Carbon County will pay a little less for its electricity after locking in a new rate as costs increase in Pennsylvania.

During the commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, while the board conducted business in its meeting room, representatives from Apollo Edison, through Ingram Engineering, sat in the commissioners’ office conducting an online electricity auction.

After the bids closed, Kenneth Antos of Apollo Edison presented the commissioners with the electricity bid results.

The auction had to be conducted and acted on quickly because rate bids were only good for a specific amount of time after the auction.

Antos announced that the bidders submitted pricing for various months of service, including 36, 42 and 48 months.

He reported that for the 36- and 48-month bids, Freepoint Energy Solutions came in lowest with bids at 9.793 cents and 9.744 cents per kilowatt hour for those two options.

For the 42-month bid, Constellation New Energy Inc. of Houston, Texas, which already held Carbon’s electricity contract from 2022, came in at the lowest at 9.723 cents per kilowatt hour.

Carbon County annually uses 2,546,643 kWh for its 46 accounts.

Antos told the board that based on the bids, he recommends going with Constellation’s 42-month option, adding that Constellation is also offering current customers fee waivers to stay with the company.

“That’s a request that we’ve made to have them still waive that June charge, which is about $2,400,” he said, adding that even if Constellation didn’t win the 42-month bid, and was within a 10th of a penny with the other bids, it was still worth going with them because the waived fees evened out the cost.

The board agreed with Antos, making motions to approve the bids and begin the process of executing the new contract, which begins in July.

They thanked everyone involved in the process of the auction, including grants coordinator, Val Saveri, who had previously worked for PPL Electric before her employment with Carbon County.

“Val has really been on top of this,” Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko said.

Antos commended the county for their performance leading up to the auction and added that it was difficult due to things happening in the market that drive prices.

The last time Carbon County held the electricity auction was in 2022, when they chose Constellation for a 36-month contract at a fixed price of 10.636 cents per kilowatt hour.

Carbon County has been conducting electricity auctions since 2010 after the electric deregulation occurred.