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News
Not all Oswego homes saving on electric bills : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisNot all Oswego homes saving on electric bills
| Some previously unincorporated homes missed as aggregation program begins
| by John Etheredge
| 10/25/2012
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A large number of Oswego residents have not yet realized any savings on their monthly ComEd bills as a result of the village's participation in an electric aggregation program.
Last March village voters passed an electric aggregation referendum which allowed the village to seek competitive bids on behalf of village residents for the electric power portion of their electric bills.
The village subsequently sought bids and voted in May to award a contract to First Energy Solutions, Inc., to provide electric power to village residents and small businesses at a lower cost than had been charged by ComEd.
In awarding the contract to First Energy Solutions, village officials noted that residents who chose to participate in the aggregation program would save about $25 a month on their electric bills or approximately $300 annually. The amount of savings varies, depending on how much electricity each customer uses.
As required under state law, the village provided residents and small businesses an opportunity to opt out of the aggregation program and to continue to pay to have ComEd provide them with electric power at the utility's higher rate.
Residents and small businesses now participating in the aggregation program should have noticed a savings on the electric power portion of the bills they received from ComEd in August or early September.
But Mark Horton, village finance director, said last week that a total of 353 potentially eligible village households are not yet participating in the aggregation program.
A total of 348 of the 353 households are located in Oswego Township on the village's east side, while five others are located in Bristol Township on the village's far west side, according to Horton.
Horton said residents who noticed that First Energy Solutions was not listed as the electric power supplier on their ComEd bills alerted village officials to the problem.
Many of the homes, Horton said, are located in the Oakwood, Cedar Glen and Windcrest subdivisions, just east of Ill. Route 25, north of Waubonsie Creek. The subdivisions were unincorporated when they were developed in the 1960s and were subsequently annexed by the village in the late 1980s.
Horton noted there was no particular pattern as to the location of homes omitted from the aggregation program.
For example, he said there are about 100 homes located on Ashlawn Avenue in the Cedar Glen Subdivision and village staff determined that 11 homes on the street had been left out of the program.
"They weren't all in a row (on Ashlawn Avenue)," Horton said. "They were scattered all over."
Horton said an investigation by village staff determined the affected homes were listed in ComEd's system as still being unincorporated, outside municipal limits. As a result, he said, the homeowners did not receive information on the village's aggregation program last spring or a required notice they had the opportunity to opt out of the program.
Horton said village staff would be sending a list of all village homes to ComEd so the utility can update its records.
In addition, he said First Energy would be sending a letters to the households explaining the aggregation program and providing residents with the opportunity to opt out of the program if they so desire.
As with the village residents and small businesses that are already enrolled in the program, Horton said the 353 homeowners will not need to do anything to receive their electric power at a reduced rate from First Energy.
Horton said he believes the affected homeowners who wish to participate in the village's aggregation program should be added to the program sometime next month.
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