MILFORD — City Council has moved to update its agreement with Efficiency Smart, an energy efficiency solutions provider it contracts through its long-standing relationship with the Delaware Municipal Electric Corp. (DEMEC).

Rather than the basic package the city had before, it will upgrade to a high-performance plan, council decided Monday.

“When this program was initially being contemplated by DEMEC members three years ago, the Efficiency Smart team put forth a cost-benefit expectation,” said Lou Vitola, the city’s finance director. “Three years later, they have been able to demonstrate the success of the program and basically hit that expectation.”

Therefore, he recommended that council permit city staff to direct DEMEC to upgrade Milford’s plan.

According to a chart provided by Tom Coyle, the director of account management for Efficiency Smart, who gave a presentation before the meeting, the community as a whole would save money in the long run by having the city shell out extra for the new plan upfront.

The chart showed that Milford paid $615,304 over three years for the basic plan, which garners an avoided cost to the city and community of $992,852. That’s a benefit-to-cost ratio of 1.6.

But if Milford were to pay $957,140 over three years for the high-performance plan, they would avoid costs to the city and community of $2,379,479, a benefit-to-cost ratio of 2.5.

The program works by minimizing power consumption, which saves money.

“They’re not suddenly getting some program they didn’t get before. What they’re getting is a bigger savings guarantee from us,” Mr. Coyle said Thursday afternoon.

“The cheapest source of power is the power you don’t use,” he said. “It’s cheaper to pay people and incentivize them and work with them to use less power upfront than having to go out and find new resources for power.”

Efficiency Smart’s job is to help municipalities, including all DEMEC members, conserve power. The organization sets energy-saving goals for the city, and, if it doesn’t succeed in helping the community meet them, the organization has to pay the city back.

“By going to the high-performance, not only do they essentially come close to doubling that megawatt hour or kilowatt hour (savings) goal for three years, but they get enrolled in a plan to save even more power in the summer, when demand is highest,” Mr. Coyle said.

“On the hottest days, when everybody’s running their air conditioning, … there’s the most demand on the grid for power. That’s when power is most expensive,” he explained.

“By reducing the power used during these windows that is determined by the grid,” he said there are “additional savings because they don’t have to buy that super-expensive power or pay to have it transmitted during that peak time.”

Efficiency Smart has already helped numerous individuals and businesses in Milford save power with its soon-to-be-expired three-year contract with the city.

The organization has been subsidizing 99-cent LED lightbulbs, which are sold at Lifecycle and Gigante. Over the course of a few years, he said homeowners will notice savings on their energy bills if they upgrade their incandescent bulbs. According to a slide in Mr. Coyle’s presentation, between March 2018 and January, the organization helped save Milford homeowners $7,943 annually in aggregate.

The presentation also contained some quotes from local businesses that have been helped by Efficiency Smart.

“Efficiency Smart provided the expertise and funding to help (Kent-Sussex Industries Inc.) replace more than 80 light fixtures to complete our transition to LED lighting,” said Shawn Bowman, KSI’s director of facilities management.

“We appreciate the knowledge, professionalism and guidance Efficiency Smart provided and look forward to working with them in the future,” he said.

Nationwide Healthcare Services, which has a facility in Milford, has also saved money through the program.

“This has been a great team effort on all parts, working with the city of Milford, DEMEC and Efficiency Smart, to bring real energy and monetary savings for us now and ongoing,” said Darren Cornish, Nationwide’s corporate director of facilities management.

There was another energy measure passed by City Council on Monday — one that will increase funding to the city’s Green Energy Fund.

“Another way to incentivize energy efficiency, as well as to promote and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy resources in the City, is an enhancement to the Green Energy Fund,” Mr. Vitola said in a letter to the council.

Currently, the city charges a tariff of $0.000178/kilowatt hour of power, which adds up to a roughly $3,500 contribution to the city’s Green Energy Fund each year. But per Delaware law, it’s allowed to double this charge, which would also double the money available in that fund.

“The funds may be used by the City for community-wide initiatives to promote energy projects that ultimately result in a return to ratepayers in the form of lower power costs,” Mr. Vitola said.