Earlier this month, the Saugerties town and village boards each approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to continue being members of a community choice aggregate (CCA) administrated by Joule Community Power with conditional authorization to execute an electricity supply agreement.
In the case of the former, only three-fifths of the town board were in attendance, with both Leeanne Thornton and Zachery Horton expressing trepidation about signing the MOU without the entire board having their say; Council members Mike Ivino and Peg Nau were not in attendance at the February 12th meeting. Town supervisor Fred Costello agreed, but asked that they approve the MOU to move the process forward with the understanding that he would not authorize a new contract unless the majority of a full town board approved it.
“At this point, although it authorizes a signature, we are not going to join without the blessing of the majority of the board,” Costello said. “I do think if we wait until the March (5th) meeting, we may lose our place in line.”
Glenn Weinberg, vice-president with Joule Assets, Inc., made his pitch to the town board — which first joined Hudson Valley Community Power CCA in 2021 and re-upped again in 2023 — at their February 12th meeting. Joule represents 60 municipalities across New York State, and the group that both the town and village of Saugerties belongs to also includes the town and village of New Paltz, Gardiner, Marbletown and communities on the east side of the Hudson River, like the City of Poughkeepsie and the Town of Rhinebeck.
“Community Choice Aggregation is a state policy that enables cities, towns and villages in New York to determine their energy default energy offerings on behalf of…the residential and small business customers within their municipal borders,” Weinberg said, citing three reasons for the program: Stabilizing energy prices in an effort to allow consumers to save money, giving consumers protective layers around the contract to ensure they’re being served reliably and fairly, and supporting clean energy efforts in the state.
“The Climate (Leadership and Community Protection Act) of 2019 mandates 70 percent renewable electricity here in New York State by 2030, and 100 percent carbon free electricity by 2040,” Weinberg said. “Goals, by the way, that we’re pretty woefully behind on here in New York State, but CCA has really been one of the shining stars creating a lot of demand for renewable electricity, especially here in the downstate region.”
In accordance with New York State law, Joule sent out a request for proposal (RFP) on January 23, with a bid deadline of February 19; an RFP would be awarded the following day. Municipalities had until February 13 to submit their MOU, but they have until May to opt out of the program if they’re unhappy with the terms. The next contract would begin at the beginning of July.
The RFP for the CCA includes:
• A variable price that is guaranteed to be at least 0.05 cents or 1 percent below the residential and small commercial market rate in each calendar month.
• A fixed price that is not more than five percent above the trailing 12-month average residential and small commercial rate as published by Central Hudson at the time of the RFP: The price must be below $0.0871/kWk for residential properties, $0.0910/kWh for small commercial properties..
Under the CCA, property owners join with the municipality as their default option, or they can opt out of the program and go with either Central Hudson or another electricity provider.
Costello said there was no guarantee that the town would sign another contract as part of the CCA, citing issues with past providers making good on their rate promises.
“The current contract, while successful from an environmental perspective, has not been as successful as we hoped from a financial perspective,” he said. “The energy component of our bill has been affordable. The delivery component of the bills have gone up quite substantially, and I don’t think that the pain of that is quite over yet.”
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