BOARDMAN — Residents can expect electric rates to increase next year, officials say.

At Monday night’s Boardman trustees meeting, township Administrator Jason Loree said Boardman will begin sending letters to residents notifying them of the option to join the township’s new rate plan, through a new company, that he said will keep costs down.

“It’s important to note that if we didn’t go through the aggregation the only thing residents would have to look at is the apples-to-apples,” he said. “We’re hoping to keep things competitive.”

The township has worked with its energy aggregation service, Independent Energy Consultants,

For more than a decade.

“The great success for Boardman is that we have a lot of customers,” he said. “Since we’ve been part of this aggregation, we’ve consistently beaten NOPEC’s rates.”

NOPEC, the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council, aggregates electric and water rates in Mahoning County for Beaver, Berlin, Ellsworth, Goshen, Green, Jackson, Milton, Sebring, Smith and Springfield townships.

Boardman’s current rate through IEC is $0.0487 cents per kilowatt hour, using Akron-based Energy Harbor. Documents Loree shared with The Vindicator show that IEC recommends the township accept a new 12-month locked-in rate of $0.0798/kWh with Houston, Texas-based Dynegy.

The documents show that rate is better than the next competitor, Baltimore, Maryland-based Constellation Energy, whose 12-month rate is $0.0799.

“And you’ll see these rates in other communities as well, pretty soon,” Loree said. “Austintown, Youngstown will kinda be falling in line with our rates.”

Trustee Tom Costello said the problem was discussed recently at an Ohio Township Association Meeting.

“There was a representative from NOPEC there, who said that rates could go up anywhere from 20% to 50% as a result of many of the coal-fired plants having been forced to close without the appropriate replacement energy providers being up and running yet,” he said.

In Ohio, other problems have driven up rates.

Among those plants set to close or change fuel sources is the James M. Gavin plant in Cheshire, along the West Virginia border. Dan Gearino of Inside Climate News reported in October that a new owner of the plant intends to shutter or convert it by 2031 and that several other plants in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan may close as soon as 2028.

Scandal has reached a heavy hand into Ohioans’ pockets as well.

Ohio Capital Journal reporter Marty Schladen reported last week that Duke Energy is the third-largest shareholder (at 9%) in the Ohio Valley Electric Cooperative (OVEC) that owns the Clifty Creek plant in Madison, Indiana and Kyger Creek plant, also in Cheshire.

“As part of 2019’s scandal-plagued House Bill 6, Ohio ratepayers so far have been required to pay more than $400 million to subsidize the plants,” Schladen wrote.

He noted that Akron’s FirstEnergy also “put up $60 million to be the biggest beneficiary of the $1.3 billion bailout that resulted from the bribery scheme that sent former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, to federal prison for 20 years.”

Schladen stated that testimony in Householder’s trial revealed that OVEC subsidies won the support of utilities that invested in OVEC, and Duke’s share has yielded the company $36 in subsidies from Ohio utility customers.

Loree said letters to residents will go in late February or early March to residents and small businesses. Those who wish to opt out and seek their own rates will have 21-days to do so, and another seven-day recission period before enrollment.

There will be no early termination fee, and residents can leave at any time for any reason for free.