Board allows bulk electricity purchases

The Town Board has approved a local law allowing the town to establish an electric purchasing program that covers all residential and non-residential Central Hudson customers with standard usage billing.

The Community Choice Aggregation Program was adopted following a public hearing Thursday. Officials said the new rules allow the town to decide which company is considered its default electricity provider.

“This enables the towns to ... create a defined bloc and enter into the energy markets to achieve specific goals, save money, focus on renewable energies and other goals as we may define as we go through the process,” Supervisor Fred Costello said.

The state Public Service Commission established the program several years ago as a way for residential and small business property owners to take advantage of bulk purchase rates.

“An administrator on behalf of the town would ... note the market prices for electricity and they would do that within the mandate we give them for renewables and for cost,” Costello said.

Under the program, municipalities can reach agreements with independent producers based on how electricity is generated, such as through solar or wind power.

Officials note that electric utility customers will have the opportunity to drop out of the program and return at any time without penalty. Costello said the town, which has about 8,000 metered properties, may need to work with other communities to build a customer base large enough to make bulk purchases worthwhile.

“Generally speaking, it takes about 80,000 meters to aggregate into a buying bloc that can be competitive,” he said.

However, Costello added that there are several large scale solar arrays being constructed locally, and that long-term agreements could be arranged to purchase a percentage of the electricity produced from those facilities.

“Because Saugerties has so much solar resources under development, there’s a thought that perhaps we can negotiate directly, through an administrator, with those solar resources as they come online,” he said.

Officials were not certain when they would begin the process of seeking an administrator.