Looks like winter utility bills in Winfield could be lower this season than they were last year.
Natural gas is down 15 percent from this period in 2008 and electricity has dipped by 25 percent, city manager Warren Porter said Tuesday. Prices spiked upward last season.
Of course, whether your bill is lower or not depends ultimately on usage. If a customer uses the same or less natural gas or power than last year, the bill will go down. But a colder winter that leads to higher overall usage, means bills will be the same or higher.
Porter is also hopeful that long-term electric prices will drop as well. The Kansas Power Pool ? which Winfield is a member of ? has agreed to a 10-year contract to use power generated by a coal plant owned by Westar Energy.
Since forming the pool several years ago, the cities in the pool had been unable to reach a long-term deal with Westar. Porter said that put the pool at a bit of a disadvantage price wise.Winfield’s electric utility is owned and operated by the city and acquires power mostly through contracts with commercial power companies.
The city helped found the power pool in 2005 in hopes of creating an entity with more buying power and influence than individual cities might have.
Under the terms of this newest deal, the power pool would be locked into a formula price from Westar. That means the price pool members pay would only go up if Westar ? which serves a number of Kansas cities, including Ark City ? raised the price it charges its own residential and commercial customers.
Without such a deal in place, Porter said, the power pool, and Winfield customers, have been subject to the fluctuation of the wholesale energy market. That meant prices were locked in for no longer than a year at a time.
"We feel like this would put us on more of an equal footing," Porter said.
The deal will go into effect Jan.1 provided the power pool can find members willing to purchase the entire block of power Westar is offering.
Winfield has committed to purchasing just under half the available power. The power purchased would be just part of a diverse portfolio of energy sources the city uses to fulfill its power requirements, Porter said.
