By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

VERSAILLES — Versailles Council discusses AMP EcoSmart Choice Program, Wednesday night at their biweekly meeting.

This program is to bring renewable energy to the area at no cost to the village. Village Andministrator Kyle Francis said the village is not putting up wind turbines in the area, and he does not see that happening in this part of the state any time soon.

“At the last council meeting we had a presentation by AMP,” Francis said. “It will allow customers to voluntarily opt into the program to allow them to receive renewable energy credits.”

Francis said that due to the village selling all their renewable energy credits from their power portfolio, there are interests from other larger corporations. The council feels there may be some residential interest as well, and since it is at no cost to the village, Francis does not see an issue with allowing it as an option to consumers.

“AMP did send me the documents for the agreement to enter into the program. I did have the village attorney look at them, and there were no disagreements,” Francis said.

Francis did his due diligence and researched other municipalities that partake in the program, and if the village agrees to the agreements to allow it, the program will basically allow a “rate rider” to be set into motion for those who voluntarily opt in.

“If they want to do it, it will just be an adder onto their rates, so if they are a large power customer, this is just added onto their part of the bill,” Francis said.

The rate added will be $0.004 per KWh that is added onto the normal KWh price the Village already has. Francis opened up the floor for discussions to see if this thought was something the council would like to entertain for the village as a whole, and if the council is open to it, they will draft and have legislation ready to be voted on at the next meeting.

“There really ins’t a downside to the village,” Kent Paulus said.

Francis agreed saying there really isn’t an issue for the village. They would be able to get it into their Utility Billing System, and he is having dialogues with Jackson Center’s Village Administrator because they have the same billing system as Versailles and opted into the program. The dialogue is to see if there was any cost to the village to put the program into their system, and roughly how much it was to complete if there had been a cost.

“I don’t expect that cost to be very high to implement,” Francis said. “We’ve done this before with our solar farm. We have a renewable energy rate rider for customers with solar, and we have a customer already.”

Francis said they will be able to add the program on without any serious issues.

“I don’t see it being a downside. I only see it being a good thing for the customers that want it,” Francis said.

The village will not be paying any additional dollars for the program, and it will be more for the voluntary consumers that need and want it to be available to them. Corey Griesdorn said that with no extra cost to the village, he doesn’t see it as an issue, and if it helps out large corporate accounts and residential customers who would like to opt in for the credits they need, “it’s defiantly a win for them.”

The council agreed to the program, and legislation will be drafted for approval at the next council meeting on Wednesday, May 8 in the EMS Building on Baker Road. Meetings start at 7 p.m.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].