PETOSKEY — Petoskey will continue to participate in the Clean Energy programs at least through 2025.

At their Sept. 19 meeting, city councilors unanimously voted to continue participating in clean energy programs through Franklin Energy for the year 2023 through 2025 at the existing customer service rates.

The mandate that required utilities to have energy efficient programs had a sunset clause that allowed non-regulated utilities to stop offering energy efficiency programs as of Dec. 31, 2021. Despite no longer being mandated, 36 out of 40 Michigan utilities continued to offer programs through 2022. Now, the Michigan Public Power Agency, along with the Michigan Municipal Energy Association and Franklin Energy are working to create and implement the Clean Energy program in 2022 and seeking commitments from member utilities to renew the program.

Petoskey first began participating in Clean Energy programs in 2009 through the agency. The agency contracted Franklin Energy to perform turnkey energy efficiency services for Petoskey and other members throughout the state.

Since then, Petoskey has offered the Energy Smart program where residential, commercial and industrial customers can receive rebates for replacing old devices and appliances with new, energy efficient models.

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The program is funded through service rates. Residential customers are charged $.0018214 per kilowatt of usage, which would add up to $.91 per month for a customer that used 500 kilowatt hours.

Commercial customers are billed at a flat rate based on the number of customers they serve. Secondary commercial pays $6.61 per month, while primary commercial pays $88.12 per month.

The city has 5,331 total electric customers: 4,386 residential, 930 secondary commercial and 15 primary commercial. Commercial customers alone bring in about $7,469.10 to the program each month and about $89,629.20 each year.

Also through the agency is the Voluntary Green Pricing program, which allows customers to choose how much of their energy comes from clean sources. Customers have the option of 25 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent or 100 percent and are charged $0.01 per kilowatt hour of renewable energy.

Councilors discussed the pricing program in a previous meeting where city manager Shane Horn said in 2021, the program had 183 participants and in 2022, the program has 220 participants. Councilors expressed surprise that participation increased when inflation has caused the cost of everyday expenses to spike.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Petoskey to continue clean energy programs through 2025