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Athens County Could Soon See Power Bill Savings
< < Back toAEP customers in Athens County could soon vote to lower their electric bills.
Bill Bradish of Palmer Energy spoke at Tuesday's county commission meeting about a program which would allow households in the county to pool their business together for savings on their electric bill.
Palmer Energy is the energy consultant for the state county commission association and pools county facilities across the state together to increase competition and make for better rates.
The process, called electric aggregation, would soon utilize that same method to get better rates for households.
"[You would] save 20% on the generation side which equates to about a couple of hundred dollars a year in savings for individual households," Bradish said
Electric aggregation is legal under Ohio code, but must be approved by county residents via a ballot measure.
"The dergulation for the generation side of our bills have been around for ten years. This has been around. The electric rates five to ten years weren't that bad where it made sense to try and shop it. Now, with the way rates have escalated in recent years, its made more sense to…cooperate with enitites in other counties to pool resources and try to get better rates."
Bradish says they have resolution and ballot language already prepared if the commissioners choose to go forward with the plan.
The deadline to get the measure on the November ballot is August 7th.
According to Bradish, 35 to 40 counties in the state, mostly in the North and Northwest area, have already passed similar legislation and are seeing savings, some up to 18 percent.
Jack Frech of Athens County Jobs and Family Services asked Bradish how these savings would impact lower income households.
"We have a third of our people below the poverty line," Frech told Bradish
Bradish said the savings wouldn't apply to people who receive assistance however, because they already receive a reduced rate.
Bradish said nothing changes on the customer side except for seeing the reduced costs, but there would be an opt out program if any proposed legislation passes.
"There is a governmental connotation to it. Those are some of issues i've seen come up as part of the discussions," Bradish said, "There isn't any downside to it. We're just helping to faciliate. There are savings to be had."
No formal resolution was passed, but the county commission said they would be in contact with Bradish through "energy guru" and commissioner Chris Chimel, who expressed a strong interest in this program, and would pursue it further.