CU executes conservation study

While the utility has proposed building a new coal-fired power plant in southwest Springfield to supply power, CU has enlisted the help of Austin, Texas-based Frontier Associates to look at the other side of the equation: demand.

Frontier, which consults with electric and gas utilities as well as large commercial and industrial energy users, presented Jan. 9 its plan of attack for determining public reaction to conservation efforts.

Frontier, which will be paid no more than $225,000 for its information-collecting efforts, will be conducting both written and on-site energy surveys. The written surveys, according to CU Energy Management Administrator Cara Shaefer, will be sent to about 4,000 residential customers and the same number of commercial users.

The on-site surveys will be conducted with about two dozen residential customers and two dozen businesses.

“The on-site locations are randomly selected and notified ahead of time” to get a representative sample, Shaefer said. “Then the consultant will contact them from that list to see if they're willing to participate.”

Frontier will not look at energy rates or make decisions regarding the implementation of any new policies; the group is being brought in simply to advise CU in its decision-making process.

“(Our work) does not include an evaluation of supply-side options,” said Phil Audet, senior associate with Frontier, during the press conference introducing the partnership. “We won't be looking at the supply side of the meter; we'll be looking at the demand side.”

Frontier partners with Austin Energy, Austin's community-owned utility, for its consulting services. Austin Energy has utilized many of Frontier's energy-management techniques to serve its 360,000 customers.

A list of recommendations and final report should be ready for CU in mid-April.

Meeting demand

CU General Manager John Twitty said while the energy management study and power supply problem are related, the Frontier study won't necessarily have a direct impact on power supply.

“I think (of) the power supply project and energy management conservation as intertwined but not one dependent on the other,” he said. “The efforts of Frontier and Austin Energy will affect whatever the next increment of energy is. If you ask an energy company like Austin Energy, they will tell you it takes many years to ramp these programs up to where you have meaningful capacity savings.”

CU officials continue to push for a new coal-fired power plant at the Southwest power station. The new plant, estimated to cost $530 million plus financing, would add 300 megawatts of energy to the 821 megawatts the company currently generates and the 161 megawatts it purchases from other companies.

Twitty said the proposal for the new plant will likely land on the June 6 ballot, though it still has to be officially approved by the Board of Public Utilities and Springfield City Council.

CU also is looking at other small ways to increase generation capacity, including the Joint Venture Landfill Gas to Energy project. The project, a partnership with the city, will harness methane gas naturally produced at the city's Noble Hill landfill to produce an additional 3.2 megawatts of electricity.

While that is a fraction of a percent of the system's total capacity, Twitty said the project is a good first step.

“It's important because it helps the city,” he said. “I don't know that you'd consider methane to be renewable in the traditional sense, but there is about a 30-year supply there, and it also shows that City Utilities is willing to capture any fuel (where it) makes some sense.”

The project should be fully operational by May or June.

Looking ahead

CU faces issues beyond electricity supply.

The utility's gas program also is getting some help, through the new peak shaving facility set to be completed in time for next winter's peak gas usage period. The facility at the James River power station uses propane to supplement natural gas on the days when demand is greatest.

Water supply also is a battle for the utility, though the water level of the city's two reservoirs - about 70 percent of storage capacity - is about average for this time of year.

Twitty said the winter and spring months, when water demand is lower and supplies can be replenished, will be crucial.

“You hope you go into the summer season with those reservoirs as close to 100 percent as you can get them,” Twitty said. “If you don't, it means pumping more water from Stockton (Lake) into Fellows Lake. The problem with that is that if you bring water in, you have to pay to pump it.”

Pumping the water from Stockton Lake costs about $1,000 a day for each of the three pumps CU has set up there.