Council enters power project

The city’s involvement
eventually will reduce
electricity costs.

By ERIC GROSSO

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NEWTON FALLS — City representatives are looking to control the price they pay for power.

On Monday, council approved an ordinance to enter part of an $833 million hydroelectric project on the Ohio River.

The ordinance places the city into an agreement with American Municipal Power of Ohio to take part in a HydroMatrix Project.

Earlier this month, council member Eric Thompson said he couldn’t pass the agreement on its second reading without seeing how the project would affect the city.

Specifically, he asked city Manager Jack Haney if the project would cause an increase in electricity bills.

Haney said the project would “minimally affect” the cost of electricity in the city in the next four years but would lower costs in the long run.

Representatives from AMP-Ohio at the meeting said that by locking into the project, the cost of electricity would be approximately 60 percent more in 2032 based on expected market cost increases.

Haney said it will lower costs in the long run because the cost of the power coming from the project won’t increase like other power sources that use other fuels to operate.

AMP-Ohio officials said locking into the hydroelectric project would also save the city money because it eliminates potential uncertainty in the energy market.

The agreement would bring an additional 1,300 kilowatt hours of power, with the city having the ability to use or sell the power, which could bring additional revenue.

The HydroMatrix Project includes the construction of three hydroelectric plants in West Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky, generating a total of 191,000 kilowatt hours. A kilowatt hour measures the amount of energy that is used.

Newton Falls signed up to be involved in the project in May 2006 as part of the project’s developmental phase.

The planned structures use much smaller turbines than traditional hydroelectric plants but use more of them, along with current dams, to generate electricity.

Because they use current dam structures, hydromatrix projects don’t involve heavy civil engineering, cost approximately 60 percent of conventional construction on hydroelectric structures, have less environmental impacts, and cost about one cent per kilowatt hour cheaper than other methods, according to Phil Meier, AMP-Ohio’s chief information officer.

Meier said the starting price point offered with the project will be between $.042 and $.053 per kilowatt hour delivered.

He noted that the price is lower than the current market cost.

Haney said the new facilities should last “50 to 75 years, at least.”

AMP-Ohio expects the project to be finished in 2012.

Newton Falls is part of approximately 60 other communities who are taking part in the project. AMP-Ohio is expected to bring a more precise cost estimate to the city in March 2008.