Unitil Corp. said yesterday it executed its first aggregated onlinenatural gas transaction for a municipality, the Village of Ilion,NY. Usource, a service of Unitil Corp., is an internet-based energyauction service that caters to customers in Pennsylvania, New York andNew England. Usource’s customers include MI Energy, LLC, the New YorkCity Housing Authority and major industrial firms in the region (seeDaily GPI, March 28).

With this transaction the New York municipal has procured gassupply for about 1,000 residential and 30 commercial and industrialcustomers. “This partnership with Usource guides Ilion into thenext millennium, and it further enhances our focus on cost-cuttingand efficient government operations,” said Mark Cushman, Ilion’svillage administrator. Cushman added that the Usource transactioneliminates a troublesome RFP process and provides as many as 50qualified suppliers.

Launched in mid-1999, Usource is a live auction site that allowslarge commercial/industrial customers as well as aggregators topost their energy needs on the Internet for pre-qualified suppliersto evaluate and bid on. The site uses the technology of EnergyExchange developed by enermetrix.com.

Unitil is a public utility holding company with subsidiariesproviding electric service in New Hampshire and electric and gasservice in Massachusetts.

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