The advertised deadline for Naperville to decide whether it wants to keep getting energy from the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency has come and gone.
But a contract extension has yet to go to Naperville City Council for a vote. The city’s Electric Utility Director Brian Groth says the option is still on the table.
“We are just past the deadline date that was provided but the offer has not been closed,” Groth said.
For more than a year, Naperville has been gearing up to decide if it will retain IMEA as its electricity provider past 2035, when the city’s current contract with the agency is due to expire. Citing the need for long-term planning, IMEA gave Naperville — along with the agency’s other 31 members — until April 30 to opt into a contract extension out to 2055.
In the weeks leading up to the deadline, the city held several discussions on the matter. A vocal segment of the community is opposed to continuing with IMEA because of its reliance on coal to generate energy, a pollution generating source of power.
Naperville’s Public Utilities Advisory Board in late February received a presentation from IMEA staff. A week later, the board heard from Philadelphia-based consultant Customized Energy Solutions, which presented an overview of the different ways — as well as their associated risks and benefits — that Naperville could power its electric grid in years to come.
The board received another two presentations pertinent to the city’s contract renewal at a special meeting on April 8, one concerning the legal and market constraints Naperville’s electric utility operates under and one from the Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force (NEST). After hearing both, the board narrowly recommended that the city stay on with IMEA.
The recommendation, though, has yet to go to council, which holds the final decision-making authority on the matter. The earliest the recommendation could have been on the council’s agenda was May 6.
Rather, staff — as part of a larger presentation on near-term projects, goals and priorities for the city — briefly mentioned PUAB’s recommendation and said that they continue to research options as well as engage with stakeholders on the issue. Staff anticipates bringing this discussion to the council in July or August, said Marcie Schatz, assistant to the city manager.
Meanwhile, discussions on where IMEA’s contact extension offer stands for all members that have yet to renew are also ongoing.
At an IMEA Board of Directors meeting last month, agency staff recommended that the open offer period for a new contract be extended until Aug. 21, according to a public memorandum from Groth to Naperville City Manager Doug Krieger. The memo, released May 1, said that 27 of IMEA’s 32 members had so far signed a contract renewal.
Following agency staff’s recommendation, a “lengthy discussion between IMEA board members ensued,” the memo said. Members discussed terminating the open offer period, while others suggested applying a progressive premium structure to communities that do not sign up for a new contact at this time, per the memo.
Ultimately, a motion was made to draw out the offer period to August but further discussion was tabled to the board’s June meeting. Agency staff were asked to begin preparing a resolution to extend the existing contract offer.
Asked about the implications of IMEA board discussions on council, Groth said last week, “I believe that the conversation in Naperville is a separate conversation from the IMEA board.
“My goal has always been to bring all of the options to council with … as much (information) as we can for all of the options so that (members) can be educated and make a decision going forward,” he said.
For NEST, which has been an official Naperville advisory body since 2019, IMEA isn’t and won’t be an option “until they actually have a plan to transition off of coal,” NEST Co-chair Cathy Clarkin said in a call Monday.
IMEA, whose current energy portfolio is largely reliant on non-renewable sources, has put forward ambitious plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. That plan has earned skepticism from local experts, NEST included.
At last week’s council meeting, NEST representatives urged the city during the public comment portion of the meeting to do two things as it charts a path forward for Naperville’s electricity grid: commit to pursuing a comprehensive, publicly inclusive and transparent energy selection process and complete a carbon action plan.
“We continue to advocate for the process that we’ve shared multiple times,” Clarkin echoed this week. “We think that’s really the best approach.”
