Forwarding to other page

Since election to the GVEA Board, I will be using facebook.com/newman.for.gvea for further updates. As a director on the board, my focus will be encouraging communication from within. I encourage your participation.

Newman elected to GVEA board for District 4

After a spirited and active campaign, Gary Newman was elected to the GVEA board to represent District 4 by 55% with 45% for incumbent Frank Eagle. Gary is ready to serve the members when sworn in on June 22. Frank wished Gary well and they will remain friends. The vote was 671 to 561 with an additional 133 ballots not counted because they weren't signed on the outside envelope. This is very common with prior votes as well. Gary will be working to change this disenfranchisement of members.

RCA on Railbelt Utilities working together

he Regulatory Commission of Alaska is holding a special meeting in Anchorage Wed. June 3. They will be discussing their ability to encourage Railbelt utilities to work together for the purpose of shared transmission and generation efficiencies. Complex geeky stuff, To my knowledge, this Anchorage based meeting isn't audio-conferenced except by advance request. From reading the materials, Chugach Electric has one proposal and Anchorage's Municipal Light and Power has another. All seem to agree that working together for dispatch and improved transmission capacities can lead to cost savings, but the devil is in the details. I was a bit surprised at the strident tone of the response by the Independent Power Producers Association. You can read/download the documents here.

Upcoming issues for the GVEA board

Here are a few substantive upcoming issues for GVEA. Rate changes upcoming in 2016 will set the bar for years and the result needs to be fair to every class of service. With 100 mw of inexpensive coal and up to 24 mw of wind, we shouldn’t be using our oil fired generation or buying economy natural gas fired energy from Southcentral utilities much except in winter. this is a time when Southcentral utilities ALL have excess generation capacity and likely willing to sell power relatively cheap to help pay the debt on their expansions, much as we are doing the same with ours. The naptha fuel that GVEA gets from PetroStar Refinery for use in its 60 mw co-fired generation unit (LM 6000)is very inexpensive, less than what natural gas would likely be purchased for. Whether it stays low is anyone's guess, certainly not in GVEA's control (see Economist article) Debt is always on my mind, but the die has been cast with $71 mm for Eva Creek Wind Farm and $183 mm for Healy 2. Long term debt has been down to as low as $280 million before. While it builds equity as we pay it off, that's about $50 million a year in debt service. How to absorb additional renewably generated electricity from independent power producers is out there as well. Can the newer battery bank (50%) of BESS (big-ass battery storage) be reconfigured to be used as storage for these forms of energy for the betterment of the system and producer?

District 4 Please Vote

I haven't commented here on campaign issues because I don't think this is the forum, however I do encourage all District 4 members to take a few minutes to read about the candidates, examine our qualifications, and vote, if you haven't already. Last minute votes are accepted on-line up to 5 pm on June 9, 2015. Mailed ballots need to be received by June 9.

Newman running for GVEA Board District 4

I guess it is official now - I am a candidate for the GVEA board of directors District 4 which includes Steese East, Chena Hot Springs, Fox, Shannon Park, Island Homes, Hamilton Acres and the core area of downtown Fairbanks.

I have my website at gvea.chena.org and you are welcome to like my Facebook page Newman for GVEA.

Two way communication and transparency have been a mainstay of my advocacy for GVEA for decades - I don't see that changing. Reliability, keeping rates reasonable, trying to help moderate our increasing debt load are also pretty important tasks for the board.

Ballots will be mailed out May 8 with a month to get them back to GVEA. In the next couple months, I will be talking with our members to hear their concerns and let members hear from me as well. I will of course be at the annual meeting Wed. April 29, 2015, this year at Lathrop High School's Hering Auditorium.

I'm looking forward to this effort to help our co-op. It is a demanding effort for anyone serving on the board and I now have the time and decades of involvement to be able to give back to GVEA.

Feel free to contact me if you want to chat: gvea@chena.org or 907-488-2001

Green Power Advisory Board

I was going through some of my files and ran across this blast from the past: the Final Report of the Green Power Advisory Board (GPAC) March 2004. It might make some interesting reading for some. To my knowledge, the GPAC hasn't met of late.

Energy charge reduced due to low international oil prices

With the price of oil based fuel down significantly, GVEA's energy charge dropped from $0.09947/kwh to $0.07111/kwh, a welcome bit of relief. Fuel oil also has dropped significantly. We paid $3.51/gal for No. 2 fuel oil in November. Current price is $2.67/gal. Time to top off.

Candidates for Board seats Districts 4 and 7

There were two nominees each for board seats up for election this year: District 4 includes Steese East, Fox, Chena Hot Springs, Island Homes and a good part of the downtown core. Gary Newman, long time GVEA involved member-advocate and originator of this blog, posting as Common Sense Frank Eagle, incumbent board member, running after his first term District 7 includes the area down the Parks Hwy: Nenana, Healy, McKinley Park Long time incumbent Bill Nordmark Keith Walters, retired Usibelli superintendent While there are still pending interviews with the nominating committee during the next month and final selection by Feb. 13, it seems pretty likely that these will be the final nominees. Voting takes place by mail or on line starting in early May. The annual GVEA meeting is scheduled for April at Hering Auditorium (Lathrop High School). I will offer that I am running as I have been able to clear time to be able to serve. Being a responsible board member is quite demanding, equivalent to a 25% to 50% of a full time job. While I have attended around 200 board meetings in the past few decades and, as an active member-owner of GVEA, I have succeeded in a number of initiatives to increase transparency to the membership and encourage sensible decisions, there is more to be done that can't be done externally. I'll have more on my future-looking perspective and goals in other forums.

GVEA Capital Budget for 2015

The board is meeting today in executive session to discuss and then (coming out of executive session) to approve the 2015 Capital Budget.     The proposed budget is documented on GVEA's site in the member book packet but is roughly $107 million, including $80 million for Healy Unit 2 restart.

GVEA projects $21 million principal payment on debt and additional loans and other financing of $94 million.

Big chunk of change.   You can read the details starting on page 18 of the member book located here.

Rate history

I was just looking at my electric bill history and thought it might be interesting to see how rates have changed from past years.  I went back to 2010 and below are the rates.

There are two major components to consumption:  Utility charge and energy charge.  

The utility charge is everything not related to the cost of energy, such as operations, administration, legal, interest, depreciation and payment on loans, distribution and transmission costs.

Energy charge is everything that is related to the cost of energy.  It was formerly known as COPA - the cost of power adjustment and meant to allow a utility to change their rates based upon the fluctuating cost of energy (oil, gas, coal, etc.)  What is allowed to be included is set by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.  For example, some years ago GVEA asked that the cost of ash disposal from the Healy coal fired power plant be allowed to be included in the COPA (the RCA said yes).    More recently, GVEA had asked to include the cost of building Eva Creek wind farm in COPA, as there is no energy charge from wind.   GVEA withdrew that request after realizing that the RCA wouldn't rule on it in time for it to be of financial advantage to GVEA.

Both rates are initially set after a rate study, which GVEA only does when there is a major shift in the numbers, such as inclusion of a new power plant.   Such studies cost over a million dollars so not to be done lightly.  

The utility charge is allowed to be changed in the interim every 6 months through a SRF (simplified rate filing) to the RCA, but not more than 8% in a year.    The energy charge can be changed quarterly and is subject to this complex formula.

In addition to these two charges, there is a fixed customer charge for the  cost of having a meter, regardless of whether you use electricity or not and then a very minor regulatory charge to compensate the RCA for overseeing the public interest of utilities,

If you are a large commercial or industrial customer, you will have a lower utility rate, but then also have a demand charge, based upon your peak consumption for the past 12 months.   GVEA talks about all these charges on their website.   They do have a handy bill calculator as well.  It would be interesting to have a table like below that would go back further.

So here is the last 4 years of rates by month.

Month	Utility	Energy	Subtotal
Dec-14	$  0.10341	$  0.09947	$0.20288
Nov-14	$  0.10341	$  0.10378	$0.20719
Oct-14	$  0.10341	$  0.10378	$0.20719
Sep-14	$  0.10341	$  0.10378	$0.20719
Aug-14	$  0.10341	$  0.10593	$0.20934
Jul-14	$  0.10341	$  0.10593	$0.20934
Jun-14	$  0.10341	$  0.10593	$0.20934
May-14	$  0.10001	$  0.09496	$0.19497
Apr-14	$  0.10001	$  0.09496	$0.19497
Mar-14	$  0.10001	$  0.09496	$0.19497
Feb-14	$  0.10001	$  0.09631	$0.19632
Jan-14	$  0.10001	$  0.09631	$0.19632
Dec-13	$  0.09724	$  0.09631	$0.19355
Nov-13	$  0.09724	$  0.10576	$0.20300
Oct-13	$  0.09724	$  0.10576	$0.20300
Sep-13	$  0.09724	$  0.10576	$0.20300
Aug-13	$  0.09724	$  0.08774	$0.18498
Jul-13	$  0.09724	$  0.08774	$0.18498
Jun-13	$  0.09724	$  0.08774	$0.18498
May-13	$  0.09597	$  0.11078	$0.20675
Apr-13	$  0.09597	$  0.11078	$0.20675
Mar-13	$  0.09597	$  0.11078	$0.20675
Feb-13	$  0.09597	$  0.10802	$0.20399
Jan-13	$  0.09597	$  0.10802	$0.20399
Dec-12	$  0.09004	$  0.10802	$0.19806
Nov-12	$  0.09004	$  0.13768	$0.22772
Oct-12	$  0.09004	$  0.13768	$0.22772
Sep-12	$  0.09004	$  0.13768	$0.22772
Aug-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12379	$0.21383
Jul-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12379	$0.21383
Jun-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12379	$0.21383
May-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12527	$0.21531
Apr-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12527	$0.21531
Mar-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12527	$0.21531
Feb-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12737	$0.21741
Jan-12	$  0.09004	$  0.12737	$0.21741
Dec-11	$  0.08791	$  0.12737	$0.21528
Nov-11	$  0.08791	$  0.10924	$0.19715
Oct-11	$  0.08791	$  0.10924	$0.19715
Sep-11	$  0.08791	$  0.10924	$0.19715
Aug-11	$  0.08791	$  0.10943	$0.19734
Jul-11	$  0.08791	$  0.10943	$0.19734
Jun-11	$  0.08791	$  0.10943	$0.19734
May-11	$  0.08337	$  0.10051	$0.18388
Apr-11	$  0.08337	$  0.10051	$0.18388
Mar-11	$  0.08337	$  0.10051	$0.18388
Feb-11	$  0.08337	$  0.08929	$0.17266
Jan-11	$  0.08337	$  0.08929	$0.17266
Dec-10	$  0.08337	$  0.08929	$0.17266
Nov-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09137	$0.17474
Oct-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09137	$0.17474
Sep-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09137	$0.17474
Aug-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09401	$0.17738
Jul-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09401	$0.17738
Jun-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09401	$0.17738
May-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09890	$0.18227
Apr-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09890	$0.18227
Mar-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09890	$0.18227
Feb-10	$  0.08337	$  0.09886	$0.18223

In the meantime ... transmission improvements

With all the moderate knashing of teeth regarding the proposed regulation of carbon dioxide by the EPA (WAY past time, in my view) and giving the responsibility for reduction to the states to work out, this recent article in the Alaska Journal of Commerce caught my eye.   Maybe what the State of Alaska will kick in more money for upgrading tie lines and then require GVEA to mothball a coal fired power plant?   Or maybe, not mentioned in the article, Aurora Energy would convert to natural gas?  That would go a long way toward cleaning up downtown and still serve the core areas with district heat, but would certainly change the dynamic especially as far as steam goes.

Readers may recall reading about the various $900 million in recommended transmission improvements in a report from the Alaska Energy Authority.  It didn't include proposed trucked natural gas in its projections, but is still draft.

And with all the spare capacity in the railbelt, there doesn't appear to be any crying need for Susitna.

So many moving parts.

Notification system progress

I had a meeting with Mike Wright and Lynn Thompson at GVEA today to discuss (at long last) price signaling and member notification. Mike laid out a case where GVEA's fuel balance, especially once Healy 2 comes on line, doesn't really demonstrate a need to balance peaks most of the time. Demand varies from roughly 120 mw in the summer to 210 mw in the winter.

Our supply is: Baseload resources

Healy 1 - coal - 25mw capacity - .065/kwh

Healy 2 - coal - 50 mw capacity - price TBD once operational in 2015 or 2016 but likely about .105

Aurora - coal - 23 mw on a 25 year remaining take-or-pay contract, ending 2031 - about $.06/kwh

Load following (i.e. flexible on/off and capacity adjusting)

South Central economy natural gas - up to 78 mw - $.095-$.115 - across the Northern Intertie

North Pole expansion plant (LM6000) - oil (new contract with Petro Star), 65 mw capacity - $.26 kwh, but only .16 kwh in co-generation mode

North Pole 1 and 2 - oil - Qty 2 60 mw - $.25/mwh - no cogeneration and older so more expensive

Zender 1 and 2 - oil - Qty 2 x 18 mw - $.30/mwh

John Brown formerly Chena 6 - $.60/mwh - located in Delta, only used in emergencies

Renewable sources

Bradley Lake, hydro, 24 mw capacity, $.05/kwh - cycled base upon need

Eva Creek - wind - 24 mw capacity, $.00 (no cost)/kwh, sometimes can't use as other baseload resources already covering.

The look above, once we have Healy 2 on line, is that except in the deep winter, we won't be taking much natural gas from Anchorage as it runs about the same price as Healy 2 is expected to.
All this being said, there are other reasons to have a notification system.

One of the challenges and opportunities is that GVEA's contact info on members is way out of date, especially as far as cell phones and email. This would be an opportunity to get updated. Perhaps this could be a MAC job?

GVEA might consider an inexpensive notification system such as FNSB Air Quality Dept is now rolling out (3rd party alertmedia.com , a Nixle like service) with an in-house Google form to sign up. Notifications could be for a variety of reasons: outages, price signaling, board and annual membership meetings, RCA hearings, etc.

I was told that GVEA is anticipating spending $300,000 in a future budget to upgrade their outage notification system with lots of bells and whistles. Maybe this is way too much? As it is now, it appears that Facebook offers more information about outages in progress than any other form of communication.

So we will see where this goes.

Ballot counting #4 - incumbents retain their seats

It appears that the incumbents retained their seats. Still pending all the final numbers, but what I have are the winners with at least 40% of the vote. District 1 - Aren Gunderson - 471 votes District 2 - Tom DeLong - 506 votes District 3 - Rick Schikora - 363 votes (this was a 3 way race) An update on ballots that weren't countable due to deficiencies - it was 363. That's a lot, but typical, I'm told. While there are clear instructions on the process, I think that there should be a revisit of the multi-step process as it seems disrespectful to discount so many ballots where people at least made the effort to vote. Here are the more complete results.