ELMHURST, IL — They city of Elmhurst's Electric Aggregation Program will be suspended starting this August, according to a release from the city. Residents who are participating in the program will have their electric automatically transferred to ComEd.

The city said this change will be reflected in the September 2017 billing and no action is needed on the resident's part to revert back to ComEd.

According to a release, the city has managed an EAP since 2012. This program enabled the city to negotiate lower electric rates than ComEd for residents' homes and small businesses' electric bills by aggregating the community's electricity usage. The EAP was an "opt-out" program that offered savings to residents and small commercial business customers.

In 2014, the city followed a process to renew the EAP, according to a release. At that time, the ComEd rate had been more comparable to the EAP rate, however the EAP rate would still provide savings. The city approved a three-year contract to renew the EAP. As has been the case since the EAP began in 2012, the city's Finance Committee periodically reviews the EAP results and electricity commodity pricing trends, according to the release. It became apparent starting in 2015 that the EAP rate was not affording measurable savings over the ComEd rate. In 2016, the city's Finance Committee recommended that residents' and small business' participating in the EAP move back to ComEd which had been offering a consistently lower rate.

The city said it recently sought bids to renew the Municipal Electricity Aggregation Program, in hopes that the EAP bids would once again provide savings over the ComEd rate. The bids that the city received were very comparable to the ComEd base rate. The city is in the process of suspending the EAP since savings could not be guaranteed. According to the release, the one advantage to the EAP rate was that the electricity commodity was generated from 50 percent renewable sources. Those residents wishing to purchase the electricity commodity from renewable sources can do so within the open marketplace.

For more information, please visit elmhurst.org or pluginillinois.org.