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all right i'm calling the september 24th
2021 board of control meeting to order
present we have
bill harvey
ben kessler
natalie potter has joined us six minutes
thank you natalie
um
today we're looking at the presentation
of agreements the
um
sorry that's the agenda item but
essentially we're looking at the
aggregation
proposal from aep
um and attached to the agenda are some
materials including the presentation
from aap that was
made to council in late august
and uh
i think what we we hope to accomplish
today is for us to as the border control
review
those materials and um
make a recommendation to counsel um
as they have ordinance 24 21 on the
table um to also confirm or deny the
concept of this aggregation so
i think we can review the facts but i
think we're pretty well versed in the
facts is there anything that uh we want
to review before we go into discussion
we have any update on pricing
um so the updated pricing was what was
provided uh yeah less and it hasn't
changed i thought that was something
that changed
uh so
the the the price estimate i don't think
has greatly changed what they've said
they've in fact they said it hasn't
changed much since we first talked about
that change that occurred
after columbus's aggregation started or
actually after the house or senate bill
passed in ohio
so they're saying a total price range of
559 to 699 essentially is still there is
their estimate
what i think
559 to 699.
um
what we don't
have in front of us
at least not on this presentation
is
the pricing on uh
there's some other there's their options
for the essentially the first three-year
term
so
we could go to a pure market-based
aggregation
for the first three years which would be
below the price to compare
just standard aggregation where we
negotiate a rate and uh
we could probably negotiate a rate at a
slight discount
we could use a different type of credit
for green energy credits
uh than what we expect in our bid
and that would come in
close to price to compare
maybe slightly higher that's what we're
the engine's doing right now for their
aggregation they're using a
they're using credits as opposed to
true local renewals
or we could accept what they had uh
what they had
presented us with which was uh higher
than higher than price to compare quote
which i'm trying to pull up as we're
talking unsuccessfully
so why don't we first talk about the
first three years
is that a backwards way to discuss it
i guess the question for the first three
years is how important
i think we've all sort of tacitly agreed
that having that what bricker in ecuador
quoted was a type of credit renewable
credit that was
sort of a national standard and
uh was more expensive because of the way
that it's structured than just even
doing midwest type energy credits
for example what we purchase for our
city use is a like a midwest local
regional
us regional uh energy credit
not this greedy certified uh credit uh
which is what the breaker had recorded
but does that
does that
move into it
eventually
so that's just the first three years and
then the local stuff is what comes next
that's the one that we have a price in
range of 560 to 699.
so that's not the standard
standard one would just be this so
that's the bridge period it's like the
first the initial term of this
aggregation would be while
you basically we as a community commit
to buying into these projects
but they haven't been built yet
and so
they get built we have a guaranteed
price locked in
but we have to wait until they're built
to start taking advantage of that energy
so in the meantime we have options as to
what sort of off-the-shelf energy that
we're buying
didn't one of the options do nothing
yeah so the other option would be to say
no to the bid and not do aggregation no
i mean the three years
yeah right so do nothing
so if we did nothing that's right we did
nothing nobody would have anything for
the next few years and then the
aggregation would actually kick in in
the future
but i think that we can use aggregation
we can lever it to have lower pricing
and price to compare in the short term
and then people get used to the idea of
the program as well before you know the
renewable component comes online but
i'm not sure people get used to they
won't know any difference
i mean it's you still get a build
it's not like
there's any change well there's
communication
about
opting out and you know what that looks
like and
you know
but yeah i mean that's a uh
that is an option
we say do nothing for the first three
years we
we don't do the aggregate but do we like
somehow sign up for it so that we can
get the ohio
stuff later is that right
we would commit to the
to the ohio stuff in three years when
it's built we would make no changes
today
until the thing was built but you think
that it would be cheaper or we could
somehow by locking into
the
the aggregation the more national
standards now
we would have a better rate with the
ohio that's the whole that's amazing
right okay right
that's an easier question to answer
because we could
you know we can
we can get really competitive pricing
short term if we want to
um we can get pricing that's very
similar to price to compare
that does have
renewable credit components to it
but then the question is down the road
in year four and four to fifteen um
[Music]
if we're comfortable with this plan it
does show up you know pricing at the low
end that's higher than the current price
to compare
but
we're not getting any kind of a
bid
we don't have
a bid for these other options we have a
bid
right now
for
the three years that more of a national
standard than it goes to
ohio
we have correct examination no we also
have pricing on a uh
on that
midwest regional um
so we have options yeah we have two bids
for the first three years exactly and
i'm going to pull that up for you and
then and then one bid for years four
through 15 or whatever
and actually we don't have bids for any
of those just prices yeah price
estimates
which could change
tomorrow a little or a lot right or not
at all
i am pulling up that we've received so
much information here that i'm pulling
up the uh
where they showed
okay
so this is as of march
so we would have to update this because
that's the last time we asked them to
give us that first three-year
information
they
showed you could sort of blend in wrecks
into your
uh
into your rate to the point where like
at 75 percent of your energy being
wrecked it was 525
per kilowatt hour which is slightly
lower than the current price to compare
so assuming that that pricing has held
we'd have to get that updated but that
was sort of
and then
if we just did a market based only so
it's what we would just conventional
energy it was 5
cents
0.508 5.8 cents
which is
again lower than the current 529. so
we would have to get that updated but
the general gist of it all was that
um
three years saves us money we get a
lower rate and
that
as we add in rex it goes slightly higher
but we can add in some wrecks and still
be lower than the current price compare
we would have to get that updated though
i thought we just i thought the
far out piece was higher than our price
to prepare
that's the you're so you're for four and
a half after when i'm talking about the
first three years okay
sorry
and those were remember when we had all
those questions that we asked them to
answer that's how we got that those
numbers those are out of our follow-up
questions from the initial bit
how soon
if we make a decision how soon does this
take effect
because at one point we had some
deadlines
back in
back in march we needed to have like an
early march decision in order to start
june 1st
so they that they need i think three
months is like a real tight turnaround
for them so they probably need like four
or five
yes
so i guess
if we
from a logic flow we can engineer the
first three years to make financial
sense and we know that racks are
sort of meaningful but also sort of
symbolic right
so probably from if if our objective and
i understand that we know and not all
have the same objective but if our
objective is to create local renewable
energy then the first three years are
sort of
i don't think it's meaningful i think
i think we can
price structure it so it's competitive
and we know that our residents are
getting a good deal and i think that's
what we should prioritize for the first
two years i think
and then i think that we should look at
years forward and after and are we just
are we comfortable with the concept of
even though it's an opt-out program
knowing that our residents may be paying
higher than the market price to compare
for renewable energy
knowing that it's probably not going to
be crazy higher but it's going to be a
little bit higher
i think that's the philosophical
question
you know it's
i agree i think it is very much a
philosophical question that we and
council have to answer
with the publication
i
i believe it's one thing for the city to
make those decisions
for
residents
like you've done with a renewable energy
in the city because that's not a direct
impact on that resident
he's already spent the money he's paid
our taxes
how you spend it is a little bit beyond
that
when you
directly affect what that person is
paying
every month it is because of a decision
you made especially when you know it's
probably going to be higher than what
they're paying today
for a philosophical reason of let's use
more energy
i struggle with that i i have a concern
that that's not a city
issue
um
so i start with that especially when you
realize that you know within six months
ago we were giving money to people to
help them pay some people help them pay
their electric bills and now we're
saying yep we had trouble but we're
going to raise them by whatever you said
five dollars a month or ten dollars a
month i know that's not a significant
amount of money but it's not an
insignificant amount
and that's the struggle i have
changing this
because of a philosophical reason not a
financial reason
that's kind of where i see that
that's it's not
obviously my call but that's sort of my
question
yeah
i think that the i understand that total
interest and i think that
based upon that logic
one thing we could look at is an opt-in
only aggregation which is another option
i i agree and i would have i would have
no problem at all supporting an opt-in
aggregation
and explain it to residents and they can
do that and i would absolutely support
that i believe
that aep would not have any interest in
doing that they might not so we'd have
to find that out and i think that the
counterpoint to what you're saying is
um
what i and it's hard to gauge this
because we don't have any like great
data on this but what i hear from
residents is how how can we as a
community
make sure that we are pursuing renewable
energy
it's not that efficient to just put it
on my rooftop as we know there's lots of
issues with that utility scale is much
more efficient
and so if if the community wants as a
large community to move the needle this
is the way to do it
and there's a relatively
so i'm doing the counter argument
while there's more while it's a little
bit more a month it's relatively small
and the benefit is pretty substantial
when you
an opt-in
option
i would support because each individual
then makes their own decision and i can
decide it's worth it for me for the good
of the universe and
you can decide it isn't good for you or
whatever i i would have no problem
supporting that i struggle with the flip
side of that
because i don't believe even though we
say it's an opt out
i don't believe our residents spend
enough time thinking about that and i
think there's this whole mindset of
you're the government you're supposed to
tell me what the right thing to do is
when i
just because i struggle with this so
much when we had the gas aggregation
and so many residents call it saying my
god i took this because you guys said it
was the right price well no we didn't
say that but that's what they hear and
and i'm
i know it's a little bit different
but
i still turn that that's just i mean i
don't need to keep saying the same thing
over again yeah i would certainly
support it not being i love the idea of
an opt-in i worry
well philosophically i agree with this
opening and what i love for our
community to do this whole buy-in
i feel like
i feel like our community it doesn't
matter how can we put it in the blast it
doesn't matter how often we put it
wherever it is we put it
people are not
people are struggling just to keep up
with their lives and i fear that
they won't
they won't know how to opt out they
won't figure out how to opt out they
won't take the time to opt out they
won't you know and then they'll see
their
i just i just worry about all those
different yeah so again kind of argument
at which point in time if they see that
they can at any time opt out which is an
advantage of this and i think that
many i just as i made that point in
august like i looked at my electric bill
and realized
at some point in time i must have agreed
to some program because i was paying
more than the market rate and i didn't
notice and have i done anything about it
no because you know i'm busy and all
that stuff so i get it i get i
understand that i also know that like
parallel to this we're working on a um
the
emissions audit for the entire community
and
we're gonna see what it would take for
us to reduce our carbon footprint in a
meaningful way and there's no way that
we do it as a community without
renewable local energy and there's no
way that we get to a volume
with an opt-in program because just as
inertia is required to opt out
more nurse is required to opt in and
it's gonna just not gonna have much of
an impact so
if we care about that if that's if
that's a meaningful goal for us if we
think our residents by and large care
about that and we want to provide them
with that option by and large
they're going to have a much better
product with a
with a opt-out aggregation
which is the connector
so tell me when when it would to to
bill's question before
we had to know in march to do it in june
we have to know it now to do it when
well so ap has said the complete the
cleanest i'm gonna answer your question
in a roundabout way the cleanest
time of year for them to do this is june
because something to do with their way
that they cycle their billing and
negotiation so we can they also said we
could do it at any time it's just a lot
cleaner for us to do it june first
so for us to know that we would want to
pull the trigger i think in february
it's kind of what they were hoping for
last time so
another approach is to kick the can down
the road you know if you want to see
what happens with pricing
but i think ultimately we should
probably come to a conclusion as to
whether or not we and council is
comfortable with the idea that even if
the pricing gets better let's say it
softens a little bit it's still going to
be even if it's neck to neck with the
market today
we're still making a long-term decision
that could end up being
upside down in the future yeah so it's
just
what i'm wondering if then
let's let's say we do
as a community opt in
what kind of
amazing communication
campaign could we do
you mean to oh do an opt-in program no
no no if we have a community i'll say do
not die yeah yeah
so this
uh pseo requires
pretty robust mailings from the provider
so we we don't end up doing that part of
it aep does
but we could do more i mean we could do
our own letters on top of that
so the challenge will be that we can do
that today
we'll probably end up being
a savings in the next three years so
nobody's going to think twice about it
where it's going to be important is
three years from now not right now
so your time capsule and and we there's
also
well we certainly can't tell people
to opt out now is a good time to opt out
if you're gonna opt out it gets tough
for us to monitor the pricing and we
don't know what deal bends on because
we're gonna all choose our own deal
and and it might be a good price for you
based on whoever you're getting your
supply from but not for me so that
market too much of that gets difficult
and again while i
we as a community are not getting it all
from the same place
no no no the new
the new stuff will get it from the same
place but today we
have an option of getting it from
there's probably 20 suppliers on that
yeah there's
there was a supplier that sent out the
mailing that they
do alternatively
i get them once a month for six weeks i
get a mailing from somebody offering me
a great deal
i have not so
richard sharp has joined me by the way
so uh
i haven't seen it that it's been an
actual
it's been an actual you're purchasing
power from renewable sources as opposed
to a credit in the marketplace so you
can buy a hundred percent credit right
now in applicants to alpha in the ohio
marketplace but it's not what we're
talking about
maybe it is maybe someday it will be but
from what i've seen so far
i i sense that if uh
what do we need to make this vote
i don't know
the vote as i understand it
is the
oh it's actually our recommend it would
be an acceptance we don't have to we
recommend we're recommending we
recommend oh we're going to recommend
the council oh okay
which i think we already kind of did but
then you know we got more information
i've got an idea and if you guys this
might be a total waste
of time
but if you guys think we should
at least think about pursuing this
seriously why don't we put out a
meaningful survey
would that be helpful
like a a good survey i think so get
results back and we say hey
the city is considering doing this here
here's the upside the downside
how willing are you you know even if you
can knock down how much it's a good idea
i don't know like what if seventy
percent of people say it's a good idea
well how many people do we need to
answer the survey
say a lot
personally i think
and they don't understand it
and i have philosophical
reasons um
for
for not adopting approach because
some studies have shown that when
there's mass things like this that are
done for people
and people think that they're doing good
for the environment they end up using
more energy in other ways just like gas
all those lights by the way are one
30-watt ball of equivalent
in general
the
energy savings aren't as
good as car
yeah i get it i
i think a survey is a good idea but i
think you get some sense of that
um i know it's a lot of hassle
um
and i don't think we need a
strong
positive response
i think if we get a positive response
in the
30 40 50 percent range people say you
had to be interested in i think that
says we can do it and the other 50
cannot bounce if you get a positive
response in the 20 rate because you got
to basically tell them this might drive
your price up
50 or 75 dollars a year or whatever we
decide on um and let people make that
decision okay that's i mean if you think
about it if it's 75 a year over 10 years
at 750
times 4 000 houses that's some real
money that we're asking our residents to
spend okay so
so i'll work on a survey draft
circulated to you guys and you guys can
uh and i'm do you think this would be a
paper a mailing as opposed to uh
uh
i think it should be a mailing
actually probably maybe because it goes
on august 1st or october 1st thereabouts
yeah we could put it
with the water bottle
and we could also make it electronic i
mean you have both options
except we don't have contact information
the advantage of the water bill is
they're returning it they have a easy
return envelope
option right so they can stick it right
in there yeah that's really great
that's really that's really good the the
problem i have with online surveys is
they're so easy to jimmy
yeah
well then you separate your results you
could say here's the stuff that we got
from the internet right and here's the
paper and they you can analyze them
differently
yeah and weight them however you think
yeah if we ask ask some
not demographic necessarily you know
household information
on the online then we can get a feel for
who's the type of person filling that as
well
it's a great way to get a can down the
field just a little bit
yeah
which isn't working
no i think we're being responsible i
think we should make the favorite
decision for the residents
i think council will really like
this idea
do you
you know we're just like i'm not gonna
say that
that's kind of why i almost feel that a
survey is kind of a waste of time
but
even though i'm generally
not for i
i
[Music]
you know you say that richard
but
uh and i remember steve kai is at a
recording
steve i asked steve at one of those
meetings about would you
go to the solar stuff that the city was
doing and he said i would if i could
well he can you can operate that today
every one of us can't and i would bet
you that most people have not done that
part of it's the inertia
but if you really believe in that go out
online and change it and do what ben has
done for the city probably for his own
home and i will bet you that most
residents haven't done that and that
right to me it says yeah i'd do it but
gee it's going to cost me another five
dollars a month and i got to fill out
the form but i'm not sure i'm going to
do it right it's that whole inertia
thing if people have done that
two out of our seven council members
have solar on the rooftop which is
an outlier statistic so
our council members these two of them
are awoke
and that's fine we can save the energy
and use it when the trees are all done
instead of having to buy a generator
well we've actually talked about
well yeah i think about that i'm not
sure that's a good answer but she has it
all set up already so
it's an answer
but we've actually talked about doing it
on the backs of ours because nobody
would see it from the city and there's a
lot of sun back oh isn't it yeah
i've said it for years
on
their south side oh my gosh they should
have mounted overhang
they put like these awnings so that it
so that your
cars are covered and on top of the
awnings are
that's
like the police
police carports that bill harvey killed
back in the uh
yeah right after gm killed the electric
car
you'll have to kill the
police car boards
okay i feel like so we'll we'll draft a
survey
send it to you guys just take a look at
and
make sure that you feel it's
appropriate ask the right questions and
we'll get it in the water bill which we
need to
do all
sort of short orders so i think by the
middle of next week we'll have to have
some
okay okay okay any other anything else
for the uh
there is what happened with the rumpke
bit if there was actually a mask
is that a council issue or yeah no
that was the issue
[Music]
was approved at the last border control
meeting you were out of town okay
we needed to get it going so that's fine
the
but the issue was if i recall correct
you want to make sure council understood
that we had a council presentation
oh okay yeah i don't remember that being
the issue i thought that's what you
wanted to make i wanted to make sure
that we understood the previous rate
that was being paid so that we
understood the context of it it is a
it is a
it is a up to five year contract i think
three and two ones three and two ones
um the first three years is a fixed rate
is 15 of our current
and
what we had discussed and this is
something the council needs to figure
out in the refuse rate
is that we
you know obviously rumpy is not all of
our costs in our refuse fund but that we
take a look at our refuse fund about
where it's going and that we step the
rate into the next three years so we're
not like you know we're not hitting the
whole 15. we're kind of stepping up
so that by the time we get to that point
it's
wouldn't be a shock to the system if
there's another increase but the then
the increases in your four and five are
pretty modest so there's not it's not
like another five percent at that point
so theoretically you could
do three percent something like that
years four and five yeah so i think
we're making up a little bit of what you
did yes we would probably take your four
and five i would guess
and having historic reasons yeah and b
we probably won't get another winner
so i think we can probably look at this
i i i
i'm guessing right now but just based on
the looking at the math i think we could
probably look like a three threes
throughout the five year period so it's
similar to inflation so it won't be in
it
crazy
[Music]
so we have minutes from our
that's meeting that we're just referring
to
um
bill harvey was an excused absence
and
excellent minutes nice and succinct and
to the point
uh have you taken a look at them are you
okay where are they oh sorry they're
part of the
just they're on the agenda
any discussion on the minutes
in favor say aye aye
opposed same sign minutes pass thank you
um i'm going to move during
second
uh
all in favor of a german hi hi hi
okay we're journey yeah