One issue legislation will have to address is whether municipalities can form an energy buying group that combines municipal electric needs with residential electric load. We believe that aggregtion groups will be most effective and achieve the greatest price reductions when they combine the electric needs of different types of customers. Such groups are more efficient for an electric utility or marketer to serve, because the combined needs of businesses, towns and residents means the utility can predict and provide a relatively steady flow of electricity. It's called a balanced load curve, and that's what you want in an aggregate. A group made of entirely residential customers would be relatively unattractive for Suppliers, because it presents an unbalanced load curve and does not require a steady supply of electricity at all hours.
Residential customers turn on home appliances and lights in the morning.
Demand goes down during the day and back up again in the early evening. Ratepayer Advocate believes that suppliers will only compete for New Jersey's residential consumers if aggregated groups can include the municipal load with residential customers and those commercial customers who choose to participate. No customer can be included in the opt-in aggregate unless he affirmatively signs up. The difference is that instead of going to each individual to ask them to sign up, the community could do it through a public town hall meeting and a public education campaign. By obtaining the consent of the residents to aggregate them automatically, the municipality achieves the critical advantage of assembling a large and relatively certain aggregate of customers.