27 IMEA Member Municipalities Contract to Continue with the Agency
Date Posted: 2025-04-24
At its April 24 meeting, The Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) Board of Directors voted to approve three additional contracts from current member municipalities seeking to continue their beneficial relationship with IMEA through 2055. With the approval vote at this meeting, the cities of Carmi, Ladd, and Peru join 24 other members who have chosen to continue with IMEA.
This action brings the count to 27, or 84% of the agency’s current municipal members, who have voted to retain their long-term affiliation with the agency. The contract these municipalities signed is much the same as the current contract that has served members well for so many years.
There is one new offering in the contract whereby a member municipality can subscribe a percentage of its peak demand in Illinois-based renewable and carbon free resources. This option, called a “member directed resource” (MDR), can begin as soon as a member extends the contract with IMEA.
Additionally, outside of the contract, IMEA member electric systems that own their own qualified local generation units are also being offered an extension of their capacity purchase agreement. Under that agreement, the agency compensates the city for the agency having the ability to call on its municipally owned generation units and pays the fuel costs for those units when they run during critical times of high demand on the electric grid.
Cory Sheehy, who is the Director of Public Works for the City of Marshall, IL, and the Chairman of the IMEA Board of Directors, touted the stable power pricing that IMEA provides its members as the primary reason so many member communities have decided to stay with the Agency. He cited that for fiscal year 2024, power was 3.8% lower than the original budget amount, and the average costs to members over the last three fiscal years have been remarkably consistent following the pandemic in fiscal year 2021.