For more than 20 years, Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council has been buying electricity on behalf of Ohio residents. Now it might go away.
That’s because NOPEC’s rates got so high this summerThe decision saved residents hundreds of dollars. But it also raised big questions.
“We believe all those things combined show that we’re an important and valuable partner to our communities,” Keiper said.Buying in bulk: How NOPEC got started More than 100 communities in Greater Cleveland voted to form these aggregations. Most cities then joined NOPEC, which formed in November 2000 to negotiate on behalf of 95 communities at the time.
The standard service offer is variable price, meant to be a safety net and the supplier of last resort. If a household picks a supplier and there is a problem — like a company going out of business — the standard service offer is there to keep the lights on. Electricity from the utility companies was bought well in advance, so much so that its price wasn’t reflective of the current electricity market.
NOPEC estimates that it saved customers more than $300 million before 2019. Once the guaranteed discount program went away, NOPEC spokesman Dave Jankowski said its became more difficult to track savings. Electricity prices in Ohio have been flat or declining for many years. Keiper said NOPEC always used a variable rate and avoided locking in a rate so it could reduce its rates as prices dropped.By April, Keiper said clouds were forming over the energy market. In July, Russia closed the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies natural gas to Europe, for the first time.
The solution was to temporarily drop close to 550,000 customers back to the utility, which was cheaper because of timing. The spike in prices didn’t just hurt NOPEC. About 40 other communities in Ohio that didn’t use NOPEC ended their aggregations because of high prices, according to NOPEC’s filings to the PUCO.stepped in and tried to stop NOPECWhen FirstEnergy holds auctions it’s buying electricity from companies like Dynegy, which itself is responsible for 32% of the electricity sent to FirstEnergy customers.on the hook for 32% of standard service offer bucket whether that’s 10,000 customers or 100,000 .
Standard service offer auctions are becoming less competitive, said Noah Dormady, an associate professor at Ohio State University that researches energy policy. It argues that competition has driven down the standard service offer, saving Ohioans $19.5 billion. It estimates that customers who shopped for energy, whether on their own or through a government aggregator like NOPEC, saved an additional $4.4 billion.
“The legal departments became the most effective revenue generators for the utility companies,” Hill said.Regulators for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio likely won’t make a decision on NOPEC until late December. Regulators have never revoked a government aggregator’s certificate in the past.