CHAMPAIGN – The deadline for Champaign residents to opt out of the city’s new electric aggregation agreement is Wednesday.
The program allows city officials to pool resident and commercial electricity accounts to negotiate a bulk rate.
City officials signed an agreement with Homefield Energy to be Champaign’s supplier.
Opting in will get consumers a slight discount on their electric bills, Public Works Department Administrative Services Manager Kris Koester said.
“The rules of our plan of government are that it has to meet or beat Ameren’s rate and so it meets Ameren’s rate at this time.”
Ameren’s current rate through September is about 11 cents per kilowatt hour. Champaign’s agreement with Homefield Energy provides a rate of about 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
But that discount doesn’t account for Ameren’s default rate for October through May, which hasn’t been released yet but is typically lower than the summer rate. Last year, the rate was 8 cents per kilowatt hour.
Voters approved the municipal electric aggregation program in 2012, but the city hasn’t entered an agreement since 2023, Koester said. Until now, officials haven’t been able to negotiate a rate that meets or beats Ameren’s default rate.
With the new agreement, consumers also have the option to pay for 100% renewable energy at a rate of about 11 cents per kilowatt hour, according to Koeaster.
“No one’s coming to change out the Ameren line that hooks into your house or anything like that and so you just have to just purchase with the understanding that you’re purchasing 100% renewable energy,” he said, “but also the power that’s coursing through the lines of your home are only a mix of renewable energy.”
Koester added that paying for that rate will help invest in renewable energy infrastructure.
“You’re helping expand the renewable energy field if you will – market,” he explained. “You’re helping expand wind and solar and all that stuff being added into the mixture of what is coming from traditional power sources.”
Champaign residents who remain in the agreement will still have their bills distributed by Ameren even though the electricity supplier is changing.
Residents who are eligible for the program should have received letters in the mail with instructions if they’d like to opt out. Residents are also able to opt out at any point in the program with no penalty. The agreement runs through September of next year.