DAYTON, OH (WDTN) – The City of Dayton is taking steps to become a more sustainable community.
Starting June 1, 2022, people living in Dayton and small business owners will be opted into the electric aggregation program.
Meg Maloney is the sustainability specialist for the City of Dayton.
“Aggregate power is essentially where a city will go out on behalf of its residents and purchase where its energy generation is coming from. They key is most of the cities will try and get a more competitive price,” Maloney said.
The city selected the Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council as its renewable energy broker. They will be buying hydro power and using renewable energy credits to offset carbon emissions. Maloney said this could also save people money.
“Our anticipated costs right now is collectively all residents and small businesses will save around $4 million,” Maloney said.
Maloney said AES will go to market next week and the city will have a better idea of the price for residents. This program will run until May 31, 2023, but the city hopes to buy another year or two of power. This is all part of the long-term plan to use more renewable energy throughout the city of Dayton.
“We’re trying to have all city facilities be 100 percent renewable by 2035 and we’re also trying to build more renewable energy in Dayton. So we’re actually trying to install renewable energy on top of facilities or adjacent to facilities to be more energy independent in a sense,” Maloney explained.
This program also allows the city to receive grant money to help with renewable energy projects, like installing solar panels on buildings.
Residents do have the option to opt out of the program. For more information, click here.
