Some 74 local businesses accepted a fixed-price rate of 9.897 cents per kilowatt hour from Washington Gas and Electric last year, the first year the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce formed a co-op for its members. Only two members declined to sign that 36-month contract.
Through the co-op, Chamber members bundle together to buy electricity at lower rates than offered to individual customers.
Most of the businesses that signed on last summer received a lower rate than the one they were then paying with Delmarva Power and were relieved of a demand charge — an extra fee tacked on commercial bills paid to cover the cost of accessible backup supply.
Co-op officials, one of whom compared the backup supply to a bullpen on a baseball team, said that the demand charge adds an additional amount on commercial customers’ bills that could total 50 percent of the bill’s usage charge.
The Chamber’s board voted unanimously on May 3, 2006, to form an electric cooperative for their members to fight rising electricity prices. On May 1, Delmarva Power commercial rates rose from 47 to 117 percent because of the skyrocketing costs of fossil fuels and the release of a state rate cap.
As of Wednesday, April 11, 2007, 54 members of a second Chamber co-op were offered the chance to receive an improved rate with Washington Gas of 9.867 cents per kilowatt hour, nearly 1 cent lower than Delmarva Power’s rate. Furthermore, the demand charge was dropped again, allowing for significant improvement in rates.
“When you include the demand rate, members were paying an average of 12 cents per kilowatt hour,” said Karen McGrath, executive director of the Bethany-Fenwick Chamber of Commerce. “We had others who were paying 17 cents, and one was even up to 31 cents [per kilowatt hour].”
Members of the second co-op had until the end of Thursday, April 12, after the Coastal Point’s deadline, to sign on to the new three-year contract.
The decision to apply for the bid now was not a tough one for McGrath. “Early spring is one of the best times to go to bid,” she said. “We didn’t have a terribly cold winter this year. Global and climate issues are a big influence in the bids.”
As summer creeps up, she added, prices are likely to increase again, with more air condition use. That meant the timing was right for a bid for the second co-op.
McGrath on May 8 announced the Chamber’s partnership with CQI — a Columbia, Md.-based aggregation consultant that has worked with 28 other Chambers, in Delaware, Maryland and Illinois, on similar efforts.
Government and residential cooperative efforts have also stemmed from rising energy prices. Only Delmarva Power customers who are members of the Bethany-Fenwick Chamber of Commerce were eligible to join this co-op. Home-based businesses, regardless of their standing with the Chamber, were not eligible.