HUNTLEY – On August 6, 20,000 electricity users in Huntley and throughout Sun City began receiving their electricity from a new supplier – Direct Energy Services, LLC, instead of Commonwealth Edison ComEd.
Any Huntley residents unaware of the change will learn about it in October, when their electricity bills come out. That is when the bottom line cost for almost every household is expected to drop about 46 percent, village officials say.
The supplier switch was made possible as the electric utility industry changed radically in 2009, when federal legislation deregulated the delivery, supply, and retailing of electricity, and expanded competition for the utility dollars paid by local citizens and businesses. Many more players are entering the field. Villages and these new companies are offering customers significant reductions in their electricity costs.
Communication about this change to village residents and Sun Citians, in particular, however, has been difficult.
This project began in Huntley about a year ago, according to Barbara Read, assistant to Village Manager Dave Johnson.
“We are always discussing group purchasing and buying consortiums with our fellow communities in the Councils of Governments in McHenry and Kane Counties,” she said. “We agreed we wanted to take advantage of deregulation and try to negotiate contracts with some new suppliers to obtain lower electric rates. The village staff recommended to our board that we conduct a referendum at the local election last March 20. We realized then that this would only reach about 2,000 residents who voted and the rest would not participate. But we received a 2-1 vote in favor of contracting with a new supplier to get cheaper rates. We then selected Direct Energy to be our new supplier.”
After that, the village tried to get the word out through its website, newsletters, Facebook notices, and the media, Read said, but these methods didn’t always reach the vast majority of residents. Awareness picked up significantly in June and July, however, when notices were mailed directly to residents by ComEd and Direct Energy.
“We have received about 20 calls from residents objecting to this,” Read said. “Some say they have been with Commonwealth Edison and don’t want to change, some fear what will happen if Direct Energy goes out of business, and some others don’t understand how the changeover works and are confused. But by and large, evidence so far indicates that a strong majority of our 20,000 users accept this change. Especially when they are reminded that their bills will go down significantly.”
ComEd is not leaving. It will continue to deliver electricity to most communities in northeastern Illinois. Direct Energy has become the retailer-supplier of the electricity. It has no equipment and does not generate or deliver electricity.
Instead, Direct Energy buys electricity from ComEd and resells it to customers at a significant discount. Residents will receive their bills from ComEd, as before, with a reference to Direct Energy added. In a letter to Huntley customers on July 3, ComEd said, “We will continue to deliver your energy supplied by Direct Energy Services, in a safe and reliable way. If you have questions about your delivery services, such as power outages, metering, relocating to a new address, you may contact a ComEd Customer Service representative.”
Any resident wishing to switch back to ComEd can file an “opt out” letter and continue service as it was before, but they are automatically set to use Direct Energy otherwise.
“The main thing we at the village have done is negotiate more favorable rates with Direct Energy,” Read said. “Right now, ComEd’s rate to Huntley customers is .06932 cents per kilowatt hour. This will go up in October to .0832 cents, through May, 2013. The new rate we have negotiated with Direct Energy is .04169 cents. The de-regulation allows Direct Energy to negotiate favorable rates with generators of electricity, and to pass the savings along to local residents.”
One vocal objector to this change is Eileen Prus, N.27. She doesn’t like the “opt out” procedure and prefers an “opt in” process, where a resident signs up for a specific service and it only happens because of their signature.
“I never received the initial communications about this, and I knew nothing about the referendum,” she said. “I was shocked when Village Manager Dave Johnson told me the contract would ‘cost more’ if a customer’s signature was required. I object to not having been given an opportunity to provide my signature on anything that would switch me from ComEd to another supplier. When I called Direct Energy to ‘opt out,’ a man was very rude to me on the phone.”
She did acknowledge, however, when she called them again recently, she received a courteous and efficient response to her questions.
“There is a large record of complaints against [Direct Energy],” Prus said. “It is obvious that the Village of Huntley trustees did nothing about vetting this operation before sticking it to us residents.”
In response, Read said, “The consortium of communities hired a company called Independent Energy Consultants, LLC, a recognized firm in the energy industry to check out Direct Energy. They gave us a favorable report on them and checked their references. We had no evidence of wrongdoing or poor performance on their part. The new suppliers prefer the ‘opt out’ version, since it costs them less to implement it. That also means lower costs to consumers.
“There was some confusion among residents earlier this summer when this process started,” Read said. “But as far as we in the village can tell, that has all been cleared up now.”
