Above / What would Ben Franklin say? A legendary jack-of-all-trades and avid risk taker during his inventive 84 years, in 1752 Ben Franklin demonstrated to the world that lightning is electricity when he flew a kite during a thunderstorm in Philadelphia.
One of the hot topics of interest and resolve that will be addressed at the August 19, 2025, City Council meeting is the City’s contract with the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA). The meeting begins at 7PM Tues., Aug. 19, in Council Chambers at the Naperville Municipal Center 400 S. Eagle Street.
The City’s website includes details about the ordinance and resolutions for the Electric Utility that were submitted by Brian Groth, Electric Utility Director. In addition to reading Groth’s review, we are hopeful residents will take time to visit the IMEA website at www.imea.org.
For many years, your PN editors have regularly visited www.co2coalition.org to keep tabs and an open mind on information regarding worldly views on this topic.
This week’s City Council agenda includes, “Ordinances and Resolutions / Pass the ordinance authorizing the execution of a new power sales contract with the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency for the delivery period commencing October 1, 2035.”
According to the full text of City’s online post that features “Board/Commission Review,” as presented by Groth, “The City of Naperville Public Utilities Advisory Board (PUAB) concurred with the City’s consultant, Customized Energy Solutions, and voted 4-3 in favor of contracting with IMEA for a delivery period commencing October 1, 2035, and for City staff to immediately begin working toward execution of a contract which will fulfill the MDR option provided for in the new contract.”
Background of developments state: “The Naperville Electric Utility’s (Utility) current power provider, the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA), has been providing services to the City of Naperville Electric Utility since 2007 and electricity since 2011. The IMEA serves 32 municipal electric utilities across the state by securing the required capacity and energy for its member communities. In addition to providing power, the IMEA also handles several administrative, legal, and regulatory services for the Utility.
“The City’s existing contract with IMEA expires on Sept. 30, 2035. Planning to acquire adequate power to meet Naperville’s needs and operational and administrative services beyond this timeframe is a multi-year effort. This work includes a significant amount of information gathering and exploration of different power procurement options since the various scenarios could require years to scale up resources.”
Further discussion featured on the City’s website includes that “the IMEA presented the City with a contract extension in early 2024. Numerous discussions have taken place since then including a series of educational presentations to the City Council in the Spring of 2024.
“The City Council approved hiring a consultant to evaluate its options in December of 2024.
“In the Spring of 2025, three PUAB meetings were held to hear the findings from Customized Energy Solutions (consultant), CJT Law (consultant), IMEA, and Naperville Environment & Sustainability Task Force (NEST).
“On July 28, 2025, a Long-Term Energy Options workshop was held with the Naperville City council so Customized Energy Solutions, CJT Law, and NEST could present findings and recommendations.”
Letters and phone calls to PN
Since that July 28 meeting, this publication has received letters, pro and con, regarding the City’s continuing membership in IMEA. Several of those long letters are published below. (For future, kindly limit letters to PN to less than 500 words. Less than 350 words are preferrable.)
Over time, and our watching more than 11 hours of discussion in Council Chambers, we have learned to embrace that most people have a strong opinion on whether human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing unnatural global warming. And we wonder if many who embrace that opinion understand how the molecule physically absorbs and then releases heat energy. As noted earlier, we regularly visit www.co2coalition.org to keep tabs on information far beyond Naperville.
Considering the Naperville Electric Company and the City’s buried power lines, Naperville, Illinois, has long been energy savvy.
Another point that everyone who advocates for and against might want to consider is that this discussion is an economic issue that will impact all ages of Naperville homeowners and Naperville businesses regardless of party politics. Moreover, this decision as currently proposed by the majority of City Council will disproportionately impact the elderly and low-income families in Naperville—as another phone message just told us as we were trying to wrap up this post.
Stephanie Penick, Positively Naperville
In addition to many phone calls, the following “Greetings from PN Readers” have been received. We know it’s long. Special thanks for taking time to read to the bottom.
Letter #One
Renew Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) now
To PN:
The Naperville City Council needs to renew our membership in the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) now, as recommended by the City’s Public Utilities Advisory Board. The opponents of this logical fiduciary step seem to base their opposition on four basic assumptions – all false.
First, that IMEA is some sort of mean-spirited, rapacious corporation funded by evil fossil-fuel interests. IMEA does what its member municipalities tell it to do. It takes no profits, but merely passes on the costs of its services to its members. Our NEU director is the Vice Chairman of the IMEA board of directors. IMEA works for us, as well as our fellow member cities. In that sense, IMEA is “us”, and not any sort of “them”.
Second, the opponents sloganeer that leaving IMEA would be saying, “Say no to coal”. If I had to craft a “renew IMEA” slogan, it would be “Say No to Coal — but faster within IMEA.” If we let our membership lapse, our electricity will largely remain at 19% clean. But IMEA’s membership renewal contract provides allows us to buy an additional 25% (a total of 44%) electricity from clean sources almost immediately — as soon as 2026 — faster.
Third, renewal opponents argue that the rapid addition of wind and solar generators will allow us to buy very cheap, clean power in 2035 when our IMEA membership expires. The July 22 Chicago Tribune article, “Sticker shock for ComEd customers” (www.chicagotribune.com/2025/07/22/comed-supply-rate-bill-increases/) reports the recent large increases in power prices to their customers and predicts further large increases. A recent article in The Economist reports independent predictions of power price increases of 74% by 2035. IMEAs coal and solar generators are rather well-insulated from the wild price fluctuations common in fuel markets.
Fourth, opponents assert that it will be cheaper to ditch our current generators and build new power plants they claim can replace them. Economics 101 and common sense tell us that the expense of building new power plants, compared with continuing the use of partially- or fully-depreciated generators, would cost more, not less. It is foolish to shut down economically viable generators so they can be replaced by new large facilities, especially ones that are functionally inferior.
The inferiority of wind and solar stems mostly from the fact that they produce only when they “want to” — an average of only 25-30% of the time, depending on the time of day, the season, and the weather. If I build one megawatt generator that generates less than 25% of the time (like solar in our area), then I need at least 5 megawatts of solar panels to produce an average of one megawatts for us customers (because some electricity is lost when charging and using batteries). To use a personal analogy, are there any readers here who would buy a car that runs only when the weather is right?
Under Illinois’ Climate and Jobs Act, our grid’s large backup gas-fueled generators must be shut down starting in five years – and completely so by 2035. If Naperville leaves IMEA, that is exactly when we will be buying power on a market with reduced supplies and increased demand. The IMEA opponents now claim that by then, there will be cheap magical new technologies ready – an enormous and risky bet they are placing with your money. And the increased costs will be borne disproportionately by our many lower-income families (25% of Naperville), whom the Naperville Electric Utility frequently refers to Loaves & Fishes Community Services for financial assistance.
The Naperville Public Utilities Advisory Board’s (PUAB) statutory purpose is to provide the City Council and City Government with sound advice on highly technical matters. The PUAB’s volunteer members include people with experience in energy markets. If the City Council fails to renew our IMEA membership, it will be ignoring (1) the recommendation of its own PUAB, (2) all of the 30 other member municipalities that are renewing, and (3) the explicit recommendation of the consultants it hired to exhaustively explore the other options. Very few of our citizens even know about the IMEA issue, much less attended the 15 hours of PUAB workshops about it. This indicates to me that the overwhelming majority of Naperville residents just want the City Council to do the right thing for them.
If the City Council fails to renew, buckle up for far higher electricity prices with minimal greenhouse gas emission reductions. Let them know what you think before the August 19 vote.
Roger Blomquist, PhD, Captain, U. S. Navy (retired)
Letter #Two
Local Residents & Advocates urged City Councils to Reject IMEA Contract Extension
July 28, 2025– Local residents and advocates today urged the St. Charles and Naperville City Councils to vote no on a proposed 20-year contract extension with the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) that would extend the municipalities’ reliance on expensive dirty coal. Both cities must vote by August 19 on a proposal to extend their contract with IMEA, which purchases power in bulk from a variety of sources including the Prairie State coal plant. Residents and advocates argue that extending the contract will lock municipalities into fixed electric rates until 2055 without competition while also straying from Illinois’ commitment to transition away from its reliance on health- and climate-harming fossil fuels.
“I am deeply concerned about the prospect of St. Charles signing a long-term contract that ties us to a form of energy that is not good for the planet or my grandchildren,” said St. Charles resident Lynn Elam. “Signing a long-term contract with IMEA doesn’t just sign us up to continue to rely on the Prairie State coal plant’s coal. It also signs us up for increased air pollution, increased climate emissions, and reliance on an expensive form of energy that does nothing to stabilize our grid. I am urging the St. Charles City Council to say no to coal and say no to IMEA.”
Currently, about 80% of Naperville and St. Charles’ electricity comes from coal, which is more than five times the state average. IMEA purchases power from the Prairie State coal plant, which contributes to an estimated 76 premature deaths every year.
Becky Simon, President of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, implored the city councils, “Ask yourselves — would Naperville or St. Charles consider this contract renewal for even one moment if the power plant was located right here in Naperville, rather than hundreds of miles away, out of sight and out of mind? We must be good neighbors, just as we expect others to be good neighbors to us.”
In addition to concerns about the continued reliance on health-harming and climate-warming coal, residents are concerned that the contract is financially risky. IMEA’s contract lacks basic financial safeguards, such as pricing transparency, competitive bidding, or performance benchmarks. There is no mechanism in place to ensure that rates will remain competitive with market prices or account for the rapid decline in costs of renewable energy and battery storage.
“This contract is a bad deal. There’s no pricing, no price incentives, and no price benchmarking in the contract,” said Fernando Arriola, Naperville resident and member of the Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force. “What’s more, IMEA’s modus operandi is an old, outdated way of doing business. Their approach blocks members and suppliers into long-term contracts, which isn’t the way to go in a dynamic environment. The current market is very dynamic, and we need more flexibility. We need to shop around and find a better deal.”
Neither St. Charles nor Naperville have explored alternate options beyond the contract with IMEA. If renewed, Naperville and St. Charles would be locked into their respective contracts until 2055.
“If IMEA’s contract is renewed, I’ll be 47 years old when the contract ends. I’m here today because this isn’t just about policy, it’s about the kind of world my generation will grow up in,” said Rakshita Ruparel, a student at Naperville North High School. “IMEA’s own ‘Sustainability Plan’ doesn’t aim for net-zero emissions until 2050, basically when the proposed contract ends. So why should we wait that long to act when cleaner, more affordable options are already available today? Battery storage, local solar, flexible and shorter-term energy contracts are real, proven solutions that are available to us today. If our leaders won’t think about the future, who will?”
The Naperville City Council and St. Charles City Council’s operations committee will discuss the contract at respective evening meetings on July 28. Both municipalities must vote on the proposed contract extension by August 19.
“As the Trump administration rolls back critical climate protections and clean energy tax incentives, Illinois has the opportunity to do better,” said Reverend Kari Nicewander, Senior Minister at First Congregational Church in Naperville. “The state already leads on climate. Naperville and St. Charles can continue that legacy and put our communities first instead of doubling down on our reliance on coal. The moral imperative to explore alternate energy sources is clear. We have an ethical obligation to those around us, and to those who are to come, to care for our environment in ways that are sustainable, intentional, and sometimes, difficult.”
“We’re saying no to coal because it’s good economic policy, because it just makes sense, and because we care about our future and our children and our grandchildren,” said Pastor Ben Sloss of the Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church. “But we also need to say no to coal because we have a moral imperative to do so. Whether you’re a person of faith or a person who just cares about our beautiful city, say no to coal and help us move forward.”
Hannah Flath, hannah@ilenviro.org, (860) 634-0225
Letter #Three
Vote with PUAB to renew IMEA
Dear Mayor and City Council:
Please note my endorsement regarding the need of the Naperville City Council to renew our membership in the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) now, as recommended by the City’s Public Utilities Advisory Board. That way, Naperville can secure stable electricity supply.
The opponents of this prudent step (mainly the outspoken members of the Naperville Environment Task Force or “NEST”) seem to base their opposition on outdated and misleading information regarding cost of solar and wind power, uncertainties that cannot be predicted.
Since AI data Centers throughout the state and nation are expected to double in the very near future, their high use of energy is important to consider no matter where we live.
To be prepared for AI and all its power-related needs (known and unknown), please open your minds and vote to continue reliable service by renewing the IMEA contract.
Sincerely,
Wendy Schild, Naperville
Letter #Four
Support for Renewing IMEA Contract in Alignment with City Council Mission
Dear Naperville City Council,
The City of Naperville is at a pivotal decision point: whether to renew its long-term contract with the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA). While I currently serve as Chairman of the Public Utilities Advisory Board (PUAB), the views expressed in this message are my own.
The Naperville City Council’s Mission Statement is clear: “To provide services that ensure a high quality of life, sound fiscal management, and a dynamic business environment, while creating an inclusive community that values diversity.”
IMEA directly supports all these goals.
- High Quality of Life
IMEA provides reliable, affordable, and 45% carbon-free power—key to maintaining Naperville’s environmental quality and standard of living. - Sound Fiscal Management
IMEA’s not-for-profit structure and ownership of generation assets, allow for long-term cost stability, about 30% lower than ComEd rates.
If Naperville walks away:
- We have lost the investment made over the past 15 years in paying down our share of IMEA’s infrastructure.
- We remain obligated for 10 more years of payment without receiving benefits for paying off approximately $650,000,000 in bonds.
- We forfeit access to lower-cost energy—estimated at $25/MWh, when the bonds are paid off, continuing to make our power costs cheaper than market alternatives.
- Dynamic Business Environment
Stable energy prices are critical for attracting and retaining businesses. IMEA’s long-term cost predictability helps support job growth, investment, and sales tax revenue for essential services. Leaving exposes businesses to market volatility amid growing demand and shrinking supply. - Inclusive, Diverse Community
Affordable energy disproportionately helps low-income residents, supporting socioeconomic diversity. IMEA keeps utility costs manageable, making Naperville more accessible to all. Leaving risks increasing inequality and undermines our shared commitment to inclusion.
Final Thoughts
The PUAB has studied this decision thoroughly. IMEA’s future is secure, but Naperville risks substantial financial and social losses by exiting. This is a moment for leadership. Renewing the IMEA contract honors the City Council’s mission and secures a strong future for our community.
Sincerely,
Louis Halkias, Chairman, PUAB (serving in personal capacity)
Reminder! Naperville City Council meets at 7PM Tues., Aug. 19
The 9-member Naperville City Council meets at 7PM today, Tues., Aug. 19, in Council Chambers located in the Naperville Municipal Center at 400 S. Eagle Street. The agenda is a long one! Click here then scroll all the way down to see it all.
Thanks always for paying attention to important votes.
Anyone with an opinion about an issue in general or a specific item on the agenda is welcome to submit written comments until 4PM and to sign up for public comments until 6:30PM on City Council days. https://www.naperville.il.us/…/city-council-speaker…/
Update, Aug. 20, 2025 / Kindly watch the online video from the Aug. 19 meeting that included more than 25 public comments, mostly comments from individuals expressing pros and cons regarding the Naperville Electric Utility’s (Utility) current power provider, the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA). The public discussion begins about 54 minutes into the meeting as Item L-2: naperville.granicus.com/player/clip/1726.
After one of the most interesting City Council meetings ever, PN aimed for a photo opportunity, a time also to show a little appreciation to Councilwoman Allison Longenbaugh, Mayor Scott Wehrli, and all who serve this City.
Here’s why: At the end of all the deliberations, Longenbaugh announced unexpected and heartfelt news that she is retiring from City Council as of Aug. 25, 2025. The councilwoman has accepted an employment opportunity that does not permit her to serve public office.
Longenbaugh, a critical thinker always prepared with thoughtful Q&A, surprised the City.
PN thanks Allison for her dedicated run to serve that began May 7, 2023. Cheers to success and good fortune with exciting new opportunities!
Thanks for reading!
