ComEd spokesman Paul Callighan set to retire, former Freeport mayor filling job - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

Gaulrapp came to ComEd following a two-term stint as Freeport's mayor from 2005-2013. He previously served two terms as the city's first ward alderman while also working in the sales department for Erickson Dental Laboratory and Supply.

Gaulrapp said he experienced a smooth transition to ComEd from city government, relying on his experiences as a northern Illinois native. He also is excited for the new challenge he'll encounter as the public face of the area's electrical supplier.

"I've been fortunate because the shift to ComEd kept me in contact with some of my friends who are mayors and aldermen in other communities," Gaulrapp said. "Having municipality experience has been great for working with the different city officials.

"When there are large events, it's important to get information out to the public as quickly as possible. I hope to do a great job like Paul did so that people throughout the area

Read the entire artic le by clicking on the following:  ComEd spokesman Paul Callighan set to retire, former Freeport mayor filling job - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Ameren, ComEd get OK to raise rates in Illinois - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Commerce Commission has approved rate increases for the state’s two main electric utilities.

The commission this week authorized an 11 percent overall raise for ComEd and 17.4 percent overall raise for Ameren Illinois. Commission officials say the amount customers will pay depends on different factors, including their location and how much electricity they use.

Commission officials say they approved the increases after reviewing the utilities’ expenditures over the last year. The new rates were set using a formula created by a state law that allows utilities to recover costs for specific investments in infrastructure, such as smart meter and smart grid technology.

The Citizens Utility Board says it’s disappointed in the increases. The board says the hikes will hit consumers hard this winter.

Ameren, ComEd get OK to raise rates in Illinois - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

ComEd ready to install 4 million smart meters in IL | Illinois Statehouse News

Smart meters increase costs to consumer now  will it decrease rates later?

Anthony Brino | Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD — Commonwealth Edison, northern Illinois’ electricity utility, unveiled plans Monday to install 4 million digital smart meters during the next decade.

Smart meters record energy usage, displaying the information for homeowners and transmitting the data back to the utility.

Anne Pramaggiore, president and CEO of Commonwealth Edison, or ComEd, said in a news release that "customers will be able to see for themselves the benefits of this exciting technology as they take greater control over their energy consumption."

The smart meters are expected to increase annual electricity costs by an average of $36 annually for ComEd customers and $3.40 for customers of Ameren, southern Illinois’ utility.

But over time the smart meters will pay for themselves, as consumers and the utility reduce wasted electricity, said David Kolata, executive director of the Illinois Consumer Utility Board.

Although the Consumer Utility Board opposed last year's legislation permitting the smart meters and allowing Ameren and ComEd to raise rates to pay for $3.2 billion in grid upgrades, Kolata said he's "cautiously optimistic" about ComEd's plan.

While ComEd's 10-year time frame to install the smart meters is too long, Kolata said, it's "significantly better" than Ameren’s, unveiled earlier this month. Ameren only plans to install smart meters for about 60 percent of its customers.

According to ComEd, a subsidiary of the Chicago-based Exelon Corporation, the smart meters will help reduce power outages by 20 percent over the next 10 years and reduce theft by 50 percent.

ComEd ready to install 4 million smart meters in IL | Illinois Statehouse News

Exelon announces work to restore Byron units back to grid completed | Enformable

 

Exelon has announced that it has finished repairing and upgrading equipment at the Byron nuclear power plant which failed and interrupted power on January 30th, at the Unit 2 switchyard, tripping the reactor.  Unit 1 also experienced an incident involving equipment failures which caused a loss of power in Februrary, which was later blamed on a failed insulator.  In both cases, power was disrupted to the facility, causing operators to twice declare an “unusual event” at the plant.

Technical experts determined that the ceramic insulator failures were caused by tiny spaces created in the ceramic material during the manufacturing process, according to a news release.   An insulator is a piece of ceramic glass that prevents the wire carrying the electricity from shorting the electricity to the ground.The utility admitted that the company which manufactured the parts is no longer in business, which makes it difficult to diagnose exactly how the ceramic glass could break.

Communications Manager for the Byron Station Paul Dempsey said,  ”The insulator that failed last month in the kiln, the heating process once you are finished putting it together maybe wasn’t done to standards so we will see if this current one has similar issues.”  Exelon says Unit 1 was taken offline last week while upgrades were finished, and Unit 2 upgrades were finished over the weekend. Both units are back online at full power and generating electricity.

“It’s just important to give us a more robust system out in the switchyard,” said Paul Dempsey, communications manager for the Byron Generating Station. “It’ll ensure we’ll have continued good reliability for both of our units going into the summer months and beyond.”

The above is taken from the following:  Exelon announces work to restore Byron units back to grid completed | Enformable

County hires consultant to help with electricity program

Wednesday, 22 February 2012 21:21 Bob Balgemann

So far almost all of the referendums around the state have passed with many cities, villages and counties, including the nearby village of Harvard, already negotiating new rates. There is an opt-out clause for residents or business owners who don’t want to be part of the program.

There currently are no plans to have a public meeting before the vote.

Click on the following to read the rest of the story:  County hires consultant to help with electricity program

Woodstock mulls energy aggregation referendum

 

By CHELSEA McDOUGALL - cmcdougall@nwherald.com

Created: Friday, October 28, 2011 5:30 a.m. CDT

 

WOODSTOCK – It appears Woodstock could be the next municipality to jump on the electrical aggregation bandwagon.

Voters could be asked this spring whether the City should seek lower electricity rates on residents’ behalf….

However, Mayor Brian Sager urged the Council to move forward with caution.

The measure would lock residents into the new energy rate for three years and “wouldn’t shift the rate of power with inflationary pull,” Sager said, meaning residents’ rates wouldn’t go up in a rising electricity market, but they also wouldn’t go down when the market declines.

The council must approve the measure to be placed on the ballot as a city-wide referendum to be voted on in March. To be on the ballot it has to be approved by early January. It is slated to be on the Council’s agenda Nov. 15.

Educating residents about the process will be key to success with the program, Sager said……

Several other local communities also are pursuing aggregation, including McHenry County, Cary, Marengo and Lakewood. Harvard and Fox River Grove already went to referendum and have locked in lower rates.

Twenty-four municipalities served by ComEd have put referendums on the ballot, and 21 of those passed, according to the Illinois Municipal League and a city report.

Click on the following to read the entire story:  http://www.nwherald.com/2011/10/27/woodstock-mulls-energy-aggregation-referendum/a1zigjs/?page=2

NIMEC presents to Belvidere City Council

NOTE THE NEW MATERIAL WHICH NIMEC SUPPLIED TO BOONE COUNTY BOARD

Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative (NIMEC) currently provides electricity to Belvidere’s municipal buildings.  It along with a related entity Rock River Energy Services (RRES)  is asking to be the agent for Belvidere and unincorporated Boone County should these government units seek a referendum so citizens can be given a collective option to purchasing electricity.

Citizens should be aware that both NIMEC and RRES are “seller’s agents” that is their commission is paid by seller of the electricity which the governmental unit(s) choose.  Thus their allegiance is to themselves and the seller.  On the more  positive side NIMEC has a  track record with the City of Belvidere and with several cities in McHenry County which now use a NIMEC contract for community electricity.

As a refresher of the “new electrical system” in Northern Illinois: EXELON (Com Ed’s parent company) produces the electricity, it is “sold” to various middlemen who in turn sell it to the individual consumers, and finally Com Ed provides the wire and transmission service for a delivery fee.  A consumer pays a unified bill to Com Ed which allots part of the bill to Com Ed for transmission/delivery and part to the middleman-electricity seller you have chosen.  Most private consumers are still buying their electricity from Com Ed acting as a middleman-seller however a few private consumers have opted out to a different middleman-seller.  And in the case of large/middle sized industrial accounts, 75-80% of them are now using non-Com Ed middlemen.

Under state legislation from 2010, municipalities and counties (for the unincorporated residents) can seek cooperative types rates for their communities.  First the government unit must place the request for this authority on a referendum ballot for citizenry to decide.  If it passes, then the government unit  can determine (usually by bid) which middleman-seller will provide electricity to the community.* All residents then would be given notice that their electricity would be provided by the selected middleman-seller and that would be their choice unless the individual consumer opted out.  A consumer could opt out to either Com-Ed or to several other middlemen-sellers who deal directly with the consumer. 

*  Currently Com-Ed cannot be the middleman-seller which a community chooses.

 

Below is some  literature available on the NIMEC website providing further explanations: [http://nimec.net/]

Municipal aggregation is an opportunity for a municipality to reduce its residents’ Commonwealth Edison bills. Municipal aggregation allows local governments to bundle – or aggregate – residential and small commercial retail electric accounts and seek bids for a lower cost source of power, similar to how municipalities negotiate contracts for waste disposal or cable television.

All eligible residents and small businesses are automatically enrolled. Those who don’t want to participate can “opt-out” of the program. This aggregation program can only be implemented when the voters approve the ballot issue in a primary or general election. The next available election will be held in March of 2012.

After a ballot issue is approved, NIMEC will solicit bids for the Village’s aggregated load. Up to 20 municipalities in Illinois have started to purchase power at rates significantly lower than ComEd’s. Whether the municipality moves the residents’ load or not, residents would continue to call ComEd in the event of a service disruption. And ComEd would continue to send the residents their monthly bills.

Mission Statement

NIMEC was founded in 2006, to address the deregulation of electricity in Illinois. Deregulation allowed commercial users to purchase power from sources other than Commonwealth Edison. NIMEC is committed to helping its members purchase power from suppliers at rates lower than ComEd’s.

NIMEC has a membership of 100+ municipalities in northern Illinois. NIMEC aggregates its memberships’ electric usage and bids it out collectively. NIMEC’s strategy is to band together to drive down pricing. When the memberships’ load is aggregated, usage approaches $20 million annually. NIMEC's suppliers bid more aggressively for the collective load than if the municipalities approached the suppliers individually for pricing.

NIMEC provides this service at no charge to its membership. NIMEC receives an origination fee from its suppliers for aggregating the load and presenting it to the suppliers for bid

Click on the photocopy to enlarge:

Here is something about the process.

About Us

David Hoover is NIMEC’s Executive Director. David has an undergraduate degree in Business from University of Colorado (cum laude graduation). He also has attained an MBA from Arizona State University. Beginning in 1980, David was employed with large, multinational banks in Chicago (now JP Morgan Chase and Standard Chartered Bank) in the area of Corporate Lending. As Senior Vice President and Branch Manager from 1990-1992, David oversaw a staff of 30.
In 1992, David Hoover started the Glenview Consulting Group. From 1992 to 2007, Glenview provided utility consulting services to corporate and municipal clients. Glenview Consulting assisted over 200 clients, achieving recurring savings of $1,000,000 per year for its clients.
In 2006, NIMEC was created to help its membership buy power more effectively in the Illinois marketplace.

Here is the available information regarding Rock River Energy Services [http://rockriverenergyservices.com/]

THE FOLLOWING WAS SUPPLIED TO BOONE COUNTY BOARD MEMBERS BY NIMEC

Click on the photocopy to enlarge: