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CITY OF HAMILTON |
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Shopping around for electricity has been a winning strategy for the City of Hamilton. In less than a year, it saved $1 million just by switching half its load from the Regulated Price Plan (RPP) to the hourly market price. For Geoff Lupton, the City of Hamilton’s Manager of Energy Initiatives, the move to wholesale prices has been the right one: “We’ve done much better on the market price than we would have on the RPP as we would be paying the higher, second tier rate for most of our consumption.” Led by the Office of Energy Initiatives, Hamilton embarked on a new strategy to move off the RPP and purchase electricity at the hourly spot price. This included getting its metering strategy right. In December of 2006, 16 interval meter accounts – representing half of the total municipal load - were switched to spot market pricing. Within eight months, the City had shaved a cool million off its $20 million annual electricity budget. With these initial savings, Lupton and his group are now increasing the City’s exposure to the hourly price. The installation of an additional 31 interval meters will bring roughly 80 per cent of the City’s electricity load under hourly prices, which should generate an additional $355,000 in annual savings. By procuring and managing the majority of its electricity requirements through interval meter profiles, staff can closely track the City’s conservation and demand management initiatives – and can develop the best procurement strategies to meet their needs. “The hourly price has been quite attractive. Particularly when you take into account the natural hedge provided by rebates, we have not experienced much volatility,” said Lupton. The key, said Lupton, is to use interval
meters so you can know exactly how much
electricity you are using and when you are
using it, creating what is known as a load
profile. “You really need to understand what
your load profile is and educate yourself
about what your best option is – the RPP,
the market, or hedging a portion of your
energy needs.” |
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