Wooster eyes utility aggregation with ballot proposals

With a goal of saving residents and small businesses money on their energy costs, the Wooster City Council has approved placement of a pair of ballot proposals, which, if approved, would enable the city to institute electrical and gas aggregation within the city limits.

The issues — there would be separate votes for gas and electrical — will appear on the Nov. 7 ballot. If passed, they will allow the city to use its energy consultant, Palmer Energy, to negotiate and buy the utilities from an aggregated buying group at a discounted price, hopefully creating savings to be passed on to residents if they don’t opt out.

“We had a couple of public meetings and got some feedback on that,” said Joel Montgomery, director of administration/city manager. “A lot of communities here are doing this right now because of the significant increase in energy prices, and if somebody did not already have a contract and were just paying utilities, they’ve probably already seen that, starting in July this year, anywhere from 20-40% increases in some cases, depending on the utility they were with. So in the city we were just looking for ways to offer more options for our citizens and small businesses to save money.”

An aggregation measure is meant to allow consumers choices as to where their energy comes from and how much they pay for it. Residents are not forced to take part in any aggregated utilities. Montgomery said residents will be notified a couple times, after which they can decide whether they want to participate.

All eligible residents will be enrolled in the program. Montgomery said those who do not wish to take part can opt out, which they will be allowed to do at any time.

“So if somebody got in and they didn’t like it, they could get out of it at any time with no penalty,” he said. “So really this, if it passes, it simply provides another option to save some money to our residents and small businesses for gas and electric. People can get in anytime. Even if they don’t do it up front, they can still get in later, and they can get out at any time as well, but from most of the communities that we are familiar with across Ohio, they’re saving quite a bit of money over the term of the contract.”

The press release from the city contained an admission that the ballot language may look intimidating but said it’s a benign and relatively risk-free effort to provide residents with an opportunity to save money on their utility bills.

Montgomery said the aggregation can bring about energy savings up 10-20% for energy consumers. While that won’t offset the increases seen recently — in some places energy prices have leapt by close to 60% — they will at least ease that blow a bit.

“We would recommend voting yes so they are eligible for that,” Montgomery said.

No one will be bound to the new programs, so those voting for it essentially risk nothing.

“I think right now this energy program has about 200 communities in it, and there’s some townships right here in Wayne County that also have already done the aggregation process,” Montgomery said.

Those areas are already seeing lower costs in the face of inflated prices.

The city press release said more information will be available on the city’s social media, city website and at public meetings.