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Home My WebLink AboutCOUNCIL - AGENDA ITEM - 07/20/2010 - FIRST READING OF ORDINANCE NO. 089, 2010, APPROPRI DATE: July 20, 2010 AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY IM STAFF: John Phelan _ Norm Weaver T COLLINS CITY COUNCIL First Reading of Ordinance No. 089, 2010, Appropriating Unanticipated Grant Revenue in the Light and Power Fund from the Colorado Governor's Energy Office New Energy Economic Development Program Funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Ordinance appropriates grant funds in the amount of$72,000, received from the State of Colorado Governor's Energy Office. The project funded by the grant will conduct a pilot implementation of the"Carbon City Sustainability Information Management System".(SIMS). This pilot project will strengthen already budgeted initiatives for home and business energy efficiency improvements in Fort Collins. BACKGROUND / DISCUSSION The City of Fort Collins Utilities Department is seeking approval to use grant funds to purchase "Carbon City", an enabling technology platform to track, quantify and report resource usage, consumption trends and demand-side management program effectiveness. The advanced analytics engine integrates utility data,city GIS parcel data, local weather data, numerous associated attributes of structures(e.g., size, date of construction, cost, etc.), property type categories (e.g., condos, schools, businesses) to generate reports, analyses and maps displaying utility usage and energy intensity patterns of individual properties or neighborhoods. The City continues to expand and enhance the programs it offers to customers in the areas of energy and water efficiency and other climate protection strategies. These programs include the Business Efficiency Program, Home Efficiency Program,Home Energy Reports,Green Energy, Load Management and Climate Wise. With this wide array of programs and incentives available to residents and businesses, the City desires to implement Carbon City Sustainability Information Management System (SIMS)to provide comprehensive solutions for increasing resource savings in the community. Lastly,the SIMS will benefit the City innumerous ways beyond the primary focus of the NEED grant. SIMS will provide efficiency and climate related programs with improved focus, better accountability, improved data quality and new program possibilities. SIMS will also leverage new data tracking and expansion opportunities and collaborative efforts with other utilities,local governments and state agencies. Planned initiatives related to the Carbon City platform include Green Building Program and Code metrics tracking, Climate Wise partner web tools for project tracking and GHG baseline calculations, integration with the City's climate inventory and increased social mobilization around carbon awareness. Planned partnerships related to the Carbon City platform include the City's Operations Services Department, Colorado State University, Poudre School District and the Fort ZED zero energy district. Further description of the SIMS is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHrL4ngtN k FINANCIAL / ECONOMIC IMPACTS The Ordinance appropriates unanticipated revenues totaling$72,000, leveraging previously authorized expenditures for staff time and incentives in multiple Utilities programs. July 20, 2010 -2- ITEM 15 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS The"Carbon City"SIMS directly benefits the City's initiatives to alter the greenhouse gas profile of the community, has a positive economic benefit through better targeting of efficiency programs and reduction of citizen's utility bills, and may encourage an equitable deployment of climate-aware programs in Fort Collins. STAFF RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends adoption of the Ordinance on First Reading. BOARD / COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION At its July 7, 2010, meeting, the Electric Board voted 4-1 to recommend adoption of the Ordinance. ATTACHMENTS 1. Electric Board minutes, July 7, 2010 (draft) ATTACHMENT 1 Electric Board Minutes Excerpt from July 7, 2010, Electric Meeting DRAFT DRAFT New Energy Economy Development (NEED) Grant Appropriation Energy Services Engineer Norm Weaver presented the background for an Ordinance to appropriate grant revenue received from the State of Colorado Governor's Energy Office (GEO). The grant totals $72,000 to conduct a pilot implementation of the "Carbon City Sustainability Information Management System" (SIMS). The pilot project will strengthen already budgeted initiatives for home and business energy efficiency improvements in Fort Collins and provide easier access to our customer data. Priority emphasis will be placed on confidentiality and security of data. Board discussion: This program sounds similar to the OPower home electricity reports program. The OPower program is strictly for residential customers. SIMS focuses on the use of many other types of resources, e.g., water data and carbon footprint information (including carbon usage counting), to both residential and commercial customers. The system also has useful features, such as the ability to make selective queries for comparative information. The vendor offers customer-facing portals which may be . useful to Climate Wise partners for group comparisons, employee challenges and other types of opportunities. If the Utility wants to continue to use the software after the pilot project, will the Utility fund ongoing use? The GEO grant covers software licensing and set-up fees in the first year. The City would be responsible for an annual license fee of about $30-35,000 following the conclusion of the pilot. Aboard member encouraged the pilot to focus on the commercial sector. Some businesses still aren't aware of our programs, such as those businesses that still have high discharge lighting. Is Energy Services capable of providing the staffing? Part of the intent of the pilot is to prove out whether our program managers can use this tool with some training. It doesn't require hiring a database specialist. Utilities provides staffing for the Green Building Program that's not a direct impact like this program may prove to be. How will Utilities provide the staffing for both? Data can take a lot more time to go through, and Utilities has a limited number ofpeople and one year to work with the pilot. With the Green Building Program also underway, a board member is concerned we won't put the time into this pilot to learn all that it can do. Managers have planned staffing for the impact of set-up. This tool will hopefully make staff more effective and prove to be of assistance to us on the staffing level. The Green Building Program has been identified as a priority from the top of the organization. 1 Are there other considerations? The impact of the $30=35,000 annual licensing fee for an ongoing commitment is a consideration. Also, the MIS department would send refreshed data updates, which could eventually become an automated process. In the planning going forward, staff will be mindful not to create unmanageable customer expectations, such as daily data updates. How will its success be judged? Metrics will be defined during the set-up phase. We hope to compare the results to metrics from other programs. How does it interact with smart metering data? There could be some redundancies to the data that the smart metering effort will provide. The smart grid initiative is rolling out over a 2-3 year period, and this pilot program may flush out some findings in the first year that can be incorporated into the smart grid program. There aren't many tools for program management to help us look at aggregate data, whereas the smart grid program provides a variety of ways to show customers their data. Motion: Vice Chairperson Yurash moves the Electric Board recommends that City Council approve the appropriation of the $72,000 in ARRA/NEED grant funds for a pilot program to implement a sustainability information management tracking system. Board Member Graham seconded the motion. Discussion on the motion: Does this item have to be included in the budget since the second year could find us funding the system? No, it is outside the budget. Vote on the motion: Four in favor, one against. Board Member Wolley voted against the motion, because his experience tells him these types of programs don't work on a consistent basis. 2 ORDINANCE NO. 089, 2010 OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS APPROPRIATING UNANTICIPATED GRANT REVENUE IN THE LIGHT AND POWER FUND FROM THE COLORADO GOVERNOR'S ENERGY OFFICE NEW ENERGY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM FUNDED UNDER THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT WHEREAS, the State of Colorado's Governor's Energy Office (the "GEO") has awarded to the City of Fort Collins Utilities Energy Service program a grant in the amount of$72,000, (the "Grant Funds"); and WHEREAS, the pilot project funded by the grant will conduct a pilot implementation of the "Carbon City Sustainability Information Management System ("SIMS"); and WHEREAS, no matching funds are required; and WHEREAS, SIMS, an enabling technology platform, will quantify-and report resource usage, consumption trends and demand-side management program effectiveness; and WHEREAS, the SIMS will provide efficiency and climate related programs with improved focus, better accountability, improved data quality and new program possibilities and will also leverage new data tracking and expansion opportunities and collaborative efforts with other utilities, local governments and state agencies; and WHEREAS, Article V, Section 9, of the City Charter authorizes the City Council to make supplemental appropriations by ordinance at any time during the fiscal year, provided that the total amount of such supplemental appropriations, in combination with all previous appropriations for the fiscal year, does not exceed the current estimate of actual and anticipated revenues to be received during the fiscal year; and WHEREAS, City staff has determined that the appropriation of the Grant Funds as described herein will not cause the total amount appropriated in the Light and Power Fund to exceed the current estimate of actual and anticipated revenues to be received in that fund during the fiscal year; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FORT COLLINS that there is hereby appropriated from unanticipated revenue in the Light and Power Fund the sum of SEVENTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS ($72,000) for expenditure in the Light and Power Fund for the pilot implementation of the Carbon City Sustainability Information Management System ("SIMS"). Introduced, considered favorably on first reading, and ordered published this 20th day of July, A.D. 2010, and to be presented for final passage on the 17th day of August, A.D. 2010. Mayor ATTEST: City Clerk Passed and adopted on final reading on the 17th day of August, A.D. 2010. Mayor ATTEST: City Clerk