Council to weigh alternatives to ComEd

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Updated: November 28, 2011 8:49AM

Evanston’s dissatisfaction with ComEd has officials considering a plan that would allow the city to buy power from suppliers other than the utility.

At the Evanston City Council meeting Monday night, aldermen directed staff to come back with a report on the issue of municipal aggregation of electric power before their Dec. 12 meeting.

At that time, a discussion of the issue is planned.

Staff had initially recommended routing the issue through the citizens Utility Commission in a timetable that would have returned the matter to the council no later than Feb. 29, 2012.

Members of the City Council’s Administration and Public Works Committee recommended in favor of the faster timetable.

If the proposal is approved at the December meeting, the change-over to municipal aggregation of electric power could be on the ballot for Evanston voters to decide in the March 20, 2012, primary election.

“This could be very exciting,” said Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward.

Under municipal aggregation, a municipality such as Evanston acts on behalf of all or a part of its constituents in procuring their electric supply, either directly or via a third party supplier, staff said in a memo.

“By aggregating large customer groups and incurring reduced customer acquisition costs,” officials said, “municipal aggregation may provide benefits to customers through lower cost bulk-power acquisition.”

Officials initially were going to take the course through the Utility Commission, some of whose members have technical backgrounds on power generation.

The group has a history of working cooperatively with the utility on system changes. Members supported an extension of the city’s original franchise agreement to Sept. 12, 2015, over the objections of Rainey.

That was before the outages of last summer in which some officials complained of poor communication by the utility, particularly at the start.

Some residents were left without power for three days because of the storms.

Utility Commission members are to be included in the discussion in December, officials said. Rainey argued the city’s Environment Board should also be included.

The question “doesn’t have to do with wheeling powers or windmills,” she said in support of broadening the groups involved, but rather is a strategy question.

Alderman Jane Grover, 7th Ward, also favored moving “sooner rather than later.”

Staff explored different options to help better ensure power reliability following the storms, city staff members said in a memo to council members.

Staff didn’t believe there were grounds within the city’s franchise agreement with the ComEd to terminate that contract, officials said.

“However, staff does believe that dissatisfaction with ComEd does lead naturally to a discussion of municipal electric aggregation, which would allow Evanston residents a choice of electric power providers,” they said. “ComEd would continue to deliver electricity in Evanston, but municipal aggregation does allow residents to purchase power from another entity.”