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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEnergy Board - Minutes - 09/13/2018Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Fort Collins Utilities Energy Board Minutes Thursday, September 13, 2018 Energy Board Chairperson Nick Michell, 970-215-9235 City Council Liaison Ross Cunniff, 970-420-7398 Energy Board Vice Chairperson Amanda Shores, 408-391-0062 Staff Liaison Tim McCollough, 970-305-1069 Roll Call Board Present: Chairperson Nick Michell, Alan Braslau, Stacey Baumgarn, Bill Becker, Jeremy Giovando Late Arrivals: Vice Chairperson Amanda Shores, Krishna Karnamadakala Board Absent: Greg Behm, John Fassler Others Present Staff: Tim McCollough, Christie Fredrickson, Lindsay Ex, John Phelan, Lance Smith Platte River Power Authority: Paul Davis, Alyssa Clemson-Roberts Members of the Public: Rick Coen Meeting Convened Chairperson Michell called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. Public Comment None Approval of August 9, 2018 Board Meeting Minutes In preparation for the meeting, board members submitted amendments via email for the August 9, 2018 minutes. The minutes were approved as amended. Announcements and Agenda Changes Mr. Phelan distributed an infographic for the Climate Action Plan and the 2017 Energy Policy updates. 100 Renewable Energy Community Goal Resolution Tim McCollough, Deputy Director Utilities Light & Power John Phelan, Senior Manager Energy Services Lindsay Ex, Senior Manager Environmental Services (attachments available upon request) The Utility’s goal is to align with Platte River’s goals and mission statement on reliability, and the triple bottom line focus: financial sustainability, reliability, and environmental stewardship. Staff received direction from City Council to bring forward a resolution aligning with the Energy Policy and the Climate Action Plan for consideration by October 2. Over the last few months, staff has completed stakeholder and community outreach leading up to the October 2 hearing, including visiting many other City boards and commissions and a Triple Bottom Line Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Scan. The Triple Bottom Line Scan is a tool composed of about 30 questions to help staff analyze any policy or project from a triple bottom line perspective. The primary takeaways from this scan were: social responses were largely neutral, economic impacts had the greatest range and lowest confidence, and environmental impacts were the most positive and highest confidence. Board member Braslau commented that in such an analysis, staff may be asking the wrong questions, and Ms. Ex said staff hopes this tool shows that a potential project or policy is generating a positive impact, regardless of the confidence level. Chairperson Michell asked the presenters to clarify size of the circles in the triple bottom line scan graphic. Ms. Ex said the size of the circle is dictated by the variability, the larger the bubble the more variation in the responses. Mr. Michell said perhaps the circle size should instead be correlated to the importance of the issue. Ms. Ex said added this tool is very much in a 1.0 stage and if the board would like to dive into the tool on a deeper level staff would be happy to come back and collect their feedback at another session, but it’s intended as a snapshot at this point. Vice Chairperson Shores said she found the graphic is very confusing and Chairperson Michell agreed. Ms. Ex said the Board’s feedback has shown her that it would be helpful for staff to include the One-Pager document with their materials for Council to provide additional context. Mr. McCollough asked the Board a few questions: Do they recommend Council adopt the resolution as written, does this item align to the Energy Board’s charter, and does the Energy Board have any feedback they’d like to provide to Council regarding this resolution. Board member Becker said it seemed like the Utility was putting all the responsibility and control on Platte River to be 100% renewable, with little to no responsibility on the City. Mr. McCollough said some of Mr. Becker’s concerns are addressed in section four of the resolution, where collaboration efforts and contributions are expressly acknowledged. Board member Baumgarn asked why the term customer was used, as opposed to citizen, and said it makes him feel like a revenue stream as opposed to a member of the community. Ms. Ex said there is a general avoidance when using the word citizen because it can feel exclusive, since not everyone is a citizen. Board member Braslau suggested resident, but Ms. Ex pointed out that excludes businesses. Board members discussed other potential terms, such as community, that are more inclusive. Board member Braslau moved the Energy Board recommend City Council adopt the resolution as written by staff. Board member Giovando seconded the motion. Discussion: Board member Becker said it’s important to acknowledge that the City of Fort Collins has to support this goal through the distribution system and the role they have to play, support, and contribute in this project. Mr. McCollough suggested adding the language “and supported by Fort Collins Utility’s distribution system,” and Mr. Becker said he would be amenable to that as it satisfies his concern. Chairperson Michell asked staff to clarify the bullet point stating “improve distributed generation resource performance,” and Ms. Clemson Roberts said the point they were intending is every piece of equipment they have needs to be a little bit better—it needs to work together better and be integrated better. Board member Baumgarn asked if Council gets the same level of background information as the Energy Board, and staff confirmed they do receive that information. Vote on the Motion: It passed unanimously, 7-0, with two absent. Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Chairperson Michell asked if the Board should write a memo to detail their feedback, or if they should speak at the October 2 Council meeting. Mr. McCollough said both are valuable, and which avenue they choose is the Board’s prerogative. Chairperson Mitchell indicated that he intends to speak to Council on behalf of the Board and invites any other members to attend the October 2 Council meeting if they so wish. Extend Tiered Rates for Customers Enrolled in Manually-Read Metering Services Tim McCollough, Deputy Director Utilities Light & Power (attachments available upon request) Mr. McCollough explained there is a slight delay in Time of Day deployment for a small subset of customers, roughly 175 manually-read customers. Manually-read meters require a physical visit to the customer’s site and thus require specific capabilities for accurately and efficiently downloading electric consumption data. Time of Day requires new metering hardware for this customer group, but the manufacturer is experiencing unforeseen production delays and they are unable to deliver the new meters prior to the October 1 Time of Day implementation. Staff will be asking Council to adopt an ordinance extending the current tiered rates for all manually-read customers enrolled in manual reads as of August 31, 2018. All other customers eligible for the Time of Day rate will transition to the rate as originally planned. Mr. McCollough asked if the Energy Board supports the ordinance? Chairperson Michell asked what happens if a new customer requests a manually-read meter before the new meters are deployed. Mr. McCollough said the Utility will offer manual meters upon delivery and advise the customer of the monthly meter-read fee, which may increase in the future. He said staff will likely recommend a fee increase at some point in 2019 because the current fee is not sustainable for the hardware, and administrative and field work needed to manually-read this customer group. Chairperson Michell moved to recommend Council adopt the tiered rate extension for customers enrolled in manually-read metering services. Board member Braslau seconded the motion. Discussion: Board member Braslau said he imagined it is legally necessary to offer manually-read metering services. Mr. McCollough said it is not necessarily legally required, but it is a service the Utility decided to offer when smart meters were deployed. Board member Baumgarn asked if there is any incentive to convert the manually read customers, and Mr. McCollough said the primary incentive is the monthly fee. Vote on the Motion: It passed unanimously, 7-0, with two absent. Budgeting for Outcomes Input Tim McCollough, Deputy Director Utilities Light & Power (attachments available upon request) Chairperson Michell said a few Board members attended the Super Issues Board Meeting where staff presented an overview of the City Manager’s Recommended budget. He said though they didn’t discuss the specific items the Energy Board discusses, he noted population is up, inflation is up, but sales tax only increased incrementally and overall the budget looks very tight. Mr. McCollough noted the Current Offers section of the budget is considered the core offers, “business as usual,” and he pointed out in particular Light and Power Core Operations Offer 8.2. In the last budget Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 cycle, staff worked to hold operating expenses as close to flat as possible, and there are modest increases happening in this budget cycle to maintain that closeness. Mr. McCollough noted the available reserves listed as $340,000 is not the actual available reserves, but rather this is number needed to fund this budget as written. It is reflective of a 5% rate increase in 2019 and another 5% rate increase in 2020, that will build the revenues needed to support everything above the line in the budget. Mr. Phelan reviewed Climate Action Plan offers that were funded, and a group of enhancements that were unfunded. He proposed including an additional 0.63% rate increase in 2019 to fund some of the environmental health enhancements, including Energy Efficiency, Non-Residential Solar Programs, Bring Your Own Thermostat, Battery Storage Demonstration, and Energy Code Compliance FTE Conversion. These offers total $857,188. This optional rate increase package needs to be approved separately (from the 5% increase) by Council. Board member Braslau said offer 8.27 Electric Distribution Training Field is also very important and the offer is currently below the line. Mr. McCollough said the training field can provide training opportunities and safe practices on a structure that isn’t energized, such as pole climbing and confined space rescue. He added staff will not allow safety to be compromised if the offer goes unfunded, and there are opportunities to collaboratively train with Longmont or Loveland utilities. Board members commented they are disappointed this offer is unfunded since it has been on the table for several years. Chairperson Michell asked what happens to the programs that are currently up and running if they don’t receive new funding, Mr. Phelan said many of the programs are pilots and conceptual ideas, so they haven’t built the customer relationships yet. If they were funded, it would give them the capacity to roll it out on a larger scale. Chairperson Michell also asked if staff knows by how much a monthly bill is actually going up, an average or a median number, since the utility is saving kilowatt hours through the efficiency programs? He is concerned that a 5.63% rate increase is going to be a difficult sell to Council. Mr. McCollough added an important detail to consider is the City’s Platte River partner cities are also considering healthy to strong rate increases in their utility services. Board member Baumgarn said he believes it’s important to support these programs because the Energy Board has always supported CAP programs in the past and these programs support and are in alignment with the goals of the Energy Policy. Vice Chairperson Shores said she is unsure what to think about additional increases when wages are so stagnant. Board member Becker moved to support Council’s inclusion of an additional 0.63% electric rate increase in 2019 (5.63% total) to fund the proposed CAP offers. Board member Giovando seconded the motion. Vote on the Motion: It passed unanimously, 7-0, with two absent. Board member Braslau moved to recommend to Council to fund the Light and Power Training Field out of the Light and Power reserves. Chairperson Michell seconded the motion. Discussion: Board member Baumgarn wondered if the training field is Mr. McCollough’s priority for Light and Power, or if there is another unfunded offer he would rather choose to support. Mr. McCollough said Light & Power staff is disappointed the Training Field was not going to be funded, and he supports board member Braslau’s motion. Board member Karnamadakala asked if land has already been purchased, and Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Energy Board Minutes September 13, 2018 Mr. McCollough said land is acquired and design is done, so everything is ready for construction once weather permits. Vote on the Motion: It passed, 6-0, with one abstention. Approve 2019 Work Plan Nick Michell, Energy Board Chairperson (attachments available upon request) Board members contributed a few edits and suggestions to the Draft 2019 Work Plan, they felt like Chairperson Michell’s draft was well outlined and not too constrictive and thanked him for the work he put into completing it. Board member Becker moved to adopt the 2019 Work Plan with the Board’s suggested changes as discussed. Board member Baumgarn seconded the motion. Vote on the Motion: It passed unanimously, 7-0, with two absent. Board Member Reports Board members attended the Board Super Issues meeting, there is a summary of the meeting available for those who were unable to attend. Future Agenda Review Mr. McCollough asked if the board would be open to cancelling the October work session so board members can attend Platte River’s public PR Integrated Resource Plan meeting. The EV Readiness Roadmap presentation will be moved to November or December. The Board supported this suggestion and the October work session will be cancelled. Adjournment The Energy Board meeting adjourned at 8:41 p.m. Approved by the Energy Board on October 11, 2018 ________________________________ ______________ Board Secretary, Christie Fredrickson Date 10/11/2018