A. Governmental aggregation is an easy and effective way for a large group of consumers to save money on their energy bills. Under governmental aggregation, local officials bring citizens together to gain group buying power for the purchase of competitively priced electricity or natural gas from a retail generation supplier certified by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

A. Residents must vote to allow the community to contract for a certified generation supplier on their behalf.

A. First, the governmental aggregation issue must be placed on the ballot and then passed by a majority of the voters. Once passed, all eligible residents and small businesses in the community will be enrolled and will begin receiving the discounted generation pricing under the program. Residents do not need to do anything to join the program. However, anyone who does not want to participate in the program can easily opt out by returning a form, which will be mailed to all eligible members.

A. "Opt out'' means that you can decide not to participate in your community's governmental aggregation program. By returning the opt-out form, sent to you approximately 90-120 days ATTER approval, by the opt-out deadline you will not be enrolled as an electric or natural gas generation customer with your community's competitive generation supplier, and you will not receive the discount.

A. Governmental aggregation is designed so it is easy for residents to participate. So, if you do not return the opt- out form postmarked by the due date, you will be included in the community's governmental aggregation program and will begin receiving competitively priced electricity or natural gas from the community's competitive generation and or transmission supplier.

A. Yes, once enrolled. PUCO rules require you receive a notice every three years (electric), two years (natural gas) asking if you wish to remain in the program. If your local aggregation term ends prior to the PUCO requirement, you will be given an opportunity to opt out at that time. However, you can leave the program at any other time for any reason with no cancellation fee from the supplier.

A. You can stay with your current utility who will place you with a supplier of their choice, and will continue to supply your electricity or natural gas as it always has, or you can shop for an alternative generation supplier.

A. Voting for aggregation does not mean you have to participate. If you have already chosen an alternate supplier and aggregation is approved by the voters vou will stay with your chosen supplier and you will not be sent an opt-out letter. Again, since you are currently in a contract we simply remove you from the program at the beginning. You will have the option to join the aggregation program when you decide its best, the choice is yours. 

A. Your local electric utility will be responsible for the delivery of power to your home or business. Since your local electric utility still owns the wires and poles that deliver power to you, it will continue to read your meter and restore power after an outage. The aggregation program will have no impact upon the reliability of service you receive. The same goes for natural gas.

A. You will receive one bill from the utility that maintains your charges for distribution and maintenance service from the utility as well as the new supplier charges for generation and/or transmission. Depending on the supplier chosen for your program, you can remain on budget billing. However not all suppliers offer budget billing at this time. If a supplier is chosen that does not offer budget billing then your total charges with the new supplier will fluctuate from month to month according to your usage. You can continue to budget the utilities portion of the bill.