The Newburgh City Council is exploring a community choice aggregation energy program, which would allow residents to have the best price for energy in the city with Central Hudson still owning the electrical lines.

Community choice aggregation is a policy “that empowers local governments to determine the source of electricity and/or natural gas supply on behalf of its residents and small businesses, reflecting local resources, priorities, and challenges. Energy delivery remains the responsibility of the distribution utility.”

To add the community choice aggregation energy program to the Code of Ordinances, there has to be a local law. The public hearing for the addition of the local law will be on February 22 during the 7 p.m. council meeting. The local law would be voted on afterwards.

At a January work session, the council received a presentation from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority on community choice aggregation.

“I am very excited about this,” said Councilman Anthony Grice. “This is so we can save on our energy costs. It’s going to take about a year because it’s getting the manager and the manager then finding the right source – hopefully renewable energy.”

The process calls for a third-party community choice aggregation administrator who will help find the right source, as Grice described.

Grice said that residents’ Central Hudson bill’s should not go up with this change and could potentially even go down.

Councilwoman Ramona Monteverde said that this would also give the City of Newburgh the opportunity to apply for other grants related to renewable energy and green infrastructure.

“We’re heading in the right direction as a clean and green community,” said Monteverde. “This is just one aspect of it.”

The program will work on an opt-out basis. All customers will be sent a letter of the opportunity to opt-out if they are not interested in the new source of energy.