Energy Consortia

Collective Energy Savings

The Capitol Region Purchasing Council offers two energy consortia which CRCOG and CRPC members may use to get favorable pricing by aggregating their energy needs.

Electricity Consortium

The CRPC began offering Electricity in 2009, and has saved participants over $1.7 million since the program began.

Procurement Process

Step 1: Recruitment

What is recruitment?
Beginning in the spring, CRCOG announces open enrollment for any municipality, board of education or other public entity to join the CRCOG Electricity Consortium. For returning Consortium members, this is an opportunity to review your accounts and make any necessary changes.

Step 2: Enrollment

When does enrollment take place?
Enrollment begins in the spring and forms are usually due in the summer.

Is the commitment firm once I enroll?
No, there will be many points during the procurement process at which you can opt out, up until the RFQ is released to the vendor community in the late summer or early fall.

What is required to enroll?
Interested members can reach out to Kim Bona to express initial interest and get more information. After that, members will fill out the Enrollment Packet, a letter of authorization to obtain account information from your energy provider (Eversource, United Illuminating). This allows CRCOG to begin analysis of your energy needs.

Step 3: Procurement

How is procurement carried out?
CRCOG in consultation with the energy consultant typically conducts a reverse auction in the early fall, or whenever the energy markets are most beneficial to the members.

The energy consultant analyses the aggregated accounts of the consortium enrolled members and advises on the best time, method and terms to procure energy.

What can I expect to save?
In 2018 there was an estimated savings of over $33,114 per member over a two year contract term.

What if I have green energy needs or other special electricity needs?
CRCOG and the energy consultant can work with you to meet your town’s energy requirements!

Other Program Offerings

Beyond procurement, the Electricity Consortium offers these additional energy management services:

INVOICE AUDITING
The Energy Consortium program also offers auditing of your historical and current invoices to ensure accuracy. The energy consultant will identify mistakes and return overcharges to you. There is no fee for this service unless savings are found and successfully returned to your agency.

DATA MANAGEMENT
Other options in the program include:

  • Online energy dashboard to track your monthly usage and costs
  • Energy budgeting assistance
  • Performance tracking
  • Smart-grid meter services.

Gasoline & Fuel Consortium

The CRPC offers collective gasoline, fuel oil & diesel through an annual bid process. See the bids page for more details.

Natural Gas Consortium

This program is currently on hiatus. Participants saved over $9.3 million since the program began in 1998.

As of March, 2016, the CRCOG Natural Gas Consortium has continued the hiatus of the program, since market conditions still indicate that utility pricing is better than current NYMEX market pricing. CRCOG staff seeks updates frequently from our contractor, EnerNOC, to make sure that this information is up to date.

The CRCOG Natural Gas Consortium met on Friday, February 7, 2014 to discuss current market conditions and the contract cycle starting July 1, 2014. It was determined at this meeting that given the current NYMEX market conditions vs. the available utility prices, that the group would default to utility for one year (July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015).

This is due to the fact that any third party supplier pricing in the market simply cannot match the current low utility rates in Connecticut. If the Consortium were to stay together and buy from the market, it would be approximately 20-30% higher cost than what is currently being charged by the utility companies.

This is not a decision taken lightly as this group was first formed in 1998, just after Connecticut deregulated its energy commodities. We regret the need to take this one year hiatus, but cannot possibly justify the increased price of buying from the market vs. utility. CRCOG will continue to serve towns in our CRCOG Electricity Consortium and closely monitor the natural gas market for opportunities for re-entry of our group. The plan is to reconvene the Natural Gas Consortium in January 2015 to discuss market conditions and the possibility of a contract that begins July 1, 2015.

Consortium members have been given detailed instructions on next steps.  If yo have any questions or would like an update on the status of the Consortium, please contact Jennifer March-Wackers at jwackers@crcog.org or (860) 522-2217 ext. 239.

We truly appreciate your participation and hope to reconvene this group as soon as the market will allow.

Questions?

Contact Kim Bona or 860.724.4292