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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEnergy Board - Minutes - 10/08/2020 ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING October 8, 2020 – 5:30 pm Remote – Zoom Meeting ROLL CALL Board Members Present: Amanda Shores. Jeremy Giovando, Bill Becker, Dan Gould, Alan Braslau, Marge Moore, Steve Tenbrink, Sue McFaddin, John Fassler Board Members Absent: OTHERS PRESENT Staff Members Present: John Phelan, Christie Fredrickson, Randy Reuscher, Aaron Iverson, Elizabeth Blythe, Brian Tholl, Becky Hutchinson, Lance Smith, Tim McCollough, Rhonda Gatzke, Theresa Connor, Leland Keller Platte River Power Authority: Wade Hancock, Alyssa Clemsen-Roberts, Trista Fugate Members of the Public: Rich Stave, Nick Michell MEETING CALLED TO ORDER Vice Chairperson Giovando called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm PUBLIC COMMENT None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES In preparation for the meeting, board members submitted amendments via email for the September 10, 2020 minutes. The minutes were approved as amended. ANNOUNCEMENTS & AGENDA CHANGES None. STAFF REPORTS Platte River Wholesale Rate Update (Packet Item Only) Wade Hancock, Platte River Power Authority Board member McFaddin asked if excess generation will be produced by renewable energy or with fossil fuels and how it will increase the carbon footprint. Ms. Clemsen-Roberts said it depends on the time of day and what Platte River is doing. Platte River has contracts on some of their thermal resources, both short term and long term, so it can impact either way. Board member McFaddin said Fort Collins is rated the 19th worst city for ozone in the nation by the American Lung Association, and the Environmental Protection Agency rates Fort Collins ozone status as “Serious”. She believes these measurements and ratings are due to the nitrogen oxides coming off Rawhide Energy Station; and in her opinion, Fort Collins should not wait 10 years to do something about it. Ms. Clemsen-Roberts said she respects Ms. McFaddin’s opinion; however, traffic, vehicle emissions and the airport are all also large contributors to the air quality in Northern Colorado. Platte River’s ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING Rawhide Unit 1 will close by 2030, and they are very much looking forward to a greener and cleaner resource portfolio. Reimagining Boards & Commissions Elizabeth Blythe, Sr. Coordinator, Public Engagement Ms. Blythe said the most recent Council update was on August 11, and staff notified Council that public engagement has largely been delayed, but it will return and continue through the remainder of this year. Staff is planning to go back to Council in the first quarter of 2021 with their final recommendation. There are three tiers of action: Consult (Tier 1), Involve (Tier 2), and Collaborate (Tier 3). Tier 1 includes revised trainings for Board members and staff liaisons, as well as a revised recruitment process. Tier 2’s goal is to improve efficiency through code cleanup and reducing barriers to continue to allow remote meetings. It also includes a revised naming structure (board=advisory commission=quasi-judicial). Tier 3’s items are opportunities and tradeoffs for structural enhancement options, such as fewer but larger groups, reduced meeting frequency, reserved seats for lived experience. Lived experience should equate to a true experience of what that board deals with as opposed to a field expert; for example, the Affordable Housing Board could benefit from someone who lives in affordable housing. Chairperson Giovando suggested each Board member chime in one by one with concerns or questions, if they have any. Board member Becker said he concerned with large groups of non-experts. If the City wants to make innovative progress, he believes they need to maintain focus and not dilute the experts too much. Chairperson Shores said she likes the plans overall, but she would like to see stronger language around inclusivity and diversity in the Boards and Commissions. Board member Tenbrink there is a lot of information at every meeting, and he worries that less frequent meetings would be harder to take in and retain the information being presented to the Boards. Board member Moore agreed that every other month would be difficult for material consumption. She also wondered if there is a chance that the Energy Board will be combined with another board. Ms. Blythe said at this point, Staff has not heard any strong feedback to consolidate the Energy Board. Board member Braslau said he is disappointed that after two years there has still not been much progress with this project. He also wondered if a quasi-judiciary Energy Board would make sense for the City of Fort Collins. Additionally, Mr. Braslau believes there is quite a bit of overlap between boards and it is difficult to interact with other boards which is inefficient for volunteers as well as Staff members. Board member Fassler reiterated Mr. Becker’s thoughts, too large of a group could dilute the discussion, but there is certainly a need for more diversity. Several Board members said meeting less frequently is the opposite of efficiency and thought if anything, the Board needed to meet more frequently than 1-2 times per month. Ms. Blythe encouraged the Board to express their concerns or desires for the future of the Energy Board to City Council. Code revisions will go before council by the end of the year, and a second wave will go by April 2021. 2021 RATES & FEES UPDATE Randy Reuscher, Lead Analyst, Utility Rates This is a follow up presentation to Mr. Reuscher’s update at the Board’s September meeting, per their request to learn more about the individual rate components. The Energy Board voted to support the proposed 3% electric rate increase for 2021, and the Board requested additional information regarding how the increase would be allocated to the individual component charges. ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING Mr. Reuscher displayed a graph with an $8 fixed charge, as well as $12, $16, and $20 fixed charge. Ultimately, by collecting all distribution charges through the fixed charge, it would be close to $28 with recent increases, which is not what the Utility wants. The graph is trying to represent is that with in increased fixed charge, the variable charge would be lowered and that would impact customers differently depending on their consumption throughout the month. Mr. Reuscher showed several increase scenarios: an increase to all distribution components evenly, as well as putting the entire increase into a single component (base charge, distribution energy charge, or tier charge). Currently, most of the revenue is collected through the distribution energy charge, about 60%. 30% of the revenue comes from the base charge and 10% comes from the tier charge. In 2021, Platte River is shifting slightly from Energy costs to Demand costs, and the distribution cost is the majority increase. Each year will impact the rate classes differently because they use the components differently. Board member McFaddin asked which of the components is fixed and which are variable. Mr. Reuscher said there are fixed and variable costs in each of them. Board member Becker said it still feels like the rates don’t reflect the Utility’s costs. We have an opportunity to shift the balance and it doesn’t feel like the Utility is taking advantage of that. Board member Tenbrink said he agrees with Mr. Becker. He also wondered what type of homes the low-use customers live in, apartments or single-family homes? Mr. Reuscher said he is not sure of the individual breakout, but on average over the year, about two-thirds of the Utility’s customers are under the threshold and the other third are in the higher tier. Mr. Phelan added that usage and dwelling type is not as clear cut as you might think, so it is difficult to make a broad generalization about usage. Board member Braslau said it would be helpful to have a discussion with Councilmember Ross Cunniff because he has always opposed raising the fixed charge and have a stronger variable charge to incite people to conserve energy. Board member McFaddin said Our Climate Future is about social equity and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so to align with OCF it would make sense to put the increase into the Energy Efficiency Tier because it incentivizes people who use a lot of energy to use less. She believes this should be the Board’s recommendation. Mr. Reuscher said staff has found little correlation between income and energy consumption. Ms. McFaddin said we need to put greater distance between the tiers to incentivize people to stop using energy. Board member Fassler reiterated that it is not about small apartments or homes; there are many instances of people in large homes with low-energy use, but unless there is a large incentive to lower energy use, a customer may not be motivated. Board members wondered if it makes sense to have a lower rate during the nighttime hours to incentivize charging their electric vehicles, or preheat their water heaters, etc., overnight. ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROGRAMS UPDATE Brian Tholl, Energy Services Supervisor The program achievements through the efficiency portfolio are represented as a percent of the community retail electric use. The Energy Policy has a target of 2.5% by 2020, and over the last 15 years Staff expects to see a cumulative impact of efficiency programs to have been about 15% savings. In 2019 and 2020, results of the portfolio indicated that the year will end just below the portfolio goal of 2.5% savings. Many of the programs are driven by on-site services, many of which were shut down in March with the onset of the pandemic. Staff plans to mitigate the decrease through bonus offerings and ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING alternative program models. Mr. Tholl explained that the program’s committed MWh savings didn’t start seeing impacts related to COVID-19 until the middle of summer; staff suspects that contractors were getting caught up with paperwork. Things have since started to pick back up and the staff is expecting to hit their committed savings goal under budget. The City and Platte River have developed a phasing schedule for the efficiency programs that generally aligns with the State Level Phases. This phasing plan gives staff a clear direction on what service offerings they can work with if the State shifts their re-opening level. Staff also created modifications to some on-site services, such as a Multifamily Program Direct Install Kits. These kits include water efficient products and LED products for in-unit installation. The refrigerator recycling program now offers no contact pick up. Additionally, the Efficiency Works home assessment is now offered remotely. The Smart Meter Savings program works with a vendor who can monitor customers use for abnormalities and scheduling inconsistencies, and then remotely reach out to the customer to help them reduce their usage with a virtual commissioning strategy. In the future, Staff will be working to establish portfolio targets between 2020 and 2030, while also working to identify how to value and frame efficiency in a 100% renewable electricity future. Mr. Tholl said they will need to continue to align DERs and clearly identify the role electrification plays in efficiency programs. Board member Fassler said his perception is that LED lighting has taken on their own identities and perhaps they no longer need to be incentivized. He also noted the Weld County Food Bank was distributing LEDs recently, and he thought that was a great use of funding and maybe a better way to distribute those resources. TRANSIT & TRANSPORTATION UPDATE Aaron Iverson, Interim FC Moves Sr. Manager COVID-19 presented several challenges and opportunities to transportation in Fort Collins, seen in traffic impacts, bus ridership, and bike and scooter sharing. Transit routes, services, and capacities were all impacted while the City also saw a large an increase in teleworking which affected traffic. Traffic in Fort Collins remains about 10% down from the baseline and the rush hours have improved. Transfort ridership bottomed out at -91% on April 30, but the current seven-day average is around -74% (improved when CSU students returned in the fall). Some routes were added back to help facilitate the ridership for students, but there are many mixed emotions due to the risks for passengers and drivers. Transfort is not likely to resume full service before the end of 2020. The City launched a bike share program in 2016 with Zagster, but Zagster ultimately terminated program on May 27 due to COVID-19. The City suspended the e-scooter program in March due to COVID-19, but then relaunched July 8 with 100 Bird scooters. The contract with Bird will expire in December The City will be releasing an RFP (request for proposal) in October to seek a new bike share partner, perhaps combined with e-scooter share. Mode Sharing trends in Fort Collins continue to show single-occupant vehicle trips remain the primary travel choice (76%); however, biking and transit are experiencing strong ridership growth. Commutes to or from the region are also increasing. Mr. Iverson emphasized that studies continue to show that neither ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING technology nor wider roads will solve traffic congestion, and that the City is nearly built out in terms of lane capacity. The City will need to work to understand how to best utilize the space we have. The future of the transit network will have frequency following density, with all routes having a 30-minute headway. There will also be mobility hubs for mode choice, and innovation zones in low-density neighborhoods. The City’s Transportation Master Plan seeks to help the City achieve Vision Zero (a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all). It also hopes to reduce vehicle miles traveled while increasing carpooling, walking, bicycling, and transit use. It also includes dedicated funding strategies and tools to leverage emerging technologies. Board member Tenbrink said the bike paths in Fort Collins only go so many places, and he hopes to see expansion of those in the future. Carpooling is one of the easiest ways to get around, and it could be greatly improved with technology innovation to connect carpoolers. Mr. Iverson said he is aware of some technology, particular for parents trying to carpool their children to school but hopes to see additional expansion of technology like that in the future. Mr. Phelan added that the City has developed a low-stress bike network map in areas where dedicated trails and paths are not available. Board member Gould wondered if there are working public/private partnerships with microtransit with fixed routes and transit. Mr. Iverson said they hope to do a pilot project in the future. Board member Braslau said large developments (for example the mental health facility, Montava, and the Hughes Stadium area) should have a transit plan and solution before the development is created. Mr. Iverson agreed that land-use is transportation and transportation is land-use, but it can be challenging to get everyone on that page. Board member Gould said he read a publication about an installation that would provide electrolytic hydrogen to mix with compressed natural gas for running small buses. Mr. Phelan said the City had a hydrogen program back in the early 2000s and included an electrolyzer and dispensing unit. The electrolyzer never really functioned the way it was supposed to so the bottom fell out. It’s now making its way back but as a potential storage medium. The CSU Powerhouse is looking at a variety of projects exploring this idea. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Board member Gould wondered how the hydrogen electrolyzers would be installed and what their future really is. Mr. Phelan said it is a challenge aligning the uses for the hydrogen and the ability to make the hydrogen. Board member Braslau said commercial electrolyzers works very well, and the hydrogen network is working very hard to promote this idea. Board member McFaddin noted Platte River’s Integrated Resource Plan (the no coal option) is going to their Board for a vote on October 29. FUTURE AGENDA REVIEW There are three meetings remaining in 2020. The Board will use their work session on October 22 to cover Our Climate Future Big Moves. Adam Bromley will be taking over as the Board’s staff liaison in 2021. ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING ADJOURNMENT The Energy Board adjourned at 8:08.