­a­tion and gov­er­nance; and in early Novem­ber coun­cil mem­bers approved both nat­ural gas and elec­tric plans of oper­a­tion and gov­er­nance and sched­uled Novem­ber 20 and Novem­ber 28 pub­lic hearings.

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.

Coun­cil mem­bers reviewed for­mal res­i­den­tial and small busi­ness elec­tric­ity and nat­ural gas gov­er­nance plans in early Novem­ber. The plans of oper­a­tion and gov­er­nance Bel­cas­tro nego­ti­ated with the vil­lage would have elec­tric­ity sup­plied by Powell-based Bor­der Energy and nat­ural gas sup­plied by Pickerington-based Vol­un­teer Energy.

For both elec­tric­ity and nat­ural gas, Bel­cas­tro will act as the vil­lage energy bro­ker, with no fees assessed to the vil­lage. Bel­cas­tro is paid by the energy suppliers.

Bel­cas­tro said sign­ing a one-year elec­tric aggre­ga­tion con­tract with Bor­der Energy would save res­i­dents a guar­an­teed 15 per­cent off AEP’s monthly gen­er­a­tion and trans­mis­sion charges that appear on their elec­tric bill; Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power’s dis­tri­b­u­tion charge would remain unchanged. Small busi­nesses will save 10 per­cent off of the gen­er­a­tion and trans­mis­sion of electricity.

Bor­der Energy’s res­i­den­tial early ter­mi­na­tion fee will be $50; and the elec­tric bill would still come from AEP with Bor­der Energy charges noted.

Vol­un­teer Energy cur­rently offers a sav­ings of 7 per­cent off of the res­i­den­tial customer’s nat­ural gas bill adder, with no early ter­mi­na­tion fee. Because nat­ural gas rates will not be nego­ti­ated until Feb­ru­ary, Bel­cas­tro said, it’s not known whether or not the vil­lage would enter a nat­ural gas aggre­ga­tion agreement.

“Cus­tomers will get one bill from Colum­bia Gas with Vol­un­teer Energy on the bill,” Bel­cas­tro said. “For ser­vice issues, because Colum­bia Gas and Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power remain the local dis­trib­u­tor, they would be the one to call for ser­vice issues.”

Last Wednes­day (Novem­ber 28), Arbor Drive res­i­dent George Owings asked what would hap­pen if a vil­lage res­i­dent were on the aggre­ga­tion plan and moved away from the vil­lage; would that indi­vid­ual will be respon­si­ble for an early ter­mi­na­tion fee?

Bel­cas­tro said any­one could leave the pro­gram with­out a ter­mi­na­tion fee if they move; and there is no early ter­mi­na­tion fee for nat­ural gas.

For­mer coun­cil mem­ber Bob Bishop asked if a new res­i­dent or renter could opt-in mid contract.

Bor­der Energy’s Andy Mitri, who attended the ses­sion, said he would allow new res­i­dents in at the same rate as exist­ing customers.

“If any­one moves in, I’ll keep the rate open until the end of the con­tract,” Mitri said. “I’ll carry that risk.”

Bel­cas­tro empha­sized that the Sun­bury aggre­ga­tion pro­grams are opt-out pro­grams. Res­i­dents will receive let­ters in the mail noti­fy­ing them that they have 21 days to opt-out of either program.

“If res­i­dents want to stay in the pro­gram they have to do noth­ing,” Bel­cas­tro said. “If they don’t want to stay in they can opt out and there’s no fee. The con­tract is on an annual basis, and they can opt out again next year.

“We want peo­ple to be aware of the pro­gram,” Bel­cas­tro added. “We want them to read the let­ter. We want them to ask questions.”

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.