Batavia City Council members are expected next week to approve a new energy policy, which would set sustainability goals and provide guidance for future infrastructure upgrades, energy procurement and other investments.

After extensive discussions in meetings since July, the Committee of the Whole members gave a positive recommendation to the Municipal Electric Utility Energy Policy during their Aug. 26 meeting.

The policy is meant to guide the city’s future energy plans and provide direction to current and future City Council members on the city’s priorities regarding electric utilities.

The Batavia Municipal Electric Utility sources its energy via a power sales agreement with the Northern Illinois Municipal Power Agency, or NIMPA, a joint action agency consisting of Batavia, Geneva and Rochelle.

NIMPA draws power from Prairie State Energy Campus, a coal-fired power plant in southern Illinois, of which it owns a 7.6% interest. Prairie sate is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the state and 7th largest in the country, according to EPA data from 2023.

Kane County residents’ concerns over the power plant’s emissions recently played a part in St. Charles and Naperville rejecting contracts with their own energy providers.

Batavia’s energy needs have been a topic of much discussion in recent months, with a recently approved data center expected to require an increase in the city’s energy capacity and about $18 million in facility infrastructure upgrades, including a new transformer.

In March, Batavia hired consultant group Brattle to conduct a comprehensive electric utility planning study, to ensure its energy system remains reliable, affordable and aligned with the city’s long-term goals.

The new energy policy is expected to help guide Brattle on the city’s priorities while it conducts the study.

Batavia Assistant City Administrator Max Weiss has presented drafts of the energy policy at several recent meetings, where council members have tabled it after engaging in lengthy discussions.

The policy recommended at the Aug. 26 meeting outlines a balanced resource ownership structure, in which the city will seek ownership of local, renewable assets like energy storage and grid infrastructure improvements, while contracting larger scale, complex and highly regulated assets and projects to avoid operational burdens.

Per the policy’s climate plan alignment, the city’s energy portfolio and infrastructure plans would be implemented with the goals of reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions to 25% below its 2019 levels by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

The policy also calls for diversification of the city’s resources and investments, with an emphasis on developing local generation and storage resources. It encourages household and community energy systems, including rooftop solar and localized storage by residents, businesses and city-owned facilities.

Per the policy, the city will aim to include renewable energy, storage technologies and stable capacity resources in its portfolio, while avoiding long-term ownership contracts, to balance immediate needs for reliability, affordability and resilience, while allowing flexibility to incorporate emerging and evolving technologies.

At the meeting, Alderperson Jennifer Baerren took issue with the sustainability goals set in the policy.

“I don’t see that as part of a policy. I see that as more of a goal,” Baerren said. “That stood out as something that just doesn’t seem right in there. ... I don’t know if that represents all of our residents here in Batavia. We’ve got residents on both sides.”

Weiss said while the Council will likely have difficulty reconciling current market economics with the goals in the policy, it is designed to be a foundation that the Council can build off when faced with future decisions.

“The state is pulling us in one direction – towards renewable energy, towards decarbonization – and the federal government is trying to pull us in the other direction and ending a lot of tax credits," Weiss said. “You’re going to find that trying to balance all the things you find important is rather difficult. ... It’s going to be a very big challenge to meet those goals, but nonetheless, you’re free to set any goals you want.”

Alderpersons Sarah Vogelsinger, Christopher Solfa and Kevin Malone were in favor of the policy, which they said would function as a good starting point.

“The way I see this is it’s an amendable starting point,” Vogelsinger said. “We’ll put it in, see how it goes and we can change it if we need to. I think it looks great.”

“In the real world, policies are not meant to be the definitive standard. They’re just meant to be guidelines that you try to utilize when making decisions going forward,” Solfa said. “They’re not set in stone and they don’t define what every decision needs to be.”

Committee members gave the positive recommendation in an unanimous voice vote.

The policy is expected to go before City Council at its Sept. 2 meeting for possible final approval.