DARKE COUNTY — Citizens in a number of municipalities in Western Ohio will be voting this November 8, not only for politicians seeking office, but on ballot measures.

One of these ballot measures will give residents living in several communities within the Dayton Power & Light (DPL) electric utility area the opportunity to secure lower electricity rates by approving a community aggregation question on ballots this November.

Residents in communities such as Greenville, Bellefontaine and Covington are the headlining communities. Other municipalities allowing their residents to vote for lower electricity rates include Anna and unincorporated Shelby County DPL customers, De Graff, Quincy, Belle Center, Ansonia, West Milton and unincorporated areas of Newberry Township and St. Paris.

Affordable Gas & Electric (AGE) has been retained by these communities to provide assistance with passage of the ballot questions, administer the bid process and manage the aggregation programs for the communities.

Ohio law allows for local communities to join their residents together to shop for electricity and natural gas as a group, thereby gaining bulk buying power to solicit the lowest price for the group’s electricity and natural gas supply needs.

If a great rate is offered, all eligible residents and small businesses will automatically be included in the program without charge, but will have the ability to opt-out at any time, and without penalty.

The public is invited to a series of public meetings which will provide an overview of the electricity aggregation ballot question. Representatives from AGE, the consultant managing the aggregate group, will be on hand to answer questions. Among communities in Darke County, the public meeting schedule is as follows:

• Village of Ansonia, Municipal Bldg, 202 North Main Street, September 20 at 7 p.m. and October 18 at 7 p.m.
• City of Greenville, Municipal Building, 100 Public Square, September 20 at 7:30 p.m. and October 18 at 7:30 p.m.
• Village of Wayne Lakes, Community Building, 100 Community Drive, October 10 at 7:30 p.m. (A September meeting at Wayne Lakes was already held.)

In November 2015, the City of Sidney and the Villages of Ft. Loramie, Botkins, Russia, and Bradford provided their residents a similar opportunity. Residents in these communities overwhelmingly approved the aggregation questions with upwards of 85 percent approval in several communities. The results of the competitive bidding for the aggregate provided residents with rates estimated to be 27 percent below the previous 12-month historical rates of DPL. The contracts negotiated are fixed for a full three-year term.

“With anticipated approval from the residents of Greenville, Bellefontaine, Covington, Anna, West Milton and others, we will combine this group of 14 communities voting in November with our existing group of eight other communities including the Sidney/Shelby County communities for a very nice regional negotiating group in the DPL utility area” said Jeff Haarmann, Managing Partner of AGE. “Suppliers such as AEP Energy, Constellation, Dynegy, IGS and others have already committed to bid to serve this collective group. When suppliers compete for our bulk aggregations, residents win.”

For more information regarding the upcoming aggregation vote, residents can visit www.AffordableElectricRates.com.