Coal or Wind?
I read with interest Brian Newton's letter advocating support for a $95 million, 30 year investment in buying and re-starting the experimental coal fired power plant in Healy at the same time suggesting it will keep your electric rates low and look toward the future.
Brian failed to mention this large investment which, if instead was invested in the proven wind resource at Eva Creek near Healy, could provide half as much electricity with NO fuel cost and NO carbon output. Thinking long term, it seems like a 0 fuel charge vs. a fuel charge likely to have substantive regulation and
carbon based taxes is a better deal, but not to most of the GVEA board and management. The only way GVEA said they’d do Eva Creek is if they get a full grant. Should we wonder why they don't find a grant for the coal plant. Oh, darn, I forgot, both the state and feds already granted $300 million for it and still GVEA needs more.
GVEA has continued to raise rates to pay for loans for numerous capital projects in recent years' past, not just the fuel cost. Don't expect your rates to go down with another coal plant. We still have to pay off loans, including a new one for over $65 million for regular annual construction.
What about an energy efficient appliance replacement program? GVEA could provide a subsidy to ratepayers equal to the reduced consumption over a period of time. But WAIT, they don't WANT electricity usage to go down because they'll need to raise the service charge again instead of making oil the boogyman. Is there something wrong with this picture?
It seems hard for the entrenched to visualize a sustainable future. If GVEA can lobby so hard to get the membership to give up ownership of 3/4 of the utility's assets as they tried and failed a few years ago, I bet they could sell us on a 25 mw wind farm. Or give you a new refrigerator.
Healy Clean Coal Plant fracas developing
Well, it looks like a fracas is developing around the Healy Clean Coal Plant. Here's a few links illustrating the issue:
• GVEA's official page on the HCCP
• AIDEA's page on the project
• SourceWatch page on HCCP (contains several newslinks and material on related coal-power projects)
• Brian Newton's Community Perspective piece in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, July 19, 2009
• Andrew Halcro posts on the deal
• Larry Mayo's Community Perspective piece in the News-Miner, Feb. 21, 2009
•"Alaska lawmakers get the lowdown on the future of the Healy Clean Coal Plant," Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June 19, 2009
• miscellaneous stories and articles in the News-Miner, sorted by date
• "HEA, coal part ways," Peninsula Clarion, July 23, 2009
• Coal-is-dirty.com
• Solstice Light on clean coal
• Rep. Mike Kelly's history of the HCCP
• "Exploring Clean Coal Technology", Valve Magazine, part one and part two.
• "Coal: Alaska's Other Black Gold," by Brian Yanity, Insurgent49, part one and part two.
A search on the web will bring up more, of course.
Labels: Healy Clean Coal Plant
Member comments at GVEA Annual meeting
There were 17 people who spoke during member comments at the 2008 annual meeting of GVEA, some chafing under the newly imposed 2 minute limit. The draft minutes will be up for approval by the membership at the April 28, 2009 annual meeting with only a general summary of who spoke and that "the topics ranged from the status of HCCP to affordable and renewable energy and made requests for a better dialogue with the Board."
I find this to be a less than complete record of member comments. Those that spoke deserve the recognition of attribution for what they said and GVEA needs to be able to keep a functional record of this for reference and action. It is true that one can watch the member comments on a streaming video, but that's not exactly easily browsed or is searchable. In fact, when I went to watch them, there were several glitches including a missing section that I only was able to detect because I was at the meeting.
I informed GVEA Board Chairman Bill Nordmark, who in turn informed GVEA CEO/President Brian Newton that I had listened to the video recording and prepared a more complete written record of member comments from the 2008 Annual Meeting and that I was prepared to move to amend the draft minutes to include those. They can be found
here.
Brian called me today to ask me not to introduce this amendment as he was concerned about the cost of reproducing this on glossy paper ($10,000) and because members wouldn't be able to view it. I had provided it to GVEA electronically so it could be displayed on the overhead along with all their other presentations. He indicated he would not do so.
I reiterated my desire to have GVEA be more transparent and also respectful of those who put themselves forth to speak. I indicated that, despite a suggestion that the board might be more complete in the minutes in future years, this proposed amendment was in order (in a parliamentary sense) and he agreed.
I have to say that, while I sympathize with the challenges of conducting a large meeting, I felt a bit affronted to be asked NOT to exercise one of the few rights that members have to make at an annual meeting or otherwise, besides voting for a board member or a bylaw change.
I will be making at least 500 copies for distribution at the meeting at my own cost. This will remain an issue in future years as long as any future minutes don't fully reflect what members had to say. Board minutes have also been deficient. Mr. Newton seemed to feel that minutes were the same thing as action memos. I referred him to the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly minutes/action memos for a model of both, are professionally done and delineate the difference.
Feed in tariff article
GVEA Board member Tom DeLong wrote a Community Perspective article on a form of renewable energy incentives at
newsminer.com/news/2009/mar/19/state-should-buy-renewable-power/?opinion. Careful to note that this is his article not representing the GVEA board.
GVEA and Tri-Valley
GVEA formed a wholy owned subsidiary of GVEA called the Tri Valley Electric. This is to be the owner of the 50 mw experimental coal power plant in Healy that has sucked up nearly $400 million of state federal and even a little utility money.
GVEA, for the sum of $90 million in the form of loans from plant owner AIDEA and 5-6.5% interest over perhaps 2-3 decades. Homer Electric had stepped in as GVEA had been most recalcitrant at taking over the plant, so now Homer Electric is guaranteed to get power from it and is able to look over GVEA's shoulder in operating it, likely one reason GVEA created the subsidiary.
Of course, besides committing GVEA member-owners to a dirty fuel (aka clean coal) plant at a time when forward looking suggests a penalty for carbon emissions (Kyoto Protocol II), I'm also working to insure that we member-owners have the same rights as we do now with our property. Previous subsidiaries have come into being in such ways as to exclude the member-owners from meaningful participation.
Alasconnect was the first, the G&T was the second. The former is in operation, the second GVEA was told 'no' by the members, a rare time when they overruled the management-board.
I've asked for the bylaws, but was told the lawyers are still working on them. The
Articles of Incorporation can be found on the
State Dept. of Commerce website.
GVEA Sale Press Release
What the Fairbanks Daily News Miner did with the press release.
If you want to look at more of what GVEA has before tjavascript:void(0)he Regulatory Commission of Alaska, all kinds of fascinating documents await your downloading pleasure HERE.
Rate Case filing and comments
GVEA's rate request is
now filed (click on Comments tab), with a number of comments filed as well, including
my own. The RCA has issued the initial order, moving the process forward.
Getting info from GVEA
As those members who come to board meetings know, GVEA prepares a single binder for members to look at when the meeting starts. This has sometimes nothing but the agenda and more often more info on items that are on the agenda. Members are not given copies or allowed to take anything from the binder. They have to request it on a form and wait for it to be approved/rejected. In order to save paper and make it more efficient to provide, I request the information electronically.
At the July board meeting I requested the following and got them in the mail a couple weeks later with a courtesy watermark on them. I've never seen this done with any requests. Perhaps the GVEA President wants to know where information I get is disseminated or checking up to see that board members don't give me anything - perish the thought that my board representative would share with me! Anyway, I'm baffled by this, but I am pleased to share what should be easily accessible by members.
Nominations Process ReviewThe recent Nominations Process review, after the messy nomination process of District 2 last spring. Note that, of the recommendations on page 4, the board did not approve term limits (item 7). Note also other recommendations which encourage more/better member communications. I'm not holding my breath. Three board members did apparently favor term limits: Tom Delong, John Sloan and Bill Digan (making one think he might not run again, as he's already server about 16 years. The other remaining members that did not support term limits on the board have been on that board in excess of 20 years, I believe.
GVEA Policy 1.2
Cooperative Mission, Vision, Values and Strategic GoalsThis seems like something that members ought to have ready access to and been solicited on input. Instead, it was not provided to members until the meeting and, considering member comments take place at the beginning of the meeting, little time to evaluate and comment.
GVEA Policy 5.4 Equity DevelopmentThis is what determines the basis for rates. It was discussed heavily during the attempted implementation of the Generation and Transmission Co-op. The higher your tier, the more you have to save and the less that comes back to the members in capital credits. There is an amount that generates better credit for borrowing, but it is a balance. I'd recommend learning about TIER (Times Income Earned Ratio) and talking to your board rep.
GVEA 2008 Annual Meeting minutes (draft)These are the minutes the board approved to forward to the membership. Please note that the members who spoke were acknowledged by name only and general topics brought up without attribution. I'd think it would be respectful of members who did speak that they be given one sentence each saying what they spoke about and what their opinion was. If this is not revised, the membership can move to include this information. It would be a lot more helpful if the board asked this be done in advance. It really makes them look bad and really, for no good reason.
I also asked for a copy of the board retreat report. This gave a good picture of the workings of the board, valuable for anyone who might be willing to run and serve. I was told this was an internal document, thus would not be provided. I submit that, it was not considered executive restricted material and was available to members at the meeting, so it should be available to members by copy.
In this posting, I've discussed ways that GVEA makes it hard for members to get information from them. Interestingly enough, in the above strategic goals document, page 1 3. Values, it pledges '
open and transparent communications with our members'. You gotta love those little inconsistencies.
At least one can now see the agendas and minutes (1.5-2 mo. after the fact.)
on line. It only took a 5 year effort to make that happen.
GVEA Rate Study
The GVEA Board is close to deciding on recommended rates following a rate study. Insiders and outsiders like me have been recommending an inverted rate study that makes the first x00 of kwh at a lower rate and then increased in cost/kwh as the consumption goes up. Some of the board members who don't support this indicate that means they would have to increase the monthly service fee. I assert that the less we consume, the less it should cost. Those with a really high demand ought to be paying a higher rate for that electricity, as it requires burning the most expensive electricity. Whatever GVEA comes up with does go to the RCA, so we can have comments then. GVEA in the meantime only gives members a
very elemental view and while asks for comments, doesn't give members any documentation for how they came up with those numbers. I asked for an electronic copy of this, but instead got a printed copy, which doesn't scan very well.
GVEA Districts 1,2 3 election results
MAC volunteers counted GVEA Districts 1, 2, and 3 ballots for their board members this evening. All incumbents retained their seats. district 2, with the publicity over the nominating committee not selecting Tom DeLong, the incumbent and forcing him to run by petition, had nearly double the return of the other districts. District 3 was a relatively close race. The nominee selected to run against the incumbent had already dropped out of the race.
District 1
Mailed out 5156 , valid returned 604 for 12%
Dan Osborne 539 94%
Roy Roehl 30
invalid (including a number of ballots for Tom Delong, who was in District 2) 28
District 2
Mailed out 5973, valid returned 1361 for 23%
Tom DeLong 791 58%
Frank Abegg 504 37%
Lee Santoro 62 5%
invalid 4
District 3
Mailed out 6109, valid returned 778 13%
Rick Schikora 399 52%
Ken Rydberg 375 48%
The remarkable thing to me was that approximately an additional 10% of the ballots returned, not counted above, were ruled invalid because they didn't have the signature of the member on the front of the envelope inside.
According to the GVEA attorney, this is a common percentage, but this means that 10% of the membership that took the time to vote were effectively disenfranchised for lack of following procedure. This is only a procedure, not a bylaw requirement and such a high percentage means to me that this requirement breaks the process and GVEA should look at removing it.
Labels: board election
IRV for board of directors elections?
Using a ranked choice voting system to elect our board members (in district) might help avoid an issue of concern to the recent District 2 nominating committee, whereby apparently eight candidates for the seat were whittled down to two so that there would be no risk of one candidate not getting the required margin to win (for example, a three- or four-way tie) and then having to go for a whole new shiny expensive runoff election.
Having elections using IRV would make it a lot easier to give us a wide choice of candidates, but it would mean
amending the bylaws. What do you think? Is this something we should do?
Might help avoid
dodgy-appearing problems in the future as well as save money.
Labels: board of directors, bylaws, elections
GVEA and Chugach Electric among top ten CO2 producers in the state
From
Kodiak Konfidential comes this interesting news about our biggest utilities: Chugach Electric is #4 on the list, and GVEA is #6:
4. Chugach Electric Association
1.07 million metric tons CO2
Electricity
...
6. Golden Valley Electric Association
0.69 million metric tons CO2
Electricity
That's a lot of CO2. All the more reason to get off the grid with renewable energy, or
support net metering (as in House Bill 288), or the SNAP program.
Labels: net metering, pollution, renewable energy
Cost of Power Adjustment
Speaking of the Cost of Power Adjustment (COPA), GVEA recently filed its
latest quarterly report for COPA. It might take a while to download. They notice the increase in both oil and anticipated coal increases and having less cheap intertie power available. They see a $5.6mm deficit in collection. Expect our COPA to go up substantively.
They also filed their latest Simplified Rate Filing (SRF), which they can submit, as I recall, every 6 months. It comes with much less notice and filing requirements, but they can only increase rates a small amount with each SRF request. Their
latest SRF tariff requestwas just approved.
Regulatory Commission of Alaska website upgrade
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) has upgraded
their website with a lot of fine features for finding out about utilities' issues before the RCA. I urge all those who can take 15-30 minutes to browse a subject or utility and see what goes on and how the process works. Power to the people and hats off to the RCA for making their regulatory of model of openness.
And if you think GVEA has issues
Just to let folks know that, by contrast to Matanuska Electric Association (MEA) and Chugach Electric Association (CEA), GVEA is quite stable as far as board, membership, and executive administration relations.
MEA tried to ram a coal fired power plant down the members' and
communities' throats, but finally
appears to have reconsidered.
CEA has had a running back-and-forth battle between two camps on the board of directors. They recently appointed a new board member to fill a vacancy who I was told really has no idea what a cooperative is and put her on a committee to get the current CEO. This is politics at its base and it hurts the utility. The members get riled up by some factions claiming the IBEW union, who represent the employees, are taking over.
The Chugach board's latest move is a
special board meeting called for this coming Wednesday to
fire General Manager Bill Stewart. No reason given except they want to go in a different direction, with no hint of what that direction might be.
Rebecca Logan (new appointed board member, Uwa Kalenka and Elizabeth Vazquez will comprise the committee to search of a new GM. I'm told that many good employees are bailing out. This sounds to me like a majority of the board is on a political purge. Ray Kreig, former board member, has been most active in
engineering this takeover by avowed anti-union board members. I certainly admire activism and the espoused goal of more openness, but have seen no indications that the recent or future board actions empower the members.
When they aren't fighting internally, they
sue each other. MEA doesn't generate any of its own power, relying on AML&P, Homer Electric, and Chugach for their generation.
Not to say, while all this acrimony goes on, they don't try to get together, with recent reports that Chugach is investigating merger with AEL&P and still working on a joint agency to deal with
upcoming supply issues.
Now if they could only get Fire Island wind project off the table. Non-renewable resource costs aren't getting any cheaper, nor are climate change impacts going away without some serious mitigation.
