Latest update on early contract renewal/extension efforts underway in IMEA, even though our current Naperville contract with IMEA ends in 2040, 2035 at the earliest with 5 years advance notice:
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” .