ILLINOIS PUBLIC POWER NEWSLETTER #1
Welcome to the first edition of Illinois’ Public Power Newsletter. This newsletter is prepared by a coalition of volunteer public power customers, consumer advocates, and environmental organizations and will share information about Illinois’ publicly-owned utilities, including municipal electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives. If you would like information shared in future newsletters, please email Scott Allen: sallen@citizensutilityboard.org
WHAT WE HOPE TO OFFER
In addition to providing updates on what’s going on in the public utility world, we also hope to create a network where people can communicate, share and organize with their peers across the state. On our list, we have people and organizations that have been working in their communities for years, and we would like to connect them with people who are interested in doing similar work. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to let us know, but as we build this network, we’ll keep you updated.
IL MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC AGENCY – NO EARLY RENEWALS
Thirty-two municipal electric communities are members of the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA). IMEA has hired a professional marketing firm to try to convince your community to sign an early renewal of their contract. Most of these contracts are not up for renewal until after 2030. Why is this important? These long-term contracts are exploitative, and they don’t allow your city any room to take advantage of changing energy markets. They require you to purchase 100% of your electricity from IMEA without offering any benefits to individuals.
If your community is a member of the IMEA, tell your city council members, “NO EARLY RENEWAL” of the IMEA contract.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY REPORT
The Clean Energy Alliance for Naperville (CLEAN), a grassroots organization, recently published a “Lack of Transparency” report on Naperville’s publicly-owned municipal electric utility, a co-owner of the Prairie State Coal Plant. Amanda Pankau with Prairie Rivers Network (PRN) wrote about the report and why a lack of transparency is slowing down the clean energy transition for Naperville and Illinois’ other publicly owned utilities, like municipal electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives.
You can read the entire report here and PRN’s summary blog post here.
PAST & FUTURE EVENTS
In 2024, our coalition plans to hold listening sessions in municipal and co-op utility communities across the state. We want to build relationships and networks with customers of those utilities and help them advocate for better policies.
Our most recent event took place in Naperville on September 25. This event was organized and hosted by the Naperville Environment & Sustainability Task Force (NEST). NEST is a model of how residents can include themselves in the decision-making process, and their leaders are open to talking to their peers around the state who would like to learn how they organized themselves. NEST turned out more than 200 people for this event, and led a panel of presentations focused on stopping the early renewal of Naperville’s IMEA contract. As the state’s largest publicly-owned utility, Naperville can lead the way for the changes that we’d all like to see. Linked below is a recording of the event as well as media coverage that followed. Let us know if you’d like to talk to representatives from NEST. You can read more about the Naperville event in press coverage here and here.
Our public power campaign kicked off with a community meeting in Mascoutah on August 23rd. We were joined by people who are concerned about the future of their municipal utility and nearby rural electric cooperatives. The conversation was an opportunity to talk with community members about their experience with their utilities and their hopes for a clean energy future. Through conversations like these we will help shape policy to increase transparency, reduce pollution, and increase clean energy opportunities for municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives. You can read more about the Masoutah event here.
KAY’S CORNER
Kay Ahaus is one of the leaders of our coalition. Kay is a resident of Highland, and a member of the Greater Highland Area Concerned Citizens. In each of these newsletters, Kay will provide some thoughts from her point of view
Our work is made possible by community leaders like Kay Ahaus of southwestern Illinois. Kay recently spoke with the Highland Woman’s Club. In that meeting Kay shared the great news that Highland’s School District is going solar! She also shared information about IMEA’s hopes that their member communities will renew their contracts early. Kay said, “We do know that Highland does not need to sign such a contract until September 2030. With the picture of energy production changing rapidly, we hope our city will wait until 2030 to see what the next 6 years of innovations bring to our energy sources.”
