40A:66-2 Findings, declarations relative to municipal shared services energy authority.

2. The Legislature finds and declares that for many years, municipalities in the State have had the power to construct and maintain facilities for the generation and distribution of electricity; that nine municipalities and one rural electric cooperative presently own and operate electric utility systems for the benefit of their residents and businesses; and that the generation and distribution of electricity has evolved from a local and statewide endeavor into a national marketplace and this evolution has resulted in a system where the size and sophistication of the market participants influence the ability to efficiently compete in the marketplace.

The Legislature further finds and declares that the ability to reserve sufficient electric capacity at reasonable prices to ensure safe, reliable, and efficient electrical power to local businesses and residents is paramount in the present marketplace, and the ability is contingent on the power to contract for the generation or delivery of a sufficient quantity of wholesale power and to act as a contracting partner in long term, short term, and spot market wholesale power supply contracts; and that given this evolution of the electric supply marketplace, the municipal electric utilities operating in New Jersey should be authorized to act jointly to achieve greater efficiencies in the procurement and generation of electric power at the wholesale level to benefit the retail customers in the participating municipalities.

The Legislature further finds and declares that the operation of electric utility systems by municipalities and the improvement of these systems through joint action in the wholesale procurement of electricity and transmission services, and in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power and energy within the corporate limits and franchise areas of the participating municipalities, are in the public interest; and that the establishment of a municipal shared services energy authority by municipalities that currently own or operate electric utility systems will ensure the continued viability and stability of these systems, by enabling municipalities to act jointly to develop coordinated bulk power and fuel supply programs, post collateral, and act as a market participant in these programs, thereby providing the means to pursue efficiencies and savings for retail customers within their corporate limits and franchise areas.

The Legislature therefore determines that it is in the public interest to permit existing municipally-owned or operated electric utility systems to act jointly through the voluntary creation of a single municipal shared services energy authority, to authorize the authority to perform according to standard electric industry practices, in order to aid in promoting the stability and viability of these systems, and to achieve the efficiencies and savings for the retail customers of these utility systems located within the corporate limits and franchise areas of the participating municipalities.

L.2015, c.129, s.2.