Forest Park Sees Savings on Energy Bill with Aggregation Program

The village of Forest Park has been able to cut its residents’ electric bills nearly in half by negotiating a new rate with FirstEnergy Solutions

A referendum passed in March allows the village to bargain for less-expensive energy.

After a spring rate hike, former power provider ComEd has begun charging 8.5 cents per kilowatt hour, while new provider FirstEnergy charges only 4.68 cents—a savings of 45 percent.

The project involves essentially zero effort on the part of any Forest Park business or resident—in fact, because ComEd will still be delivering the juice, customers’ bills look identical (just with smaller numbers), and ComEd still conducts repairs for outages.

The village estimates that the new rates will save the average Forest Park household $300 and the village as a whole $4 million annually.

Village Hall has been effusive in its praise for the new program and the voters who allowed it to take effect.

“This is a huge savings for our community—the residents made the right decision in voting for the referendum to allow this program,” said Mayor Anthony Calderone in a Forest Park news brief flyer. “I’m thrilled that our voters had trust in their local government as this will return savings to them directly.”

With the referendum having been voted down in eight Cook communities, including nearby Elmwood Park, some controversy over the program might be expected. But none seems to have arisen in what appears to be a complete win-win for Forest Park.

“The village did really extensive research to find out really if there was something we were missing, if there was a downside to this,” said Village Administrator Tim Gillian. “And throughout all of our research, we were not able to find anything that would be bad for the village or for the residents.”

The FirstEnergy rate is fixed for two years, at the end of which the village will once again go out to bid for a rate.

A complete list of FAQs about the program can be found on the Village website.