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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEnergy Board - Minutes - 07/13/2023 ENERGY BOARD July 13, 2023 – 5:30 pm 222 Laporte Ave – Colorado Room ROLL CALL Board Members Present: Bill Althouse, Thomas Loran, Marge Moore, Bill Becker, Alan Braslau (remote), Steve Tenbrink Board Members Absent: Jeremy Giovando, Vanessa Paul, Brian Smith OTHERS PRESENT Staff Members Present: Christie Fredrickson, Phillip Amaya, John Phelan, Brian Tholl, Lance Smith, Poorva Bedge (remote), Rhonda Gatzke, Councilmember Canonico, Kendall Minor, Cyril Vidergar Members of the Public: Kevin Stearns MEETING CALLED TO ORDER Chairperson Tenbrink called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm. ANNOUNCEMENTS & AGENDA CHANGES None. PUBLIC COMMENT None. APPROVAL OF MINUTES In preparation for the meeting, board members submitted amendments via email for the June 8, 2023, minutes. The minutes were approved as amended. PACKET ITEM Q&A Board members commented on reliability during severe weather events. Mr. Amaya said reliability is still very strong, but there were two transformers (modified overheads that were not meant to be underground but were installed out of necessity) that flooded and were pumped after this year’s record-setting rainfall. Board members asked for clarification on some of the financial updates within Mr. Smith’s slides included in the Board’s meeting packet. Mr. Smith explained the internal services fund supports general utility things for all four utility services, there is a monthly transfer into that fund and at the end of the year the budget will be reconciled based on what was spent throughout the year. Mr. Phelan announced that the Utility was awarded the grant for their Zero Carbon Performance Code Implementation under the Resilient and Efficient Codes Implementation of the IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). SECOND APPROPRIATION OF FUNDS FOR A MODERN CUSTOMER INFORMATION AND BILLING SYSTEM Lance Smith, Director, Financial Planning & Assets, Utilities ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING Mr. Smith recapped what the Customer Information System (CIS) is and the purpose of the funding request. The CIS is a modern customer self-service portal and billing system on a hosted platform. The Utility is replacing its current 22-year-old billing system, which is essential to providing Fort Collins Utilities customers the best and safest best customer experience to interact with their community owned utility. The priority is to provide accurate billing, convenient billing solutions, and comprehensive real time data that enhances our customer's understanding of how they use energy and water and how much they cost. The project is expected to take two years to implement, beginning October of 2023, and cost a total of about $14 million to implement, plus an ongoing annual subscription fee of $1.25 million per year. Staff previously came to the Energy Board to request an initial funding appropriation of $4.25 million to kick off project management, quality assurance, contract review, and contractual staffing. The Board supported this request and understood there would be an additional funding request later in 2023 once the solution provider was selected. Tonight, staff is seeking support for an additional $9.7 million in funding to support Software as a Service (SaaS), software licensing, organizational change management, testing protocol development and management, training development and initial training, and business process analysis and alignment. Board member Althouse said he was disappointed that the distributed energy resources management system (DERMS) won’t be collecting data for rate base data. Mr. Phelan said that our current billing system has integrations, and there are planned integrations between the new DERMS and the new billing system. The billing system calculates the values, dollars, and cents, and the DERMS has data and two- way communications with all devices. The calculations reside in the billing system, as they should. Board member Becker asked if there will be money saved by not dedicating resources to the old system? Mr. Smith said there are some resources being saved, but the subscription fees are higher than the current maintenance cost of the existing system (approximately $700,000 annually). Board member Moore moved the Energy Board support bringing an appropriation ordinance forward for the consideration of the full City Council to support the licensing and full implementation of the modernization of the Utilities Customer Information System – Customer Self Service Portal. Board member Becker seconded the motion. Discussion: Board member Loran said it is very important to have a flexible system that is adaptable to support modernization. Board member Moore agreed and said it would be in the best interest of the software company to be adaptable. Board member Althouse noted that IOUs are so streamlined and advanced in this area and it would be wise to follow their lead. Board member Braslau commented that the Utility has little choice, following the failure of the previous billing modernization project, as the Utility cannot continue with the current system. Vote on the motion: It passed unanimously 6-0, with 3 absent. VICE CHAIRPERSON ELECTION Chairperson Tenbrink nominated Board member Paul as the Energy Board Vice Chairperson. Board members Loran, Althouse, and Braslau all advised they had also planned to nominate Board member Paul. Board member Paul advised via email ahead of the meeting that she would consent to the nomination, if ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING she were to be nominated. There are no further nominations. Nominations are now closed. Chairperson Tenbrink moved to select Board member Tenbrink as the Energy Board Vice Chairperson. Board member Althouse seconded the motion. Discussion: None. Vote on the motion: It passed unanimously 6-0, with 3 absent. ENERGY BOARD OBJECTIVES Chairperson Tenbrink reviewed the Board’s codified duties with the Board and briefly highlighted the Board’s goals from their 2023 Work Plan. Board member Loran said he thinks each presentation should begin with a red/yellow/green dashboard visually showing how the City is meeting its climate goals, even if some of them aren’t updated every single month. Board member Moore added she thinks staff are not as disconnected among themselves as they may appear to the Board, but the Board can ask staff to help draw the connections more clearly. Mr. Phelan said it’s important to point out that the 80% reduction goal has many components but the piece that is critical is petroleum and natural gas, and there isn’t a separate goal in how much we have to save in petroleum and natural gas to meet the community wide goal. There is some additional work that would be needed to refine that goal. Board member Loran agreed and said he hopes there can be second and third level goals to keep us forward looking, not backward. Board member Althouse said he feels as though he cannot get many items from the Board’s work plan on the Board’s agendas. He wants to know why the Board isn’t pushing harder to work to lower rates when other utility companies are adding 100% local distributed resources which are driving rates down. He noted a listed qualification to sit on this board is to be a visionary and innovative thinker and he doesn’t feel like the Board is being visionary or innovative. Chairperson Tenbrink said he does not agree, lowering rates is not the primary purpose of this board. Mr. Minor added coming from a larger utility he thinks that a lot of things Fort Collins Utilities is doing from an energy perspective are working toward the same greater goal as other utilities. Board member Althouse said that there are loans available to utilities to help drive these goals. Board member Loran said as a prosumer himself, Fort Collins Utilities rates are too low, some of the lowest in the country, for it to profitable for him to join a Virtual Power Plant. There is no incentive to share his resources, so he doesn’t see it as lowering rates. Mr. Phelan said two things can be true, there is a lot more that the City could be doing with distributed assets as a municipal utility; however, there are numbers on the gross solar capacity that is possible in Fort Collins. With realistic numbers applied, it comes down to about 10%-15% of electricity use. The solution lies within Platte River and distributed resources; it’s not an or. According to COSSA (Colorado Solar and Storage Association) Fort Collins has the highest density of solar anywhere in the state, but that doesn’t mean we can’t double or triple it. Mr. Vidergar advised this Board is not a policy driving or drafting, a rate setting, or a jurisdictional board. Mr. Loran has provided great constructive plan for positive discussion within the confines of the Board. The Energy Board is a body that City Council has empowered, but this board has always been an ENERGY BOARD REGULAR MEETING advisory board and a resource group of subject matter experts. The function of the Board is not to come up with a whole new set of priorities, but to vet the policy proposals within the set of priorities City Council has set and to vet the policy proposals and evaluate the potential impact to customers and the community, unless Council directs the Board otherwise. Councilmember Canonico added that the Council Ad Hoc Committee for Boards and Commissions has been working on more clarification of the role of Boards and Commissions, Staff Liaisons, Council Liaisons. She noted that Council Liaisons are not supposed to direct the work of the Board, but more to act as the voice of the Board back to the larger sitting Council. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS None. FUTURE AGENDA REVIEW Platte River will be here for the August meeting to present and discuss the IRP. Mr. Phelan will also try to have something prepared for an Our Climate Future metric dashboard. Mr. Smith will be discussing a debt issuance that is intended to fund capital improvements over the next three years for both Light & Power and Connexion. ADJOURNMENT The Energy Board adjourned at 8:03 pm.