If you wish hard enough, you too can be an environmentalist…
The voters in Teaneck went to the polls to decide whether or not we should join the Community Energy Aggregation program. The vote was overwhelmingly approved, and Teaneck joined the program immediately saving money but because third-party energy is a constantly changing target, pricing was affected by factors such as the war initiated by Russia, supply, and demand, as well as a plethora of other factors.
The Sustainable Essex Alliance (SEA) announced that it awarded a contract for Round 2 of the program to Energy Harbor, the low bidder, for a 17-month contract which began in April 2021 (through September 2022).
Under the new contract with Energy Harbor, the baseline product will again provide participating residents with power supply that has nearly double the renewable energy content required of PSE&G, at a price of $0.12696/kWh, which is below the current average Basic Generation Service tariff price of PSE&G.
Part of the problem unique to Teaneck is the threshold values.
We require (as per the ordinance passed by voters) a higher percentage of “renewable content” than the SEA and many other similar systems use. That’s one reason they are successfully finding options, while we cannot.
That said, even the SEA at lower thresholds has had trouble on their third round of bidding:
Why doesn’t the SEA have a contract now?
Since our Round 2 contract expired in September 2022, energy prices have increased considerably, which has made it difficult to obtain favorable bid pricing as compared to the PSE&G tariff. In advance of that contract expiration, the SEAEPC conducted a competitive bid process in May 2022. Unfortunately, bid prices came back too high and would not have produced savings to justify the award of a new contract. The SEAEPC concluded that it was in residents’ best interests in the short-term to return to PSE&G Basic Generation Service.
Source: Maplewood Community Energy Aggregation Update Page
By the time Teaneck received its bids back in 2022, everyone (including Food and Water Watch who had backed the petition) agreed that it was wrong to implement the program which would have immediately raised the rates of everyone that didn’t choose to “opt-out”.
So it’s been stagnant. Until now. We will (again) be going out to bid. But the threshold we seek is still far higher than everyone else.
Township Update vis Nixle below:
TEANECK COMMUNITY ENERGY AGGREGATION UPDATE
The Teaneck Community Energy Aggregation (TCEA) was launched in 2022, with the goal of using bulk purchasing power to procure electric power supply on behalf of residents at a comparable price, and with a higher renewable content, than power supply provided by PSE&G.
The TCEA launched its first round program in 2022, but unfortunately, due to skyrocketing energy market prices, we were unable to obtain
favorable pricing to procure a supply contract.
The TCEA and its energy agent, Gabel Associates, Inc., have been closely monitoring the energy market for opportunities since last summer. The TCEA will go back out to market as soon conditions warrant and will notify residents if and when a contract is signed, and the program is active.
Please monitor the Township’s website for any updates. See attachments for additional information.
Warmest regards,
Dean Kazinci
Township Manager
In this inflationary economy when more families are living paycheck to paycheck it’s more important to keep the cost down than the concern about the percentage of renewable energy.
The voters decided to approve the measure, so it’s not right to ignore it either.
But it’s important to note that the reason it’s so hight in cost — is because we demand a very high percentage of renewable energy (which is actually a certificate that someone, somewhere created renewable energy units for sale).
We shouldn’t be forced to make the perfect the enemy of the good, but the referendum tied our hands.