PERRY TOWNSHIP — The board of trustees warned township residents of an impending increase in electric rates.

Trustee Jim Armeni said that he had received a notice from the township’s electric aggregation broker NOPEC warning residents that rates are set to rise across the state starting in June this year. According to the notice, in June 2024 PLM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization (rto) that coordinates distribution of wholesale electricity in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington D.C., “held a capacity auction that resulted in dramatically higher capacity prices” for the period of June 2025 through May 2026.

Capacity is the fee which power companies charge to ensure their plants are ready to produce electricity during periods of high demand such as in extreme weather conditions. Due to that auction this fee is set to see an 800% increase, which the notice says will result in an electricity cost increase of 10% to 15%, or roughly two cents per kilowatt-hour for the average household in Ohio.

NOPEC says that this increase is primarily caused by “increased demand for electricity driven by economic and population growth, greater use of electronic devices, and more extreme weather patterns,” and estimates that these increased rates will last for three to five years.

Armeni stressed that NOPEC had no control over the increase, as capacity prices are passed along to all residential and commercial electric accounts in the rto, which includes all Ohioans.

“NOPEC is our aggregation [broker] but they do not control the increase,” said Armeni.

NOPEC also offered several options for households to prepare for the upcoming increase including: investing in energy efficient appliances and lighting; installing smart thermostats; improving home insulation and sealing any drafts; installing solar panels or other renewable energy sources; and changing habits like “turning off lights when not in use, unplugging devices, and using energy-intensive appliances during off-peak hours.”

The board of trustees will meet next at 4 p.m. Feb. 27.