Planning Commission - workshop

Good evening. Welcome to the June 2022 study session. We have a couple sponsored items on here. I'm going to, at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Stewart to talk about the two resolutions.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So it doesn't seem to be a day that I turn on the news that I don't hear about something with data centers. So it's just not here in Independence. It's It's nationwide. We've had a lot of community input on both sides regarding the data center we're having. But let me be very clear. This moratorium that I'm proposing, if it passes, it would not have any effect on the NEBIUS data center. It would only affect any future data centers that might want to come into independence. So what I'm asking for is a six-month or 180-day moratorium on any future data centers that, and what I would like staff to do is to look at the zoning on it and possibly change the zoning from what would be called use by right to a special use permit where any data centers would have to be approved by the city council. And then I would also like them to look at should all data centers be treated equally? What I mean by that is should a 50 megawatt data center be treated the same as a 500 when it comes to zoning I think maybe this is since this is kind of going on nationwide maybe look at what other cities are doing it and how they're handling the influx of all the new data centers that are wanting to come into places regarding the the battery storage facilities or best I know a couple of these have tried to come into Sibley I'm sure they have looked at independence And I also kind of want to do the same thing with the zoning on those. And anyway, that's all I have. Thank you.

All right. We have citizens request, and I'm going to ask the council if I could get a motion to allow.

Mr. Mayor, I make the motion to suspend the rules of procedures or allow non-residents to speak.

I got a motion. I second it. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Council Member Dorman. Yes. Council Member Perkins.

Yes.

Council Member Stewart.

Yes.

Council Member Atkinson.

Yes.

Council Member Dorman. I'm sorry. Council Member Wiley. Yes. Council Member Vaught. Yes. Mayor King.

Yes. All right. We'll start with our speakers. The first speaker, and let me say this before we get going, if you don't mind me You know, obviously the speakers can only speak on the council-sponsored items that are on the agenda tonight, so I would appreciate that. Thank you. First speaker is Daniel Morehead.

I think I'm supposed to give my name and where I'm located, right? Please do. Okay. I've gotten so used to it, I was waiting for the question. Daniel Moorhead, Bly Road. I'm one of the leaders of the Independence Guard Alliance. I represent a growing group of more and more of your constituents who have become increasingly better informed than many inside the council and city at this point. That is not a brag as much as it is the basic outcome of bringing to light that which is not readily known. Our folks have been equipping themselves, and you can expect us to keep pressing when we find light needs to be shared. I think tonight is a great opportunity. Thank you to the council members who saw the need for these moratoriums and brought these ordinances forward. Now I'll admit I'm a bit greedy. I wish our proposed moratorium was the one being implemented tonight, but here we are and we are ready to work with anyone who cares about the needs of both this city and its citizens. Second, to be against this common sense zoning reform, A required output of moratorium like these is to leave your citizens lacking basic protections akin to clothing, food, and shelter. They are so basic and so necessary, it would be a dereliction of duty to not institute them. Taking a pause like this is far from unprecedented. I appreciate the statements that were made in the opening. In fact, if you understand the stakes, it is the only logical next step. Virginia Loudoun County would be a great example of this. They've instituted a moratorium to do basically exactly this same function. Right now, our code makes no distinction between a data center the size of a closet and a massive hyperscale AI factory. Both get the exact same rate of use. That is dangerous and, dare I say, negligent. And pausing now is the only way to protect the health, safety, and well-being of our citizens. Across the country, cities and counties are passing these exact same moratoriums for the exact same reasons. It's a fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me approach. Too many communities have watched heavy industrial facilities get shoehorned into the wrong neighborhoods, destroying property values and straining city resources. That has already happened right here in Independence. But tonight, you have a chance to stop a future, and I'll call it Midwest data center alley, from swallowing our city. Step one, pass the moratorium. Step two, move fast to fix our zoning. At a minimum, you need to implement the steps the Guard Alliance delivered to District 2 Councilman Bryce Stewart. We must draw a hard line between the small data centers of the past and the heavy industrial AI factories of today. Like the one Nebious is trying to force into light industrial zone in Little Blue Valley. Our city's land is ripe for predatory developers looking to exploit your goodwill and, frankly, everyone's inexperience. These are not the facilities of yesteryear. They are entirely different beasts. Defining what can go where and under what conditions is the absolute bare minimum you can do to protect us. Don't leave the leverage of the city and the welfare of its citizens bare and vulnerable. The path to fixing past zoning failures runs directly through this moratorium. We need updated zoning and stronger city oversight before we open the doors to another data center or battery energy storage system. Progress does not mean reckless. Caution does not make you a Luddite. You can protect your citizens and support industry at the same time. Please do not fall into the trap of believing you have to choose one over the other. Discuss this moratorium. Yes.

Pass it quickly.

The predators are circling and your constituents are at the mercy without these basic common sense protections. Do not fail again to guard this gate.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kelly Garrett. Please state your name and your address, and you have five minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm Kelly Garrett. I'm a resident of Independence. I live on Bly Road, actually, and a member of the Guard Alliance. I'm not here tonight to relitigate the nebulous vote. I'm here representing thousands of Independence voters. I'm here to talk about something fundamental related to the moratorium. What this charter says your job is related to the moratorium and what it requires of each of you. The city charter is direct. It says all powers of the city are vested in this elected council. Not the city manager, not staff, but you. You enact legislation. You adopt the budget. You determine policy. And you are responsible for every duty and obligation this city owes to the people who live here. The charter also says, in language the voters themselves put there, that public engagement is not a courtesy. It is an integral part of effective and trusted governance. It requires city officials to proactively reach out to residents, especially those who are underrepresented, to meet the needs of the city as a whole. Hundreds of citizens showed up. We submitted petitions. We asked for a moratorium, just a pause for real due diligence. The charter anticipated exactly this kind of moment, and it required you to engage, not proceed. Are you listening to the citizens? We voted in new representation, primarily due to the lack of transparency and partnership with this community. The community spoke very loudly. We garnered signatures. Due to the lack of transparency and support, our rights as citizens, one of our recourse actions to communicate to this body, to encourage the council to listen to the citizens. Some on this body are listening. We thank you for showing up in our community and engaging with us. Some of you are not. You choose to accuse the citizens of unlawful actions. You mention the costs the citizens have inflicted due to our democratic right to act.

Mr. Garrett, can you please just keep your comments to the resolutions on the agenda, please?

This is speaking directly to the actions for the moratorium. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Every vote on the hyperscale AI factory project is a full exercise of the council's authority. And what were those votes? Approving a 98% tax abatement. That exceeds your own 2023 economic development policy ceiling. $274 million in lost revenue to our school district over 20 years. A utility arrangement with unresolved questions about what it means for rate payers. These were policy decisions made by this body under the full authority the Charter gave you. The Charter you were sworn to uphold does not permit reckless decisions made in haste, without full community input, and in conflict with your own city policies. We are asking this Council to pass the moratorium ordinance currently before you, pause, review, Engage that is not obstruction. That is exactly what our city charter requires of you Thank you.

Thank you Next speaker is Howard Hoff Please state your name your address and you have five minutes.

Thank you. Hi. My name is Howard Hoff I live at 400 North Bly Road My property line is about 400 feet from the data center's property line, just to make sure we're all clear on that. And I'm here just to ask you all to vote yes on the moratorium. It's just as easy as it was when some of you voted yes on the Chapter 100 bonds and voted yes for everything that Nabeus and North Point wanted. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jason White. Please state your name, your address, and you have five minutes.

Thank you. Jason White, 1024 South Forest, Independence, Missouri. Apologize. Got a bit of a head cold, but we'll keep it under control. I'm with a group called Indy Energy. There's all of three of us. We've been around for about 12 years now. We do forums. We have a website. We have newsletters that go out. We actually have done several forums, 14 over the last several years. And what I want to talk about isn't what everybody here wants to talk about, and that's data centers. There are two issues you put on the table here, but nobody's talking about the other one. That's the battery storage farm issue. There's a lot of community angst over the data center. Fine. It's a conversation to be had. haven't heard anything about the battery centers. The reason is they're radically different, and you've already got one. You've already got one growing, and it's big, and it's positive economic development, and there hasn't been any of the not in my backyard garbage going on about that issue. So as you all consider this moratoriums, you have two of them to think about. One that's in response to the public anger over a data center. Pause for a moment on the one about the battery centers. You actually have a battery center going up. It's called the Blue Valley Grid. It's right next to the old power plant. The reason it's there is some places need to build next to roads because they're going to have trucks driving in and out. They needed to build where there was a good hookup into the power grid, and so they're building there. They've already been through all the planning process. They've got all their permits, their construction as well, and it isn't small either. It is a 100 megawatt battery farm that's going in out there. Now, put that in context, we use about 300 megawatts to take care of our homes, so it's pretty big. It's not tied to IPL. It's a private adventure. It doesn't have contracts to provide backup power. It has capacity because it buys low, and then when there's demand, think August 15th when it's stinking hot and we all got our air conditioners up and everybody's using power, then when demand is up, SSP has the ability to pull from them capacity to put into the grid. They'll put it in there based on contracts, but this is A wonderful thing for the grid as a whole. Really doesn't mean much to independents except we get benefit because it's a $200 million investment that you or your predecessors didn't provide any tax incentives for. It goes under the tax rolls as a $200 million adventure. That's more than you're worrying about Wally's. I don't remember what it brings to the table, but it wasn't $200 million. and the Nolan Fashion Center. So you've got a private venture coming into town. It's a moratorium, pass it or not. It won't hit it. But my point is there's a radical difference. It doesn't take electricity from anybody in town. There's been no not in my backyard comments about it. It doesn't require water. So you don't have to worry about closed loop and how much to fill it and all those arguments that come about. It is a common sense thing. The issue you may hear about is their batteries. Will they catch on fire? I'm not a fireman. Ask your fire chief. You got a real smart one? Give him a quick call. But what you'll find out is they meet the current NFPA standards. And that's as good as you're going to get. But talk to them, the experts, about that component part. Conclusion. You have got private industry. It makes sense. They're going up all over the nation, just as data centers, but much less controversial. They didn't ask for and they didn't get any tax incentives. They're going on the tax rolls. And you all have sort of equated them with data centers. And there's no such thing. So I would encourage you to be realistic. The company out there isn't paying me a dime. Or Indie Energy haven't even let them buy me a piece of pie.

You have one minute, sir.

Cool. So they don't care whether the moratorium passes or not. And we're not aware of anybody having any conversations around town about them. But what you're doing in the conversation is equating it with data centers. Please separate them apart. They are totally different. You have opportunity for economic development that benefits the community as you consider thoughtful battery farms. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Stephanie Robinson. Please state your name, your address, and you have five minutes. Thank you.

Stephanie Robinson. I'm in the third district. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Thanks for letting me speak tonight. Council Member Stewart mentioned several of the things I'm going to say, and I'm going to mirror what a few others have said, but temporary moratorium is not about opposing development. Communities nationwide are temporarily pausing to evaluate Some things we've looked at, but we don't have, like, long-term, you know, I feel like it's just guesstimates at this point. But the electrical grid capacity infrastructure upgrades, the actual water usage, and the long-term supply usage, the noise from cooling systems and backup generation. I mean, we don't know what any of that's going to be yet. land-use compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods, and a big one, whether the current zoning laws are compatible with the full build-out of the project. Regular independent environmental standards and impact studies with validation and long-term monitoring should be part of it, and many communities are taking a temporary pause to study other project in comparable jurisdictions. And what they're doing and needs to happen is they're setting clear rules and regulations and standards that apply to data centers across the board, not on a case-by-case basis and without a temporary pause. For consistent regulatory standards, they can keep evolving during and after approval, and that's the problem. A project can then create a long-term challenge for utilities, residents, future developments, And a temporary pause will allow the time required to write industry standard regulations before approvals are granted. And we're not deciding yes or no. We're just deciding how decisions should be made. A temporary moratorium is the tool. We need to use that tool and take the necessary pause. That is crucial. I'd like independence to give itself to a time to enact clear rules. And we need to make sure that we include NEBIUS in the same standard-setting process that will apply to future data projects. So a standard set of rules for everybody. And then, obviously, the difference between the size of the data centers, there'll be additional requirements and such. And I just, I was kind of going through, I didn't know what I wanted to say today, but I thought this was kind of interesting. And the temporary moratorium is not an unusual ask. It's not just a few people that are upset in independence. Fifteen states are considering bans on data centers. Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia. Michigan has 51 communities have temporary pauses, the biggest concentration of data center moratoriums in the country. The Maine legislature passed a law to permanently ban data centers but their governor narrowly vetoed it, and I bet she doesn't get elected again. The Illinois governor put a pause on new data center tax incentives. Our governor is on board with turning Missouri into Virginia. So I feel like, I feel like in the local Midwest and border states alone, municipalities have done one or more of the following, and sometimes moratoriums that lead to bans. Temporary moratoriums, freezes, bans, formal pauses, heavy restrictions, aggressive zoning overhauls, and or heavy regulations. And just for effect, in Missouri, our own Johnson County is voting on Monday. Kansas City restricts where they can be built. St. Charles, that's where moratorium became a ban. Columbia, Missouri, one-year moratorium. Camdenton, Missouri, one more. and it would be nice to see independents on this list. Iowa, Dubuque County, Woodbury County, Adair County, Johnson County, Clark County, Clinton County, Kansas, Harvey County, Saline County, Sedgwick County in the Wichita area, Shawnee County in the Topeka area, Leavenworth County, McPherson County, Michigan, Pontiac, Taylor, Normville, Sterling Heights, Northville, Flint, Springfield Township, Green Charter Township, Stronach Township, Hayes Township, Lenox Township, Huron County, Manitowoc County, Illinois, Bloomington, Aurora, Edwardsville, Normal, Champaign. Indiana, Boone County, Putnam County, Stark County, Dearborn County, Franklin County, Tipton County, Shelby County, White County, let's see, Monterey Park, California, Seattle, Washington, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ma'am, your time is up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's a lot more. It's not an unusual ask.

All right.

Our next speaker. Please forgive me if I get the last name incorrect. Monica Brismizakis. Close? Please state your name, your address, and you have five minutes. Thank you.

My name is Monica Brismizakis. I am actually a resident of Kansas City. So my address is 1601 McGee Street from where I work. I work at a company named Patmos who already has an existing project in Independence, Missouri. So While we won't be affected by this moratorium, I still really stand by a lot of the comments that were said here tonight. It's important and it's not unusual to pass, especially a temporary moratorium to make sure zoning and regulation is correct. There's quite a difference in size as someone who's been in the industry, not only at my current company, but also previously at AWS and the hyperscalers, that there's a huge difference in the size of data center and the engineering design that's chosen. So I think it is important and we've engaged not only with Kansas City, we were part of the public comment to help with their large format use and defining what makes sense. Our existing facility there is actually smaller by electricity and footprint than our retrofit independence and I think that's the best thing that you want. While I'm not a citizen of independence, I'm a graduate of the school district that would benefit most with our project going on at Blue Springs and you want the right building next to you because this economic development is coming. It is the biggest birth across the U.S. And so while there are certainly a long list of places that say, nope, never, no way, they're going to be next door. They're going to be in the other states. It's very unusual to see States or cities agree. And so making sure that sensible regulation is in place from zoning, it can help define and protect residents and neighbors and communities while still allowing for that economic development to benefit. I would encourage, even as you guys think about this moratorium, zoning and regulation carve outs to have a requirement for certain jobs, not only to support the data center, but what level of headquarters and things like that of corporate employees. I say that as someone who gets to work in my hometown because a business said, you know what, we don't want to be in Seattle. We don't want to be in Virginia. We want to headquarter right here in Kansas City. And there are other businesses that are going to come out that way. And I think that we want to see it. We've explored other cities. We've worked with them and helped inform what kind of designs that we would choose to use, what we wouldn't. What are the different noise requirements that you should absolutely input on? What kind of other sources? So the moratorium as written, I think, is great if that's what passes today. So I would encourage for thinking about that on the zoning and regulation, and what timeline you guys are thinking about of when clear zoning and regulation will come, because it'll give clear lines to let hyperscalers and others say, this isn't the place for you, and for ones that are focused on economic development, are focused on job density and being a good neighbor, and welcome more if that's what the city demands. So, thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Lisa Garrett. Please state your name, your address, and you have five minutes. Thank you.

My name is Lisa Garrett, and I live on Bly Road as well. And I bring more of the emotional side of this, I guess. I'm here to speak tonight about the moratorium and on the very noticeable difference when citizens are asked to come to the table to help with decision making, improvements for our community, et cetera, and this moratorium is part of us wanting to come to the table. Last week, we heard citizens rave about how they were asked to come to the table. when certain decisions were being made, or they needed improvements for their area, or if they owned a business in the Independence area. The council members took the time to listen to concerns and needs of these businesses in the area and took meaningful actions to support their community. On one hand, they say that they are grateful to have a seat at the table, but on the other hand, they spoke about how they trust our city council to make this decision, as long as there are environmental, but also is added, as long as there are environmental impact studies and proper permits, reviews, et cetera, that have been done. The decision to bring this hyperscale AI data factory to our community, or to make this decision, also comparing this hyperscale AI data factory to the building of a Walmart, there is no comparison. I would love to have a Walmart at the end of our road. A Walmart does not consume millions of gallons of water, electricity to the amount of an entire city, and it contributes to the community. Those of us against the hyperscale AI data factory were also told to look inward. Believe me, those of us closest to the AI data factory have been doing a lot of this. Why us? Is there anything we can do to stop this? How will it affect my health or our family's health? How will it affect our property values? How will it affect our water? How will it affect the environment around us? The wildlife that has been displaced? The questions go on and on every day. We have heard that there was a district that was ignored for decades. Is that us now? But they had the opportunity to sit on a task force to be heard. Why was there not a community or neighborhood task force for such a large scale project? such as this hyperscale AI data factory? Why was this put into only the hands of those that we elected to represent us, but yet did not ask us to come to the table?

Ms. Garrett, can you please talk about the ordinances in place, the moratorium, please, and not talk in them?

This is about the moratorium, about us having a voice.

I appreciate it, but...

Okay. Yeah, so because of this moratorium, are you listening? Are we going to vote on this? Will we be worrying about our health, our water, our electricity, our environment? Is this AI data factory better than what was there previously? Have we had the proper studies or reviews done for the AI hyperscale AI factory? I would love to be able to say thank you for enabling us to have a voice and to have a seat at the table. We thought we would have a voice when we petitioned to get the tax abatement on the ballot. We now hope that we have a voice to get this moratorium voted in. And I know it is for future projects, but my hope, and I hoped that it would be for this terrible project that's going in at the end of our road. Thank you so very much.

I'm sorry I'm going to ask city manager Anderson one of the things that council member Stewart put in this was talking about energy usage and everything and you know there's certain things that we're going to be looking at in the future but what does our energy look like moving into the future here for the city.

Honorable Mayor, members of council, thank you for the question and an opportunity. I actually have Joe Heggendefer here, director of IPL, who has some slides prepared that would like to show you all some of our thoughts and some of the research we've done in and around kind of a 10-year forecast of where we think our energy is going to be at.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. So this is a great time to talk about IPL's capacity. So before I dig into this, a little bit of probably baseline education of we talk about capacity and we talk about energy, right? So think about capacity is really what's at the light switch. and energy is the light that comes on when you flip that switch. So as an entity, as a municipal utility, we have requirements through the Southwest Power Pool, which is our transmission operator, that we have to have enough capacity or the ability to generate electricity enough to meet our load for our city. And I think it's already been mentioned tonight that our load is about 285 megawatts in the summer, about 190 in the winter. We are a summer-peaking city as it stands today, and that's due to us being 90% residential from our customers. So I have prepared some slides to kind of talk about where we were, where we are today, and where we could be in the future, and then some different options to solve some of those issues. So when we talk about those capacity requirements from the Southwest Power Pool, we've talked about baseline that we need to meet the load, but then the Southwest Power Pool has added on to that what's called a reserve margin. So that's above and beyond your load. So if you, in the summer, they require 17% above your load as a reserve margin for a capacity requirement. So we're not talking about energy in this discussion. This is all capacity. And then from winter storm Uri, they instituted a winter reserve margin because of those winter storms and the havoc that they played on our electric system, which are 36% today, and they're going to move into 38% in the future. So with that being said, I think to keep everything into context, if we had a 10 megawatt load move into the city, we would need 11.7 megawatts of capacity, generating capacity, to meet the summer load requirement or 13.8 in the winter. As that load grows, you can see it's a little bit exponential, right? So a 50 megawatt load would need 58.5 megawatts in the summer and 69 megawatts of capacity to meet that winter reserve margin. So I just wanted to keep that kind of set some of those kind of ground rules around Southwest Power Pool and what does that mean and what are we talking about when we start digging into these numbers. And I'm happy to stop at any point in time, answer any questions as we go through as well. So I just want to make sure. So where were we before the large load came into town? As you can see, the green line is our total peak requirement. In other words, what does SPP say we need to have, and that red line is what capacity did we have. There's a huge dip down between 29Ws, so the Ws are our winter seasons. And the S's are the summer. So I tried to make these in a nice chart so that you can see the winter flowing into the summer seasons and back and forth. A couple things to note. Number one, you can see that we are winter peaking. I'm sorry, summer peaking for that requirement for all those S's. And in 2030, we drop down below our required capacity needs, and that's due mainly to in 2030, before the summer peak, the Oneida capacity obligation or capacity contract for 70 megawatts ends. So that's the big drop right there, and then we don't meet it. This is a chart that kind of spells out things. In red is anytime we drop below 25 megawatts of excess capacity. IPL has chosen 25 megawatts of excess capacity to allow us, if we were to lose any one of our combustion turbines throughout the city for a season, that it wouldn't put us into a negative. So those combustion turbines are 17 to 19 plus megawatts each. So if we had one that went into a long-term maintenance or had an outage for an extended period of time, we would still be able to meet our capacity obligations. But you see in the summer of 2029, we dive into that red, and that goes on out. through 2035. So we were already thin on capacity before the addition of the large load. Those projections went negative due to that drop of that Oneta capacity contract in 2030. Solutions were discussed back in 2022. If much of this council recalls, we talked about trying to add some gas generation at the Blue Valley Power Plant at that point. That was going to be about 90 megawatts. And we also have two upcoming wind contracts that I will talk about. Those are 3.1 and 3.5, so about 6.5 megawatts of capacity as well that are coming up in 2028 and 2032. So 2035 projections were 95 megawatts below capacity requirements for the summer And the reason I note again that we were summer as you will see that where we stand today is This is now with with the nebulous load right so and also the independence power producers power partners generation coming on at the Blue Valley power plant and So, a couple things to note here is you can see that now those peaks of the green line for the requirements have now flipped over to the wintertime. Because of that 38 percent of that larger number, it pushes those peaks higher than what we were beforehand. So, we look pretty clear until you start getting into those winter seasons of 2033, definitely 34 and 35, right? That's where we start seeing some issues. And I'll keep moving through, and you guys just stop me if you want to look at something or head back. So winter of 2030 to 2031, we really start dipping pretty thin, 15.5 megawatts, and then start going negative for the winter seasons beyond 2032. 2027, we are positive, and that's due to those capacity contracts that we passed earlier this year until the new power plant comes online for the phase one. If I didn't mention it, things to note is those excess capacity contracts. requirements that we have. The target would be 25, and then we flip from summer to winter peaking for those requirements. So what can we do, right? And I think we have a few options, and some of them are easier than others. Obviously, the easiest one is what if we just replaced or renewed the ONETA contract, kept that 70 megawatts out, you know, for another 10 years. That graph you can see keeps us within the requirements above our Peak requirements out beyond 2035, and really the only thin area is that summer of 2027 until the power plant comes online. It's not negative. It's just below the 25 megawatts that we set as a threshold. Out at the end for 2035 summer, we have about 138 megawatts of excess capacity, but that winter starts looking pretty thin at 47. So that goes back to the discussion of if you brought on a 10 megawatt load, it being 13 megawatts or, you know, any other further loads could immediately put us into issues at the winter season even if we renewed that contract. And that's just repeating what I said. So option two is the owners have been discussing, and I think I've presented a couple of times, that the Dogwood gas power plant down in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. We're contemplating an expansion there, adding some new combustion turbines there. As part owners of that, we could definitely participate in that expansion project and continue our ownership of Dogwood and that expansion. That would give us about 60 megawatts for that project, but it wouldn't come online until about 2032 at the current rate. And we are still gathering pricing and a little more information before we bring that to the council and decide if that's what the city wants to do as a whole. But this is what the graph would look like if we just decided, well, let's hold on and let's do dogwood ownership and not pay for extra capacity prices. That looks pretty thin on the winter seasons for 2030, 31, and through 32, right? We get pretty thin, but we don't go negative. And it doesn't give us as much cushion. So you can see that winter season, we end up at 37 megawatts versus, you know, 48 with the Onetta contracts. A little bit thinner. It's 10 megawatts less, so that makes sense. Option three is what if we did both of them? What if we renewed or replaced Oneta and we added the Dogwood power plant? This is what our capacity line would look like. Gives us a little more clearance for any future economic development, also allows us as a as an entity to look at an IRP and start retiring some of our older generating assets. We've been talking about that for a while. Some of our older, less efficient combustion turbines start either retiring or replacing those. But even if you retire them, they've got to be out for a couple of seasons. It's not a swap immediately, so that would give you a little bit of access to be able to evaluate and perform some of those functions. This one looks a lot better at the end, 2035, just under 200 megawatts, and then into winter 107. So it gives us a lot to think about if you go back to where we were and then that base and then a couple of different options. In conclusion, I think that I could say that the addition of the large load and generation is really a net negative. If you think about 800 megawatts of load and you add a 38% capacity factor on that for winter, that's 1,100 megawatts, which is exactly what the Independence Power Partners is building. So that's a net neutral. The issues that we had prior to the large load and generation are the issues that we face today. and that we need to solve for for our own future. So my, you know, staff recommendations would be obviously extend or replace Oneta, and I say it that way because I think we could still go to the market, see what options are out there, see what our best pricing option would be rather than just replace Oneta or renew it for another 10 years. But I would think we would want to get into a long-term agreement. Participate in the Dogwood expansion project, I think, is in our best interest. It's cheap gas generation. which there's a lot more expensive alternatives out there today. And then I still believe that even though there are smaller numbers, the replacement or renewal of Smoky Hills and Marshall wind farms is still in our best interest. I still believe IPL should maintain a diverse portfolio of fuel, and those are vital parts of our portfolio of different generating assets and definitely bring value. I do think that we could probably Hope to get better pricing. Wind farms aren't quite the same price they were, you know, 10, 15 years ago. But that would be what IPL would recommend. I think that's the last slide. So I said a lot. I didn't hear any questions, so I've got to open it up.

Any questions?

Mr. Mayor, proceed. So the Oneta contract, how much is that per year financial-wise?

Hold on. I'd have to do some math real quick. I mean, it's a few hundred thousand dollars. I'm going to tell you that... Market pricing of capacity is two to three times what our deal was for the first 10 years. The last time we checked with them, the price had doubled from around $3 per kilowatt month to over six. And a lot of capacity pricing is $8.50 per kilowatt month. So it's going to double at least.

Okay, so it's going to get more expensive. And right now we're kind of hamstrung as far as economic development goes without additional energy capacity.

I would say yes.

Okay. And so let's say worst case scenario, we don't re-up or replace or expand Dogwood. What happens whenever we are right at both our capacity and energy demands or we don't provide enough energy? What happens to people's bills?

Well, I'm glad I looked that up because so if you do not meet your capacity obligations for Southwest Power Pool, the institute was called a cone pricing. It's a penalty pricing for not meeting your obligations. So even though I said Oneta was $3 and it went up right today if you went and got something, I think our last capacity contracts were about $8.50 per kilowatt month. A capacity contract at that price for 20 megawatts would be about $2 million. But the current cone penalty is about $3.5 million. And they're currently undergoing studies to change that cone pricing structure. And we can't just look at what it is today, but what's it going to be five years from now? It'll probably be closer to $5.5 million annually. So the penalties significantly outweigh the current pricing structure for capacity on the market.

Gotcha. Uh, and I assume that that penalty would likely just be passed on to rate payers.

Yes, it would.

Okay. So, um, so all of this, obviously it costs money to do. Um, you know, we are in kind of a tight spot with economic development. So without new economic development, bringing in those new resources, we are in a difficult spot and expanding our energy capacity as well then, right?

Yes.

Okay. So we, we need to get more energy capacity for further economic development, but right now we don't have excess funds to bring on those additional revenue streams with new economic development.

It's chicken and egg, right?

Right.

I mean, you need capacity to bring in economic development. You need economic development to help pay for capacity.

Gotcha. Okay. And then on the battery moratorium, I certainly understand the fire concerns. Councilman Stewart and I had a really good conversation about that. I would love to see more renewable energy sources being brought into the city supplying energy for us. It's my understanding that those battery storage systems, that that is kind of another chicken and egg situation, right? Where we need battery storage capacity to be able to store energy from whether it be solar or wind, because the sun's not always shining and the wind's not always blowing. So without that additional battery storage capacity, we can't really use a whole lot of renewable energy unless we're using it right as it's produced.

Yes.

Okay. And then kind of the second part to those battery storage systems, it seems to me that my reading of it and after speaking with some folks involved in that industry, that that battery storage capacity is released at peak price moments to help control prices for consumers.

That is a fact. So while the able battery installation doesn't directly benefit our residents because it's not tied, it's not a customer of IPL's, it's directly connected to the grid. It can have some secondary positive impacts for the city of Independence by lowering what's called our LMPs, our local marginalized pricing, our local market pricing for Southwest Power Pool. So if our peaks are hitting real high usage, they can discharge that battery and it'll lower the pricing actually in the area and can help subdue that pricing, which will relieve our prices.

Gotcha. All right. That's all I have. I'm looking forward to working with the council member on ironing some of this out because I think there's tremendous opportunity with battery storage capacity and renewable energy production. Thanks.

Mr. Mayor, I just want to take an opportunity and just remind everybody here that These slides were presented to the Public Utility Advisory Board last week They're available on the city's website So if somebody wants to take a closer look at some of the numbers The reason why we've already started talking to the Public Utility Advisory Board about some of this stuff, right? Is because these conditions existed regardless of the large load as you heard the Director say right that that the large load was a net zero These conditions the the drop in capacity and decisions that we're going to have to make in the near future about buying capacity and expanding capacity existed from an economic development perspective and otherwise And an impact to rate payers or otherwise existed even before the large load was considered. This is just us continuing to do our due diligence in transparency and openness to the general public that these conditions existed prior to. And there's some long-term strategies we need to start thinking about today to position ourselves to make sure that we're not passing along those costs to rate payers in the future.

Any other questions? Mr. Mayor proceed. Thank you.

So were you talking? So combustion turbines, were you discussing the replacement of combustion turbines, making those more efficient? As I was reading, I was trying to listen at the same time.

Was that part of that? So if you're talking about our older combustion turbines that are throughout the city, I think that you evaluate those on a site-by-site basis at that time that we're going to retire those. I think you replace them with some sort of capacity, whether that be a newer – better combustion turbine that has better efficiencies, or whether you replace it with a newer technology. I know we're talking about moratoriums, but a battery storage or some type of other technology at that time. I think you evaluate those on a case-by-case basis, but replace them. The only question is, is it 100 percent? So J, for example, the two combustion turbines, Caddy corner to the police station. That is a good site probably for battery storage versus combustion turbines because I have no natural gas at that site. It would be replacing a diesel fuel fired combustion turbine with diesel fuel. But we could not get the same capacity from some of these other technologies. So I think you evaluate them on a site by site basis.

Refresh my memory. About five years ago, we were discussing talking about replacing two combustion turbines.

The 2J with a battery storage at that time, yes.

And that was about $70 million? That is correct. Five years ago. Five years ago. So now is, what would you guess?

So battery storage has actually come down, and there's different technologies. The most well-known one is lithium-ion. I know that there's a battery installation going on down in Springfield that's actually nickel, and it's all sourced U.S. materials. And so there's different technologies, and I'll be honest, Councilmember, the prices have changed so much, and I haven't really been looking at the pricing yet. of battery storage, but I know that they've come down, so it may be cheaper than $70 million, but it's not going to be as cheap as a gas turbine. They're still relatively expensive in the realm of generating assets or storage.

The larger discussion and point being, whatever we do to keep our city with its electricity as is, because we are upside down. We've discussed this for years on how residential does take and bear the burden and not industrial and commercial for large base users. So the residents bear that cost. So five years ago, we were looking at $70 million to do replacements and stuff like that. So this has been a discussion the PUAB has looked at. This council has made those decisions. At that time, not to, just because of the cost of burden on them.

Any further discussion? Questions?

Mr. Mayor. Proceed. I just want to make a comment about some of the discussion that was going on. So I want to make it very clear. I'm not saying that there's not any good reason to have a bus system. I just want to make sure the protections and the zoning are in place before we get any more. And that includes up into the point. I mean, does the fire department have the ability? What would happen if one of these did catch on fire? There was one, there was an infamous one in California. These lithium ions that you referred to, it burned for nine days. So, I mean, what happens? We have something like that in our city. So that's the reason I'm asking for the moratorium is just for the protection of our citizens to make sure we can get this stuff in place before another one comes in. And then, Mr. City Manager, when will these be on an actual agenda to vote on?

So the actual ordinance will appear on July 6th for you all to take action on. Okay, thank you. If that's the will of the body. I think it would be a resolution. Actually, hold on just a second. I'm double checking. Give me just a second. So actually, I think that doesn't appear on the agenda until July 20th. And it would be a resolution.

Correct. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Anything else? All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. City Manager Anderson, do you have anything else to add?

No, that's all I have. Thank you so much. All right.

Well, I appreciate everybody coming out tonight. Thank you very much for coming, and we'll see you at the next council meeting on July 6th.

Thank you.