After attending the joint information session held at Mercer County Community College regarding the community energy aggregation program, the only thing clear to me was that West Windsor should not rush into the program without considerable more thoughtful discussion.
All other townships represented at the meeting — Ewing, Hopewell, and Lawrence, were in no hurry to start the program. However, West Windsor’s proposal has already picked up not only the consulting firm but also the co-operative that we should purchase our energy through. (See story, page 12).
Wouldn’t taxpayers’ interests be better served by an open bidding process not only for the consultant but more importantly regarding where we purchase our energy from if we decide to follow that path?
While trying to consolidate with neighboring townships, West Windsor has not looked in our own backyard first to see what the school district is doing. The school district is procuring its energy through the Middlesex Regional Educational Services commission at very competitive rates. If the township decides to proceed, the new rate must be lower than the rate being paid by the school district.
Let me now address a couple of other important issues that need open discussion.
The goals of the program are twofold: one, to save money and second, to increase the use of renewable energy. Unfortunately these two goals are contradictory to each other as the cheapest energy available is usually the most polluting.
Since the program automatically enrolls all residents without their consent, the town council needs thorough discussion before committing to restrictions on sources of energy and thus imposing higher costs on residents without their consent.
One reason given for joining with neighboring townships is to get higher scale and thus a better rate. This argument fails even cursory examination. PSE&G has by far the largest scale. PSE&G proximity also offers lower cost.
I can think of only two reasons that would allow someone outside of our area to undercut PSE&G. First, there is something in the contract that the township should be wary about. Second, the Board of Public Utilities has allowed a far higher rate to PSE&G than justified based on their costs. If it’s the former, the town council should be very careful. If it’s the latter, our state politicians need to ask BPU some tough questions.
The proposal also advertises no cost to the township. That is simply not true. There are both direct and indirect costs. As the Ewing town administrator explained at the meeting, the township will incur costs to administer the program and costs for legal work to review contracts. Given that budget pressure requires township employees to do more work with fewer employees, the council should be very careful taking on additional responsibility. Second, the taxpayers and the township will pay the consultant fee indirectly through the consolidator. This type of indirect payment is bad governance.
Finally, I find it ironic that while all townships are encouraging residents to “buy local” to help local businesses, they themselves want to go to Pennsylvania, New York, or even Ohio to purchase their electrons.
Hemant Marathe
The writer, a West Windsor resident, is the former president of the WW-P Board of Education.
