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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-10-07 Utilities Advisory Commission Summary MinutesFINAL UTILITIES ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES OF OCTOBER 7, 2009 CALL TO ORDER Chair Melton called to order at 7:00 p.m. the meeting of the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC). Present: Commissioners Berry, Eglash, Foster, Melton, Waldfogel, and Council Member Yeh Absent: Commissioner Ameri ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Bruce Hodge of Palo Alto Cool Cities encouraged the UAC to become more engaged in reducing carbon emissions. He wants Utilities to have a carbon neutral electric supply by 2012. Hodge claims that this is doable since hydro already counts for 45%, there are a growing amount of other renewable supplies and the balance can be taken care of with the purchase of offsets. This should cost only ½ cent per kilowatt- hour, a 3-4 % rate increase, and the cost increase could be more than offset by implementing cheap efficiency improvements. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES The minutes from the September 2, 2009 UAC meeting were unanimously approved with two corrections. Commissioner Eglash identified a correction in the Oral Communications section. The second paragraph should read, “The second speaker felt that the harmonic distortion generated by the electric chargers would not have a significant negative impact on the electric distribution system and neutral conductors would not need to be replaced.” And Commissioner Foster recommended a correction on page 6 of the draft minutes, under Item 3, paragraph three, line one, should read, “. . . helpful to businesses like his,”. . . AGENDA REVIEW No changes to the agenda were proposed. REPORT FROM COMMISSION MEETINGS/EVENTS Commissioner Berry reported that the NCPA Annual meeting was a great opportunity to meet with representatives from sister cities. He said that that general conference included discussions of legislative initiatives and was a good meeting to learn about the current issues, including the Renewable Portfolio Standard. Commissioner Foster also attended the NCPA Annual meeting and reported that ex-U.S. Representative Vic Fazio discussed carbon emission reduction legislative attempts and predicted that the federal cap-and-trade bill won’t make it through this year. Although Fazio favors a carbon tax, he believes that it is not politically viable. Foster also enjoyed the financial management speaker on current bond rates. Chair Melton attended the Keller Canyon landfill gas to energy project ribbon cutting event. He noted that the contract was signed four years ago and that the renewable energy from the project cost no more than brown power at the time. Council Member Yeh added that he noticed how many different entities and agencies came together as partners to get the project done. Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 1 of 8 UTILITIES DIRECTOR REPORT Utilities Director Valerie Fong delivered an oral report on the following items: 1. Electric-related Hydro Conditions: The water year ended September 30 with Northern Sierra precipitation very near average and stream runoff only about 60% of average indication the Shasta watershed was refilling its ground water sponge after two dry years. Central Valley Project reservoirs are about 38% below average storage for this time of year and future generation is projected to be low as reservoirs attempt to refill. On the other hand the Calaveras project’s reservoir storage is 31% above average for this time of year as low power prices did not tempt the release of much water for generation. 2. Water Supply Conditions: The hydrological conditions for the SFPUC’s system for September shows cumulative precipitation Water Year 2009 (October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009) was near normal resulting in full capacity in all up-country reservoirs. Seasonal conditions in the Tuolumne River Basin were some of the best conditions in California. The latest SFPUC Regional Water Consumption Report details the current level of water usage relative to an index year (calendar year 2004). Consumption for the January 1st to September 29th time period is approximately 14.01 % below the index year. Palo Alto’s consumption was 17.2% below the index period. 3. Economic Stimulus Funding Application & Awards: a. Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant (EECBG): The EECBG grant for LED street lights and the Home Energy Report have been approved. Staff is now waiting for funds to be received. Once funds are received, a Request for Proposals will be issued for the Home Energy Report. Utilities Electric Engineering will be completing the LED street light project. Staff already had to complete its first quarterly report, as the approval was received just prior to the end of the federal fiscal year on September 30. 4. Smart Grid Evaluation: On October 1st, staff issued an RFP for consulting services to develop a smart grid strategic plan. The responses will be received in November, actual council approval of consultant contract is scheduled for February and work is expected to commence in February or March. Staff thanks Commissioner Eglash and Vice Chair Waldfogel, along with Don Von Dollen the City’s smart grid expert advisor, for their input to develop the RFP scope of work. The RFP is available at the City website. www.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/asd/current_solicitations.asp 5. Evaluation of Energy Efficiency Potential and EE program status update: Staff is working with NCPA, NCPA’s contractor (Summit Blue) and in-house resources to update the energy efficiency potential. The electric update must be delivered to the California Energy Commission with the annual energy savings report early in 2010. More information on the electric and natural gas energy efficiency potential studies will come to the UAC in November. Preliminary evaluation suggests that City may assume a $25/ton to $40/ton of CO2 equivalent number when developing the marginal cost of electricity and natural gas supplies. At $40/ton, the CO2/green premium adder is equivalent to 2 cents/kWh and $2/MMBtu respectively. The energy efficiency Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 2 of 8 potential will be different based on the green adder. The final energy efficiency 10 year targets will be brought to UAC for approval in Feb/March timeline. For the water revenue bonds for the Emergency Water Supply and Storage Project, the City received an AAA rating from Standard and Poor’s and an AA3 rating from Moody’s. The 2009 Water Revenue bonds were awarded to Morgan Keegan yesterday (Oct. 6). The winning bid was for taxable Build America Bond with a true interest cost (TIC), after the 35% federal interest subsidy, of 3.513%. The favorable market condition for highly rated municipal issuers has resulted in this TIC. The TIC prior to the federal subsidy is 5.362. (Commissioner Berry requested a copy of the ratings agencies presentations.) 6. A pre-meeting to discuss agenda topics with the Mayor and Vice Mayor before the November 9 Joint Study Session is scheduled for Thurs., October 29, 5:00 – 6:00 P.M. Since Vice Chair Waldfogel is unavailable to attend, Chair Melton asked the other Commissioners of their availability. Commissioner Foster agreed to attend the pre-meeting with Chair Melton. UNFINISHED BUSINESS None. NEW BUSINESS ITEM 1: ACTION ITEM: Proposed Rates Policy Senior Resource Ipek Connolly presented an overview of the Rates Policy. She first noted that the purpose of the Rates Policy was to capture existing practice and that it provides a high level framework for consideration of future rate changes. The policy does not contain anything new or reflect anything different from current guiding principles. The policy allows many rate structures, but does not support declining block rates or large fixed charges as they would not promote efficient use of resources. Connolly noted that the proposed policy contains three required elements: 1) recovery of all costs; 2) equitable returns to the City; and 3) no undue discrimination and no subsidization between customer classes. It also contains three desirable attributes: 1) simplicity and understandability; 2) easy and low cost to administer; and 3) rate assistance for low income and medical necessity where legally allowed. The key objectives that must be balanced include: 1) rate and revenue stability and 2) encouraging the efficient use of resources. Rate and revenue stability is achieved by the use of reserves and the use of fixed charges. Encouraging the efficient use of resources is achieved by using tiered pricing for residential customers, the use of time of use and seasonal price differentiation and by using marginal costs as a price signal, where applicable. Chair Melton stated that he had received one card for public comment on this item. John Kelley stated that staff had done an excellent job recognizing the peril we are in with respect to climate change and has tried to incorporate the community value of environmental protection into what it does. He offered some changes to the Rates Policy and handed out wording changes to be considered to include the promotion of “decarbonization.” Kelley stated that rates may need to rise to fight climate change. He stated that tiered pricing, whereby more use is priced at a higher rate, should be used for all customers, not just residential customers. He also noted that the City does a poor job of communicating pricing structures to the public and asked that Palo Alto be a leader, not a laggard, in this respect. Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 3 of 8 Commissioner Keller asked if the proposed policy was new and, if not, how it compares to the existing policy. Connolly answered that it was new, but that it was consistent with past practice. Keller asked about whether ratepayers can be shielded from the equitable return to the City and stated that “equitable” should be defined and that the these returns should be balanced between the City and the ratepayers. With respect to the Rate and Revenue Stability objective, Keller believes that it is more important for rates to be predictable than stable, as that is better for planning. Keller supports the Efficient Use of Resources objective, but believes that it should cover the full life cycle of the resources. Commissioner Foster said that he supported the policy as is and agrees with John Kelley’s comments. He asked if there were any substantive disagreements with Kelley’s comments. Chair Melton wanted to reserve comment on Mr. Kelley’s input until he had more time to consider it. Commissioner Keller asked what time period is contemplated for the Recovery of All Costs of Service objective. Keller noted she supports flexibility in that objective so that prices don’t ramp up and down quickly in response to volatile energy markets. Assistant Director Jane Ratchye clarified that the recovery of costs objective means that the costs must be recovered over time, but not necessarily in the year incurred and pointed out that the reserves policies have a range between the minimum and maximum guideline levels to guide long-term financial planning and to support stable rates. Commissioner Eglash stated that the proposed policy was a good first step, but that he is concerned that it doesn’t achieve what we want to achieve and that it is too vague and general to be useful. He advised that if we were going to develop a Rates Policy, it must have sufficient detail to understand its implication. The proposed policy is so high level that it fails the test of being a useful document. He advised staff to step back and ask why we need a Rates Policy at all. Eglash advised starting with a simple description of what we do since that is useful to communicate with the public. It would be helpful to have a description of portfolio management goals and tiered pricing. The policy could also be used as communication from the Council to staff – a plain English description of direction to staff – and also useful if Council wants to change its direction. Chair Melton stated that the presentation was a small step more detailed than the Rates Policy itself and agreed with Commissioner Eglash that staff should develop more detail while recognizing that rate setting requires judgment and is not all prescriptive. He noted that when the Energy Risk Management Policy was discussed that the commission felt that the Commodity Pricing Policy section was misplaced and should instead be in a Rates Policy. He advised staff to refer back to that section of the Energy Risk Management Policy and make sure that the Rates Policy contains the issues raised there since we now have a vehicle for these items. Commissioner Eglash said that it was not his intent to get his fingers into staff business and he didn’t want to impose heavy handed oversight, but just to improve two-way communication. Commissioner Waldfogel agreed with Eglash and Melton and commented that a reader can’t tell if some items would or wouldn’t follow the policy. He also noted that electricity is a very inelastic good, so we can only do so much with pricing to encourage efficiency and that education and communication is perhaps more important and effective in encouraging efficient use of resources. Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 4 of 8 Commissioner Berry indicated that he would wait to comment until the next meeting when a revised policy was brought back and agrees with comments that have been expressed. He asked what it means when Council adopts a policy and asked if they would be hamstrung. Director Fong replied that the policy would be written so as not to hamstring Council. Chair Melton summed up the discussion saying that the UAC has provided staff some comments and thoughts and would like to see the next draft in one month for UAC action. Commissioner Foster indicated that it was better to have this Rates Policy than no policy. Fong stated that staff will try to bring it back to the UAC in November. ITEM 2: ACTION ITEM: Topics for Joint Study Session – Council & UAC Chair Melton is to meet with the Mayor and Vice Mayor on October 29 to develop an agenda for the November 9 joint meeting with the UAC and Council. He noted that the items discussed previously for possible discussion with Council included: 1) use of Calaveras Reserve funds – however, there is general agreement between the UAC and Council on how this would be done; and 2) the appropriate balance between the UAC’s focus on policy, plans, rates issues, legislative and regulatory issues, and environmental issues. Commissioner Foster said that they may want to discuss the appropriate role of the UAC, especially in those areas outside of Utilities Department. Chair Melton said that it may not be productive to bring this topic to the full Council since the Ad Hoc Subcommittee is working on it. Council Member Yeh said that the UAC may want to bring up particular topics such as off-bill financing or public outreach. Commissioner Eglash noted that the Council decided to review the UAC’s role and chose the mechanism of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee to do it. If a commissioner wanted to provide input into that process, he could email a member of the subcommittee. Foster indicated that he wanted the commission to discuss it to see what it collectively thinks, not to provide only his opinion. He said that first the role of the UAC should at least be expanded to cover all things the Utilities Department covers. Second, covering environmental policy is trickier since it goes outside the department, but that he is open to having that role. He noted that the renewable energy purchasing policy was already in the domain of the UAC. The third area is community outreach, in which he supports an active role for the UAC. Commissioner Keller said that she thinks the Council looks to the commission for advice on many matters. She asked what was intended by an expanded role for the UAC in community outreach. Council Member Yeh stated that this could be neighborhood meetings, use of the web site, or community forums. Commissioner Waldfogel noted that although recycled water is under the purview of the UAC, it does go beyond the Utilities Department since it is the Public Works Department that is in charge of wastewater treatment plant, which is the source of recycled water. Commissioner Keller stated that the UAC has a full plate already and cautioned that the commissioners spend their volunteer time wisely. Speaking to the idea of the UAC taking on a greater role in community outreach, Commissioner Foster would like the Council to state clearly what they want the UAC to do. Commissioner Foster asked if they could ask Council what they wish the UAC to provide with respect to environmental issues. Commissioner Keller asked if there could be more communication back from Council to the UAC if there was disagreement on an item. ACTION: Commissioner Melton moved that the UAC request the chair to bring the topic of the role of the UAC to be considered by the Mayor and Vice Mayor for the joint meeting agenda. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Foster. The motion carried by a vote of 4 to 2 with Eglash and Berry voting no. Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 5 of 8 Chair Melton asked for other ideas. Commissioner Eglash said that outward communication from the City to residents and ratepayers is an area recognized as needing attention and some commissioners have expertise in that area. Melton listed three items to consider: 1) the appropriate balance for the UAC’s focus between policy, plans, rates issues, legislative and regulatory issues, and environmental issues; 2) communications with Council and back from Council; and 3) ways to provide additional and improved communication to ratepayers. Commissioner Waldfogel stated that communication to and from Council was important. Chair Yeh indicated that topics that the Mayor and Vice Mayor may bring up include the colleague’s memo on water savings and a ballot initiative sponsored by PG&E that could have a negative impact on Palo Alto. Chair Melton indicated that he would advise the Mayor and Vice Mayor that Council Member Yeh mentioned the topic of the ballot initiative. ITEM 3: DISCUSSION ITEM: Initial Policy Review of the 2010-15 Capital Improvement Program Assistant Director Tomm Marshall provided an overview of the 2010-2015 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) in advance of the development of the budget for FY 2011. The purpose of the report is to provide a general outline of the CIP Budget Process, to list the major considerations used in preparing the CIP, to share a preliminary copy of the CIP for UAC review, and to solicit feedback from the UAC on areas of interest regarding the CIP. Marshall noted that although the budget document contains 5 years of CIP projects, the Council approves CIP budgets for the first year only so that the remaining 4 years are conceptual. The five objectives of the CIP are: 1. Obligation to provide service to new customers within the city. Budgets reflect a reduction in customer connections due to the economic downturn. Customer connection costs are reimbursed by the customer. The amount each utility collects varies depending upon the equipment supplied by the utility. 2. Required to meet regulatory requirements or laws New safety rules from the State or Federal Government may require a change to the infrastructure. New requirements from agencies such as the California ISO, Department of Health Services, Department of Transportation, etc. may require new infrastructure. 3. Investment in infrastructure to maintain service reliability Council approved an accelerated infrastructure replacement program in the early 1990’s, since we were behind on replacements. We are catching up now. Infrastructure is evaluated based on age, reliability, and visual inspections and replacements are planned 5 years in advance. Work is coordinated and reprioritized to be completed prior to street resurfacing where possible. 4. Continue existing policies These policies and programs include accelerated infrastructure replacement, conversion of overhead electric systems to underground, collection of connection and capacity fees from new water customers, and emergency water supply enhancement. 5. Improve efficiency of the utility systems or provide significant environmental benefits. Examples of these projects include conversion to LED streetlights, implementation of projects related to smart grid, using boring technology and new pipe materials for water replacement work, and 4/12 kV conversion projects. Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 6 of 8 Commissioner Waldfogel thanked staff for providing this information early. He asked if the objective each project was proposed to meet could be identified for each project. In addition, if the age of the infrastructure that needs to be replaced could be provided. Marshall said that this could be done. Regarding the electric CIP projects, Chair Melton asked about the underground districts continue to occur on a schedule even without participation of AT&T. Marshall said that there are areas where AT&T will participate, but that they have indicated that they will not participate in residential areas. Director Fong advised that the subject of undergounding electric distribution lines would come before the UAC in the future – the topic is tentatively scheduled for the UAC’s January 2010 meeting. Chair Melton asked why there was no project to upgrade the connection to the transmission system in the 5-year plan. Marshall explained that there are many issues that need to be worked out before putting a project in the budget. In addition, it will be an expensive project that will be bond financed and not funded as the normal CIP projects by the rates. On the gas CIP projects, Commissioner Eglash noted that costs increased dramatically for some projects. Marshall replied that in general the CIP work is done at a steady pace and expenditure are relatively steady, but the budget sometimes looks lumpier since the budget must be there at the beginning of a project and sometimes projects are combined. Commissioner Keller asked why the ABS pipe had to be replaced after a relatively short life and whether there was anything wrong with the material. Marshall indicated that the pipe was put in 25 to 30 years ago and, at that time, it was considered an acceptable material, but now it is clear that it was not a good choice. With respect to the water CIP projects, Commissioner Keller asked if the Emergency Water Supply and Storage project was on schedule. Marshall replied that it is on a schedule and that the reservoir construction is still a year away to allow for the design to be completed. Keller asked the status of the recycled water project. Marshall stated that it is still being pursued, but that there are several issues that must be addressed including water quality, specifically salinity; completion of the environmental document; and the pursuit of grant funding or partnership opportunities. Commissioner Waldfogel asked if reliability data could be supplied to the Finance Committee to help them review requests for CIP funding. Marshall replied that the CIPs each year are targeted for the areas of greatest need, but that sometimes there are other considerations such as aligning with other projects to minimize street disruption. Director Fong added that we plan to proceed ahead with the CIPs and that there are risks that one takes by delaying CIPs with an infrastructure related to public health and safety. Chair Melton asked if there were any items that would raise rates above normal. Marshall replied that the spending is kept relatively steady year to year. Fong recapped the two recommendations she heard from the Commission to help in the review of the CIP budget when it comes back to them in May: the average age of the infrastructure and which objectives each project is designed to meet. Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 7 of 8 Utilities Advisory Commission Minutes Approved on: November 4, 2009 Page 8 of 8 ITEM 4: ACTION ITEM: Potential topic(s) for Discussion at Future UAC Meetings Chair Melton requested that the commission review the 12-month rolling calendar and asked for additional items that the commission would like to be placed on future agendas. Ideas included the PG&E ballot initiative and Council colleagues’ memo on water savings. Director Fong advised that if the Council approves the colleague’s memo, this will be direction to staff, and staff will follow that direction. INFORMATIONAL REPORTS The following reports were provided for information only, but were not discussed by the commission:  Update on Local Distributed Electricity Generation Opportunities and the City’s Local Capacity Needs Meeting adjourned at 9:55 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Marites Ward City of Palo Alto Utilities