“Generally speaking, gas deals are a hell of a lot harder to get participation from suppliers than electricity, regardless of whether it’s aggregation” or not, said St. Clair Newbern IV, CEO of Live Energy.
“My experience all over” the country has been that “with electricity we can go out and get more suppliers than we can shake a stick at,” the head of the Fort Worth, Texas-based business said. “Gas suppliers are much harder to come by … It’s a lot harder to get participation for a competitive gas deal.”
The only natural gas proposal the MVCC received last month was recommended by the group’s consultant, Palmer Energy.
The organization’s board was set this week to talk about Constellation Energy’s plan, but the Baltimore-based business told Palmer Jan. 5 it was no longer interested in natural gas aggregation, MVCC Executive Director Jay Weiskircher said.
“The folks at Palmer said the pricing they gave us was very competitive” and the Toledo consultant recommended that “the cities to take a look at it and it made sense to them to move forward,” Weiskircher said.
Those expressing interest in joining the program so far are Brookville, Centerville, Eaton, Englewood, Fairborn, Germantown, Huber Heights, Kettering, Miamisburg, Monroe, New Lebanon, Trotwood, Troy, Union, Vandalia and West Carrollton, he added.
The MVCC group’s first sought proposals last summer and received only one submission which “was not all that competitive,” prompting the latest effort, Weiskircher said.
The MVCC last year started an electric aggregation program that included many of same cities.
That group in June signed a 28-month contract with Akron-based electric supplier Energy Harbor, which is charging 6.57 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
The AES Ohio standard service offer for electricity as of June 1, 2023, was 10.807 cents per kWh.
Palmer said the MVCC electric program is projected to save residential customers $350 a year and small businesses about $984 annually.
Electric aggregation is “a fairly stable thing. You can identify a price. You can identify a savings that a consumer will receive at a certain rate,” Weiskircher said. “And natural gas, on the other hand, they say is very squirrely. It really fluctuates. It depends on the market.”
CenterPoint Energy’s standard choice offer rate effective Sept. 1 for natural gas was 3.73 cents per ccf, or 100 cubic feet, according to Energy Choice Ohio. Its charge ending Aug. 31 was 3.66 cents.
The company’s rate for that same service was 3.89 cents per ccf from Dec. 1-31 and it dipped slightly to 3.80 this month, Energy Choice Ohio said.
Despite the MVCC’s lack of success with natural gas, Weiskircher said its focus on contracting with a supplier remains.
“I think we’re just going to continue to see what’s out there,” he said. “We’re going to shake the trees and I guess the market will decide when it might be advantageous to take another look at this … There may be something a month from now or six weeks from now.”
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