Point Borough Looks Into Townwide Electric Provider

Most Point Borough residents are familiar with the fliers and phone solicitations from energy companies promising cost savings over their current energy bills.

Under a proposal being considered by the Borough Council, every resident of the borough could be afforded those savings -- without having to weed through the multitude of offers to find the best deal.

Under legislation related to the state's deregulation of energy suppliers, municipalities can aggregate their residents' energy needs and seek an energy supplier for the entire town through competitive bidding, Point Borough Council President Antoinette DePaola said.

"The town could get the best rate for all its residents," she said.

The legislation mandates that every residential customer in the town would be automatically opted in to the program, DePaola said, while businesses and entities such as the school district would have to formally opt-in to be part of the agreement.

Residents who've already chosen a supplier or who want to stay with JCP&L would have to formally opt out to be excluded, DePaola said.

According to the organization Cooling America thru Local Leadership (CALL), the potential savings is great, because it allows third-party suppliers to sign up large numbers of customers at one time -- eliminating the need to market the program to them.

The first step, DePaola said, is requesting from JCP&L the information on how much energy the borough's residents are using and rate information, and that the borough is looking to aggregate its residential accounts.

A motion to allow the borough to notify JCP&L of that was approved after the second executive session on Tuesday night.