For the last two months Paul Rosstead and Morgan Caruthers have been working with the Washington Interfaith Network to enter a bulk energy procurement with 15 other faith institutions in the DC area. The purpose of the bulk energy procurement is to reduce the cost of our energy bills by going into a contract as a collective group to receive a reduced the cost per/kWh. After three conference calls, several individual calls, and countless e-mails all 16 faith institutions signed their new contracts on Wednesday, March 2nd.
Those leading the W.I.N. energy procurement were Martin Trimble, Lead Organizer for W.I.N., Felipe Witchger, Lead Organizer, Energy, Partnerships for The DC Project, and Jill Barker, attorney with Betts & Holt, LLP. Under the leadership and guidance of these three the 16 faith institutions were able to learn about the benefits of bulk energy procurements and how this type of endeavor works. The current contract for the WIN energy procurement ends May of 2012, at which time the faith institutions will examine whether they wish to continue with the bulk energy procurement for another year. In the months leading up to the renewal there will be conversations to extend the procurement to other faith institutions that were interested in joining this procurement round but were under contract with their current energy provider until 2012. By having the number of faith institutions involved increase the cost per/kWh could be reduced and give all institutions a lower energy bill.
From this W.I.N. initiative came forth a desire to look into co-op possibilities surrounding other expenses faith institutions have. These conversations will begin taking place sometime in March or April of this year. If these conversations prove to be beneficial for Calvary you will learn of them here on the blog.
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