Program Info

What Is New Jersey Municipal/County Energy Aggregation?

The aggregation refers to customers in a defined geographic area who choose to form a group for the purpose of purchasing a commodity like energy. The NJ BPU and the Ratepayer Advocate believe by forming energy buying groups, municipalities aid in the process of creating a level playing field for customers, giving small residential and business customers the same type of market power to negotiate lower power prices as the larger industrial customers.

In this new era of electric deregulation, large industrial customers are the first to be able to negotiate cheaper rates, whereas residential and small business consumers may be left with fewer energy options. The reason why large customers will receive lower rates is because of their large energy usage. Small customers may be at a disadvantage because the amount of electricity/gas individual customers use is relatively small; and, consequently energy suppliers are likely to go after the most lucrative consumers first and turn to the smaller customers much later in the process. But if a town aggregates thousands of customers to form a buying block, the power generating companies and the suppliers will bid lower rates to get the lucrative business.