Early contract renewal efforts are now underway, even though our current Naperville Power Sales Contract with IMEA ends in 2040, 2035 at the earliest with 5 years advance notice:
- “This Contract shall take effect on June 1, 2011 and shall remain in effect for an initial term through September 30, 2035 and thereafter from year to year until terminated by five (5) years prior written notice. In no event shall this Contract extend beyond September 30, 2040.”
Update: Mar. 4, 2024:
At the Feb. 15, 2024 IMEA board meeting, the board of directors did approve the form (content and language) of the new contract:
Ordinance (Resolution) 24-02-896
Approving the Form of New Power Sales and New Capacity Purchase Agreement
For the Period October 1, 2035 Through May 31, 2055
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tp4a_ljyDmhY9iJKKsuoLCquQlqzCbUD/view
A copy of the new contract document is attached to the copy of the ordinance.
Update: Dec. 19. 2023:
At the Dec. 7, 2023 IMEA board meeting, we received the first public details on the early contract renewal.
- The new contract would lock Naperville into a further long-term commitment to those coal-fired generation resources at Prairie State and Trimble County. As of the IMEA fiscal year 2023, these coal-fired resources represent almost 80% of the IMEA energy.
- The contract length is October 1, 2035 to May 31, 2055
- Members will have a time frame of 14 months to approve, March 1, 2024 – April 30, 2025
- There is a new Member Directed Resources (MDR) option that would allow a Member to add to self-controlled, locally developed clean energy resources for up to 10% of a Member’s peak load
- The final forms of the contract documents will be approved at the February 15, 2024 IMEA board meeting
Here is a link to the Dec 7 board meeting’s 10 slides on the new contract:
2023-12-07_IMEA_BOD_Slides_NewContract.pdf.
Update: Aug. 19. 2023:
During the June 29, 2023 IMEA board meeting, IMEA reported that IMEA is engaging a Marketing/Media consultant that will also provide support for the contract extensions efforts “to prepare and present the appropriate information to our city councils and village board of trustees”.
The Naperville Electric Director, who serves as Naperville’s representative on the IMEA Board of Directors, indicates that he expects an IMEA contract proposal in late 2023 or early 2024.
The IMEA goals document for IMEA Fiscal Year 2022-2023 includes: “Develop a time line and action plan for IMEA contract extensions“.
IMEA appears to be using the offer of a relatively small amount of additional renewable resources as a “carrot” for members to renew/extend their member contracts, without addressing the coal-fired ownership of the Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) and Trimble County KY which represent nearly 70% of the IMEA power supply.
We first learned of IMEA’s contract renewal/extension efforts in Aug 2019. We felt those member contract renewal efforts had temporarily stalled after NEST and public comments in Oct 2019, along with the subsequent economic impact of the covid pandemic.
With the May 2022 termination of IMEA’s Vistra power purchase agreement representing roughly 20% of the IMEA power supply, along with IMEA’s stated interest in replacing half of Vistra with renewables, we believe IMEA leadership efforts to renew/extend member contracts have now resumed.
And most importantly, Naperville will likely once again use a closed meeting workshop where council member minds may be heavily impacted without our citizen input and without our citizen access to the same closed meeting materials. The subsequent open meeting to consider and approve may once again be too late for our citizen voices to be heard to have an impact on council member thinking and votes.
More details are available in our pdf file document titled: “Why we believe early contract renewal/extension efforts are underway in IMEA” .