To Aggregate or Not to Aggregate...your electrical utility supplier.
Residents of Peoria County Illinois, should you go with the Community Aggregation Price with Harbor Energy or Opt-Out?
This post pertains to residents of Peoria County Illinois. You may have received an odd looking letter from Harbor Energy, asking if you would like to “Opt out” of a Community Aggregation Program for your electricity..
If you’re like me, you had no idea what this meant initially. I did some research and hopefully I can save you some time.
Quick Background
This post isn’t meant to cover all the history, rather just to get to a decision. ( See the links at the bottom for additional background.)
The short background on this topic is that the City of Peoria negotiated a community price for electrical (aka ‘Community Aggregation’). This price is stable for the contracted period through Dec 2025. This means it won’t change (except 1 step in July 2025). The positive is that it is well known and stable. The negative is that it MAY or MAY NOT be lower than Ameren’s electrical price. So it’s a trade off: Stablity or Variabilty?
So the Decision before you is:
Do nothing at all. Accepted the Harbor Energy ‘Community Aggregation’ Price and have a stable guaranteed price
Opt out of Harbor Energy Community Aggregation Price AND use Ameren, but it fluctuates
Opt out of Harbor Energy Community Aggregation Price AND use another provider, and it’s work to shop and signup for new provider
The Data
I research this history, because that informs us on the present. Here is a chart representing a few important prices of electricity.
Analysis
Ameren had a wide range of prices: a low of 4.4 cents per KWH up to 12.
Ameren had especially highprices 2 years ago [ June 2022 to May 2023] Average price of 11.2
Ameren has come down in the last year, [Jun 2023 to May 2023] an average of 8.27
ComEd used as a reference, has very similar movement to Ameren
Ameren provided a forecast of prices between 8.4 to 8.6 cents per KWH [dotted green line] Source: this information sheet (City of Peoria)
Harbor Energy has a guaranteed price of 9.95 rising to 10.04
Harbor Energy could rise a bit at the end of 2025, above the 10.04. The charge is TBD.
The Key Factors to Weigh
This is a bit of personal preference. Risk vs reward. Stability vs Fluctuation.
If you put credence in Ameren’s projection, recent data shows you could probably save money by OPTING OUT. However, this is a gamble, Ameren could be wrong on their estimates. Ameren rates were higher between June 2022 and May 2023.
If you believe the Ameren Forecast about 2024 and 2025, you would save approximately 15% on your electrical bill. Remember that this doesn't apply to your heating bill. My average electrical bill is about $145. So I’d stand to save $22.75 per month. Or about $261 per year. Enough to matter, but perhaps not enough to compensate you for the risk of potential fluctuations.
My Decision / Conclusion
Personally I opted out. I feel like the data tell me something. The fact that the recent price per KWH is relatively low vs Harbor is important. Plus the forecasts of Ameren. Unfortunately, I don’t have much evidence to say how good Ameren’s forecasts are. So I could be putting too much credence on their forecasts. However, I’ll take the risk.
Furthermore, I haven’t shopped other providers (let me know if you have). Although this seems like a lot of work (it probably isn’t) at least it preserves optionality. In other words, I could change providers in the future from Ameren if I choose to (though not to Harbor Energy).
However, there is a good case to stick with Harbor Energy. Especially if you…
Like stability on your bill and
Feel there could be spikes in demand on the energy market
A Couple Notes to consider…
If you have solar, and use “net metering” you may want to dig more into this. (I’m not a solar customer, so I didn’t research, but I’ve seen comments in other forums that it is relevant)
If you go with Harbor Energy, you’ll still receive a Bill from Ameren. Ameren is the electrical distributor and still handles your account. It’s just that Ameren will supply it from Harbor. [You don’t need to setup new accounts or anything with Harbor]
Let me know what you decided.
Source:
Plug-In Illinois - Use as a source for Comparing Prices of Utilities for Ameren and Com-Ed Cost of Electricity
Ameren Homepage - used to retrieve my personal bills and confirm the electric rates on Plug-In Illinois.
Harbor Energy Website: used to research Harbor and ultimately opt-out