City Utilities hears conservation proposal

That’s the word from Frontier Associates LLC, the Austin, Texas-based consultant brought in to offer advice on how CU can save both money and energy. Frontier was hired in late 2005.

The five-month process concluded April 17 during a special meeting of the Board of Public Utilities. CU staff and the city board heard a presentation from Frontier leaders at the meeting.

After a $225,000 process that included surveying residential, commercial and industrial customers, site visits and meetings with city leaders and the general public, Frontier Manager of Operations Phil Audet announced that eight programs had passed a cost-benefit test.

Among the proposed programs: more efficient lighting programs, residential refrigerator recycling and more efficient cooling systems for commercial and industrial customers.

CU’s next step is to determine which of the suggested programs to implement first. CU General Manager John Twitty said CU staff members should be able to present a list of their recommendations to the board along with the annual operating budget proposal in July. Some of the programs could be available by Oct. 1, the beginning of CU’s new fiscal year.

If all the programs were to be implemented, Frontier estimated that costs of $37.4 million through 2017 would create benefits of more than $76 million over the life of the programs.

Frontier’s presentation was merely a suggestion; CU staff is responsible for deciding details.

“We’ve made some assumptions about incentive levels to determine penetration rates, but the final program design hasn’t been established,” consultant Audet said. “CU will identify programs that they’d like to be in their portfolio, and they will go forward with the actual design of those programs.”

Utility board Chairman Ron Reynaud said that the potential savings, for both the utility and its customers, makes the conservation proposal an important issue for the board.

“This is a top priority of ours,” Reynaud said. “The (Power Supply Community) Task Force asked us to do this, and after looking over this summary, we’re talking about $40 million in savings over 11 years. I would say the board has to make this the top priority this year.”

Conservation was one of two recommendations made by the task force; the other was to build a second coal-fired power plant at the southwest power facility. That issue goes to voters in June.

Twitty was quick to alleviate fears that the proposed conservation efforts might undercut support for the new plant.

“I think these are incremental programs that are good for us to do,” Twitty said. “The connection with the power supply (issue) is that these programs cannot do away with the need to build the power station. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do them, but they won’t take care of the problem.”

CU recently asked for and received approval for two different rate increases. One would raise rates by about $9.63 monthly for the typical residential customer and between 17 percent and 26 percent for commercial and industrial customers. The increases would pay for the new power plant, pending voter approval in June.

The other increase, which takes effect in October and will raise rates by 3 percent, will provide roughly $1 million in extra money to be used for energy-efficiency and emissions-control efforts.

Twitty said that $1 million will go a long way, especially when added to the $200,000 CU already spends on conservation and emissions control.

The Frontier Conservation Plan

If City Utilities were to implement all of the proposals presented by Frontier Associates, how much energy and money could be saved?

Peak demand energy savings

22.54 megawatts through 2017

Annual gas savings

856,801 million BTU through 2017

Water savings

178 million gallons per year through 2017

Net financial benefits

$38.9 million

Program costs: $37.4 million