Legislation to help energy aggregation

Lower energy costs on table for negotiating

By: Al Wicklund
   Legislation that would make it easier for municipalities to represent their residents and negotiate for them to get lower gas and electric rates is on Gov. James McGreevey’s desk awaiting his signature.
   The bill requires energy companies to notify customers when a municipality is seeking to form an energy buying pool. The bill is in response to original energy deregulation that prevented municipalities from obtaining a list of all energy customers so it could notify them of the pool by itself.
   If the governor signs the bill into law, Monroe Township Mayor Richard Pucci will be among the first to launch an effort — a second effort for Monroe — to represent township residents and begin negotiations for lower rates, Joel Shain, the Monroe Township attorney, said Wednesday.
   "Mayor Pucci has been a champion for buying pools created to benefit power users and would welcome the opportunity to re-create Monroe’s successful program," Mr. Shain said.
   The bill, which passed in the state Assembly as A-2165 and was in the Senate as S-1433, was passed by the Senate Jan. 23 and moved to the governor’s office.
   Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein and state Sen. Peter Inverso were sponsors of the legislation in their respective legislative houses. Assemblyman Gary Guear was a co-sponsor of the Assembly bill. All three legislators represent the 14th Legislative District which includes Monroe and Jamesburg.
   Mr. Shain said a pilot program run by Monroe for about a year was one of the most successful in the country.
   "When the Monroe program was in operation, 86 percent of the residents participated and there were 20 percent savings in generating costs," Mr. Shain said.
   When the New Jersey Legislature passed the Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act of 1999, it called for the creation of a Universal Service Fund to guarantee affordable electric and gas service at affordable prices. The bill allowed municipalities to create energy-buying pools of residents in order to seek an energy provider to supply energy at a cheaper rate. However, the act also had language that prohibited the utility companies from providing the names and addresses of their customers to government agencies, thereby preventing municipalities from reaching all their residents who are customers.
   The legislation required municipalities seeking to form energy-buying pools to notify all residential customers of the pools. However, municipalities have the names and addresses of property taxpayers, not those of renters who use utilities.
   The Board of Public Utilities agreed with power companies that they couldn’t release the names and addresses of their power users because it would be a violation of the users’ privacy.
   Mr. Shain said the question of addresses has been solved, in the Legislature’s amendment, by having the electric companies do the mailing, and notifying their resident customers of a municipality’s program for a municipally led buying pool.
   Mayor Pucci said he would like to see Monroe’s program reinstated.
   "Hopefully, we can gain some savings," he said.
   Assemblywoman Greenstein said the customers who would not wish to be part of the group would be able to "opt-out," by returning a card saying they did not wish to participate.
   Sen. Inverso said that without a clear path to aggregation, the law would remain flawed.