Tinley Park village officials are putting the pieces in place to move forward with electricity aggregation if a related referendum is approved during the March 20 election.
The village’s Public Works Committee recently OK’d the plan to work with consultant Northern Illinois Municipal Electrical Collaborative, or NIMEC, to help purchase electricity at a bulk rate for residents and small businesses.
A new state law allows municipalities to negotiate bulk electricity prices from third-party suppliers outside of ComEd. If residents approve the March referendum, Tinley Park will have the authority to set up the program for its residents.
Then, NIMEC ‘s role will be to take the village’s business to third-party suppliers and to act as a go-between for the two throughout the process.
Tinley Park already works with NIMEC to purchase electricity used for village buildings and streetlights. The aggregation process has saved the village an estimated $100,000 since 2007, officials said.
NIMEC also assisted 15 of the 19 Illinois communities that have instituted the aggregation program, said Executive Director David Hoover.
“We aggregate everybody together and we try and leverage everybody’s usage to get a better rate,” he said.
By grouping some municipalities in one bid package, Hoover said the company is able to attract better deals from suppliers. Of the 19 municipalities that have started the program so far, the average savings has been about 25 percent over previous electricity prices, he said.
If approved by referendum in Tinley Park, all residents will be automatically enrolled. ComEd will continue to deliver the electricity, handle customer service calls and bill residents for service, but the electricity itself will be passed through ComEd to customers from a third-party provider. Residents who prefer to continue purchasing electricity from ComEd or who prefer to go with a different provider can opt out of the village program.
“The emphasis here is you can volunteer in and you can volunteer out very easily, or maintain what you have,” said Mayor Ed Zabrocki.
NIMEC’s services will come at no cost to the village because the company is compensated by the suppliers for acting as a broker and bringing them business, Hoover said.
Tinley Park also has the option of handling the bidding process on its own, working with other communities or joining a governmental group like the Will County Governmental League or the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association acting on behalf of a group of municipalities. Trustee Tom Staunton said working with NIMEC will offer the village the most flexibility while also freeing up village staff.
Based on NIMEC’s work with 15 of the 19 Illinois municipalities currently aggregating electricity for its residents, Staunton said he feels it is the best option for Tinley Park.
“When you do 75 percent of it, you know you’re doing a good job,” he said. “And they’ve always been good to us so I don’t see any reason to change.”
The village plans to hold at least two informational meetings and to distribute mailers and other forms of communication on the aggregation process ahead of the March 20 referendum. Village funds used to distribute information about the referendum can not be in support or against it, but can only be educational in nature about how the aggregation process would work.
