Commission - Regular Meeting

Did All right, there it is. 5:15. Let's call this meeting to order. We'll start with the pledge. of the United States of America nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

If we could do the roll please. Tobin here. Brandon here. Ness Taylor Bulmer here. Davala here. Hibber here. Right. Uh do we have any recusal recusals for the evening? Okay. Uh with that consent,

the purpose of the consent calendar is to expedite business by grouping non-controversial items together to be dealt with by one board motion without discussion. Any member of the board staff or the public may ask that any item on the consent calendar be removed there from and placed elsewhere on the agenda for full discussion. Such requests will be automatically respected. If an item is not removed from the consent calendar, the action noted in parentheses on the agenda is approved by a single board action adopting the consent calendar. Thing that anyone would like to pull off motion to approve the consent calendar.

Thank you. Anything uh from the public to pull Okay, back to the board. All those in favor? I. Thank you.

All right. So, we have no unfinished business. Uh, so new business. First up, consideration of scheduling a public hearing. So, we're here to talk about the metal melting time of use rate. It's the last rate for us to adopt uh to conform with time of use rates. Um as we start out all our uh presentations with our strategic foundation, our mission and vision statement. Um this really uh uh aligns with our financial excellence with our strategic plan. So, a few of us uh Jay Colin and I have worked closely with our key account um on this rate over the past several years to evaluate the best option for the utility to maintain its cost of service while also providing um the correct price points for our customers uh within this time of use rate. Uh the time of use rate includes a separate distribution demand charge which is over a 24-hour period the peak demand so we can recover our infrastructure costs our lines and poles and and so forth and then also it has an on peak capacity demand charge to make sure we cover our generation costs. Um we removed this customer had a demand ratchet. So what that meant is that if they had a peak demand one month they were build that peak demand for 12 months. We remove that because that doesn't obviously incentivize the customer uh to improve their um peak demand and costs are typically driven for large industrials by their peak demand and not energy. So that's why we kind of focus on demand costs with this rate structure. Um so we have winter on peak off peak. Um, it follows our similar time of use from 8 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and then summer is 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. with the summer months being June, July, September, and October or

sorry, June, July, August, and September. Uh, this rate afforded them the opportunity to manage costs through scheduling and staggering startups rather having to shift uh large loads entirely and basically avoiding them to create a high peak demand. Uh this is the total cost by rate. It's similar to our other time of use rates where they will receive higher costs during the summer uh reflecting the higher cost of our energy that we pass through. But if you look at the annual rate comparisons, um it's just an annual percentage change of 1% over the current rate structure. And that's what how we structured our other time of use rates is to be relatively revenue neutral and not impact our customers with um excess cost but also give them the ability to change their behavior to save costs.

And that's all I have be happy to answer any questions on it. Just a quick question. Um is that 1% increase is that covering I mean is that covering our costs uh increased costs as well um or are we seeing a dip in our costs with that uh does that make sense? Are we you know is that covering inflation essentially? Yeah. So um this is like the base rate charge so it covers our service. So if we see inflation cost with the purchase power cost, we have a variable cost that would be passed through to them on that

and we do a cost of service every five years um to make sure we're covering our cost. So based on the last c cost of service, we are recovering those costs. Thank you. But also more specifically, the rest of the rate base is not subsidizing this adjustment if that is kind of what you're getting at. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. I understand this is a fairly small number of customers. Um, and I'm just curious about the uh like kind of encouraging them to or you know if there's a program ready to communicate with them about this to encourage them to get on to the um time of use rate or anything like that you can share um planwise.

Yeah, we've had several meetings with them over the past couple years. Um we've looked at alternative time of use structures. We've looked at alternative um demand response programs, you know, potentially uh utilizing some generators they have. So, we've had several conversations with them and then we came to agreement on this rate for it to be the best for the utility to cover the cost of service and for them to respond. It's really one customer. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you never know. I know. Yeah.

Are they is the the main customer in the city of Traverse City? Interesting. Okay. Is this a case speaking of demand response where with the recent um agreement with MPPA in that is this a customer that we anticipate will be signing up for that and uh as another way of helping them mitigate they are exploring it. Yeah. I don't think they've signed on yet for they haven't they haven't signed on yet. They are exploring it because they have multiple locations with us. Um but they also implemented their own demand response program internally. It it's not so much a demand response as it is a demand leveling program.

Um but they are taking action themselves as well. So we've been talking to them in depth for quite some time now about different options. Great.

Okay. There is a suggested motion up there. A motion. I move that the light and power board tenatively approve the rate adjustment and authorize the secretary to set a public hearing for the August 2026 billing rate adjustment to be held at the April 14th, 2026 regular meeting and further that a notice of the public hearing be posted on the utilities website and placed in the Tur City Record Eagle. Second. Um, anything from the public? All right. Any other questions or items from the board? All right. All those in favor? I opposed. Great. Thank you. See you again in April.

Next up, he's already gone. Thanks, Jake. Consideration approving a project authorization and contract with Keen. Um, all right. So, this is a project that we've been working on for some time as well. um exploring different options, what would make the most sense and looking at grant opportunities. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find any grants that would allow us to proceed with this. So, we have decided to proceed ourselves um and utilize Hall Street, a uh very centralized location in downtown as a great demonstration opportunity for both solar and battery. Um, so as Carlos stated with all of our uh presentations, our mission and vision and the great thing about this project is how closely it fits in with our mission and vision and what we're looking to do. So, a quick breakdown of uh what we actually had um for a bid and that's uh 46 kilowatts of canopy solar. So, this canopy will go along the parking spots that uh are right next to the building, I guess, north side of that parking lot down at Hall Street. Um, it would give covered parking for customers, which is another great advantage to it. Um, we'll have the bfacial uh modules on these which will help to actually produce more power than a standard uh with the inverter and then a 15 kilowatt hour battery. So the battery is small. It's not meant to really help power a lot, but it is great piece for the demonstration. You'll see why in a little bit. So this is a picture of inside of Hall Street. And as you enter into the

customer service area to the right, if you've been in there, you'll notice there was a blank wall. Well, that blank wall was for this specifically, and it's been blank for a couple years now. Um, so we'd like to put there's a 65 inch um television that's going to go up there, a kiosk, and then that's where the battery will be as well. So customers can actually see it. We we want them to be able to actually see what this looks like, not just say, "Hey, here's a picture of it," but this is the actual battery. Um, so that 65 inch display is going to have a split screen and be able to display real time monitoring, actually show you the numbers from the solar array and the battery itself. There is going to be some interactive component to it, hence the kiosk where someone could come in and maybe click a button or play around with it. The exact details of how that's going to interact, how it's going to work, we have to go through still, but it is part of the proposal. So, here's the layout in the parking lot. And sorry, not the greatest pictures, but um it at least gives you an idea. Uh so right along the north end of that parking lot at Hall Street kind of aligns the building three panels deep. So it's going to give quite a bit of coverage for vehicles. Um but it's also right there for people to see which is the whole purpose of this demonstration project. Um, as I talked about in the beginning, um, this project strikes a lot of marks with, uh, you know, our priorities, our mission, our vision. It's really giving the community a place to go to learn about solar and battery storage and do it in an interactive way instead of just

reading something on a website. We wanted it to be front and center. Um, be very highly visible. Um, so we can bring our community down. They can learn from it. They can ask questions. Hopefully contractors will utilize it and they can show off what solar and battery can do. It's really it's really an educational opportunity for everyone. Um, so this is the evaluation criteria that we utilized. Uh, when we went through the bids, we received four bids in total. Uh, and then narrowed it down to Keen, who was the winning bidder. Um, they had the best demonstration by far of all of the bids that were there. It wasn't the largest uh solar array of all of them, but it was really close. and the size of it wasn't really the main goal of this project. Uh so we went with Keen because of that demonstration piece that we thought was very important for this project and the main purpose for it. You can see there's a little snapshot um of what a dashboard might look like. It's not going to be exactly like that, but um just a really cool idea of of what you might be seeing when you walk into our customer service center. So here are the numbers um that we got from Keen and like I stated this in involves every aspect of the project that we were looking for including the demonstration. Um we had budgeted 200,000 um for this project in the last fiscal year. Uh in meeting with Carl and Tony we were able to find additional funding to make up the difference. So we are able to cover that internally

and that's it. Any questions? Yes. Will the inverter and disconnect be on the building on the same wall that the screen is on on the inside? I want to put everything right there for everyone to see. Would there be some sort of So, you've got the inverter of the disconnect and and maybe like a sign that says come in come on inside and find out more or like will there be signage outside that kind of helps connect what's happening outside to inside?

They do have some money in their budget for signage. Um, we haven't talked specifically of what that signage is going to do, but I'd like to have something on the outside too that says, "Hey, see more, learn more about this inside." Yes. Yeah. And will the staff who work in that facility be able to answer questions? Will they be kind of trained about interacting with people if they want something more?

We usually try and make certain that the customer service reps are kind of like generally brief so that they can at least do kind of like a quick and dirty conversation. Yeah. And then if there needs to be like a little bit more of a deep dive, they'll know how to do a referral. But that's for like all of our programs and things that we have going on. I don't see this being any different fun. I mean, little tiny field trips, little school field trips, you know. Yeah, I know that's not a very big space in that foyer, but No, but if you could do little groups at a time, it Yeah, it would be really cool. Yeah. Is the is the power generated is that going to be fed to the building?

Right into the building. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's just going to be generally fed into the main building. Okay. Um there's not a ton coming from it, but it will help. Same true for the batteries in terms of it basically being uh it's not going to be a um like time of use rate mitigation where like for peak hours in the summer we're going to run use those 15 kilowatt hours. No. Okay. So, but it's pure backup then

not at this size. Yeah, it's just not very much. Um there may be an opportunity to integrate in with the charging stations. It's been looked at. Um so I the the nice thing is we have options down there, but right now the purpose is to just feed into the building

for a secondary. I think one of the the reasons I think some of us or you know I don't want to read into others questions but like we'll have the these modules or like the kind of but it it would be really nice to be able to say like and so this is offsetting this emissions too or like something around there and do you anticipate we'll be able to share some of those numbers or I think the thing part of what I'm like thinking about is there's opportunities to do demonstration projects that might have like a more specific impact on our the climate goals um as well. And so I'm trying to balance that with some of the other organizational goals for something that we're you know covering without a separate grant or anything like that.

We'll add that. Yeah. Or emissions impact part of the dashboard. Yeah. And does that feel like it'll be significant comparatively to other types of demonstration projects that might or placements of demonstration projects? I would sorry. Oh, go ahead. Okay. I would say a 46 kilowatt uh display or array is probably similar to probably even larger. Tony, you could speak better than what you see at a residence.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean I I think the largest one in residence is maybe 20KW. So it's it's over twice the size of a residence one. It's probably average size for most commercial businesses that we see. Yeah. So, so really it's it is giving like a general idea of what you could do either at your home or a small business. Um but having the offset would be part of the dashboard and of course whatever it is producing. Yeah. Great. We'll update we'll make certain that we update some literature and material allows um individuals to have a relative perspective of

like what it actually means in the grand scheme of our portfolio. I mean it's just it's one piece of that pie. Yeah. Um but you know what takes a hundred pennies for a dollar. So

Right. Yeah. And I think particularly on the battery side because if it is truly only going into the building, uh thankfully from everyone's hard work, we have high reliability. So featuring a backup system for customers that thankfully and continue to knock on wood, you know, isn't a big deal. So if it can be um highlight other opportunities with the the battery that would be great. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. Uh buried before the presentation, there is a unless it's on your next slide and I missed it. Uh it's it's in the memo. It's in the memo. Uh there is a suggested motion page 133 if you're counting. I'll make the motion um that the light and power board approve the project authorization and authorizes the executive director to execute a contract with Keen Technical Solutions in the amount of $248,65.32 more or less subject to the review as to substance by the executive director and as to form by general counsel. Second. Great. Uh anything from the public? Okay. Back to the board. Any other questions or

I will say Keen Keen does good work. Um we use them at Beta. Uh they installed all of the solar uh on the rooftop of Beta's facility um out on Lefrren and they I think the estimated savings in just cost uh per year for the electric buses is about $75,000 offset uh to the taxpayer. So um and the millage payer. So that's a it's a pretty good pretty good savings. So, I think this is a a good project. I just want to make sure we focus on it in our marketing. Um that, you know, commercial customers, come check this out. This is what you can do by covering, you know, 10 parking spots in your parking lot. Um and save yourself x amount of dollars over the the time frame or charge your electric fleet. Um you know, I don't know how many electric cars it could charge. Um, but you know, whatever that whatever that looks like, you know, we should be marketing it and and showing it off uh as much as possible.

We will. I I mean, I have to say since I started here in 22, there's a number of nonprofit community partners that have been I'm going to use the word craving, that's my word, for us to actually have solar covered parking because it is a waste of impervious space.

And so I'm you know, we've been waiting and waiting. trying to wait for some grant dollars and I think being able to take advantage now is just where we are. I mean obviously we wanted to prioritize that for affordability and it's still an affordable option but I am excited because it will hopefully lead to more opportunities at other institutions that are local to let them know like this is what it this is what it does. This is what it looks like and maybe we can even have an opportunity where we can get some aggregate purchasing which even makes it even more affordable. Right. So this is just, you know, I add emphasis that it is truly a demonstration opportunity just to show others like it it can be done.

I also think it's important and great that it's canolvered. I think that relative to all things snow plowing. Yeah. The fact that people can see this working as a canalvered structure is goes a long way. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't think we could have gotten by with anything else to be honest. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. All right. If there's nothing else, all those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Demonstration project coming soon. All right. Nothing from legal uh from staff. Uh budget highlights starting with Carla. Yes.

So, car I'll I'll Carla, you drive the first couple slides. Okay. All right. So consistent with so where we are I would say in our planning journey is usually before I propose a budget to you I try to let you know what type of ideas that we have that we're looking at budget planning wise and this is really our opportunity to be transparent we want to engage um and really have available so this information will be available obviously to the public as well and so the mission here is is still aligned with still being that community partner, but you know that we're continuously looking to innovate um and invest forward. Um obviously there's core operational things that we do need to maintain and we'll always like make certain that we're covering that in the budget presentation, but for this presentation, I like you to get a sense of really what we're investing forward like what are some ideas changing wise. My goal is and Carly can go to the next slide is that you know what you'll glean from this over the next few months is that you see still strategic plan alignment. There's cost management. I mean we're the team works really hard and starts planning towards budget planning actually quite frankly like November and December um of the following year. Um Carla still does a cash flow projection lens which uh you'll see more of that detail at the next meeting. But the objective is is to make certain that we're investing forward but we're also taking into account that there are some retirements that are coming about organization which is you know which is normal. And so some of the things that we're looking at um investing in are just positioning ourselves as well to be able to handle it. Um, and then I'll hand it over to Carla. And Carla's going to go through um the the ideas that we have right now that we pulled together as it relates to the

strategic plan.

Okay. So, this slide highlights our efforts around community enrichment and how we support the community. Uh, the first under education resource guidance. Uh recently Jake's team has issued a request for proposal to um look for a third party to assist us in outreach and education for the utilities decarbonization goals. Additionally, we did a request for qualifications to allow us to provide a resource for customers to help them achieve their own personal decarbonization goals by providing a list of trusted professionals. Uh second, we are closely working with the city to explore initiatives of energy storage opportunity at the water plant and fleet consulting. Finally, we are proposing a new communications and marketing manager position. Uh this new position will support all six strategic priorities through effective internal and external communications while also playing a vital role um in the organization transitions towards more competitive sales relating to the lit fiber utility. Overall, these efforts helps us bring uh excuse me, helps us build stronger partnerships, improve access to information and resources, and better connect with our community. Uh the second strategic priority focuses on enhancing the overall customer experience. Uh we recently issued a proposal to engage a third-party administrator to um administer the LEHP and customer cares program uh to support our rate rate payers that need assistance to cover their utility costs while keeping these funds local. We are also implementing recommendations from the customer satisfaction survey to improve digital customer engagement uh for the purpose to increase awareness of the utilities programs and services available to our customers. We are also acting on recommendations from an operational gap assessment. Uh this work focuses on improving internal processes so we can deliver more

efficient, responsive and consistent service to our customers. Our third strategic is employee excellent. At the core of everything we do as people. Therefore, it is very vital that we invest in them. Under employee employment satisfaction the first bullet we are creating a workplace where employees feel supported heard and equipped to success. Next skills knowledge and abilities. We are focusing on professional development that includes leadership development expanding knowledge and building capability. Additionally we are strengthening business continuity and succession planning to ensure we are ready for the future. Additionally, we're engaging in change management to give us structure and consistency on a way to um manage transactions effectively. Under compensations and wages, we're engaging a third party to ensure we remain competitive and equitable with our salaries. Lastly, a new position to enhance our focus on safety, compliance, and employee well-being. The fourth strategic priority is operational and financial excellence. Focus here is strengthening our internal operations, maintaining financial stability and ensure long-term service reliability for the utility. Um so best-in-class focus on maintaining high standards are across our operations to ensure we remain competitive and efficient with the examples listed in the presentation. Uh we continue to progress um in our smart grid maturity and deployment. This work involves planning for improved asset utilization so all TCLMP customers can benefit from the modern grid. And we continue to further evaluate opportunities of the dark fiber assets that we already have. Next is financial stability and renewable. Uh we want to ensure our pricing uh supports operational sustainability. Um, we're updating our financial policies to ensure alignment

with evolving regulatory and organizational needs, infrastructure and operation resilience, which includes substation maintenance, which helps ensure the reliability and longevity of our infrastructure system. Continue to invest in vegetation management to minimize our risk of outages. And we are advancing building and facilities planning relating to the sustainability innovation campus to support future operation and innovation goals. Overall this ensures that our operations, financial structure, infrastructure and workforce remain strong, resilient and positioned for further growth. The fifth strate strategic priority is technology transition and this will ensure our technology environment continues to evolve in a way that supports operational efficiency for the utility. First, we are developing a techn technology strategic plan and this will align closely with the corporate strategic plan and help guide our annual operating plans clearly defining our technology roadmap and make sure investments and initiatives are coordinated, intentional and supports the overall organization priorities. The second focus is technology platform assessment. This involves reviewing our current systems and platforms we rely on to determine how effectively they are performing and identify opportunities and optimization. Next, conducting an operational technology assessment. So, this work will focus on evaluating and planning improvements to the specialized tools used to operate and manage electrical systems such as our SCADA system. And finally, to support proper oversight of our system infrastructure, we're planning a senior network engineer position. This is critical um for our broadband services to ensure reliability, capacity planning and secure connectivity. Highlights of the sixth strategy is environmental sustainability which focuses on reducing environmental impact while supporting reliable energy to our customers. Um one of our first steps is

to have a third party conduct a decarbonization baseline assessment. It will provide data to help us better understand our current emissions and then allow us to identify opportunities to reduce our carbon intensity along with um set measurable goals and track progress. Um another focus is we are issuing demand response proposal along with energy storage which will allow customers reduce or shift energy using during peak demand period which helps improve our grid reliability and efficiency and reduce our cost pass through to our customer. We're also looking at um couple opportunities to go beyond the current 40% renewable benchmark in our clean and renewable energy goals. Um a key um component is also to continue with the work outlined in the climate action plan with some of those um laid out in this slide such as um energy portfolio, rate designs, customer programs and so forth. And finally, we are incorporating sustainability into our long-term infrastructure planning through the sustainable innovation campus. Um this includes micro grid and renewable generation, preserving uh the natural areas at the Cedar Run and integrating advanced technology planning into the campus design. with a purpose to demonstrate innovation and environmental sustainability. That's all I have. Be happy any questions.

Uh question, please. Uh 5.5 new full-time employees. Is that what I read correctly? Um I think it's 2.5. 2.5. I mean, no, that wasn't there's like network engineer um operational and financial excellence. Oh 2.5 and then HR compliance new FTE and marketing manager new FTE there's a couple yeah that sounds right looks right from are are we are is that essentially a budget lift or those being funded through attrition? I'm just curious. So, one of them is dealing with a potential anticipated retirement.

Okay. Another is a matter of descoping the project that we have a third party working on. Okay. And then others are filling in where we're kind of falling behind. So, it does involve obviously a financial lift, but they're filling in where we're having some gaps. Okay. Are those do we anticipate um those people being additional hires uh like actual new hires or just new positions where people will move into new hires? But we always post internally. Yeah. No, that's wonderful. Yeah. Hopefully we can promote from within. Yeah.

Other questions? I mean, I always just so appreciate how y'all present this information in in chunks and grounded in the strategic plan that we're all very um engaged with and bought into. And one thing that I'm just curious about is if there's, you know, it's so great to have everything like fit nicely into the strategic priorities and if there's anything we should anticipate or any way you're thinking about stuff that just like doesn't nicely fit into that. but you have to address. And so I'm just curious if there's like that process-wise how you go about thinking like beyond the strategic plan or if there's anything you all want to highlight for us in terms of what we should be anticipating or looking for as well.

Let me give that some thought. I I feel like you did such a great job with the strategic mission and vision. like when we go through and analyze everything, it's kind of it's falling. The question is whether or not it's fitting more than one strategic objective, right? Um I think there are some opportunities where we're looking at let's say retirements that doesn't necessarily fit a strategic objective, but it definitely supports risk management, employee excellence, things like that. That would be like an example. But most most of the things that we're investing in are mission forward and focused.

Okay. And then my other question, I think we're just living in a time of uh cost of living is raising for a lot of things. And so as you get to the next stage of presenting the budget and like just how we continue to think about how we maintain really as affordable as possible rates for our customers. I know we're some of the best in the state. We want to continue to be, but um this is not this isn't this is like a time really for all of us to be thinking about how do we keep things as affordable as possible. So, I know that's on your mind and you always think strategically about cost containment, but it's just I'm going to, you know, it's going to be on everyone's mind more and more, too.

Absolutely. We'll make certain too. I think when we update and present the presentation, um, we we speak to affordability, you know, usually we kind of touch on rate, energy burden, and I think we can factor that into our materials. Yeah, it would be interesting to see as part of that the utilization of the rate comparison tool like poster child last night I finally remembered to actually take care of that for myself and like went and looked at the rate comparison tool and then switched to rates um so I don't know how many people have done that to be able to see as a

reference point of like hey I can if I take this simple step after looking at this great presentation of information and save money immediately just by sending an email. We're still fine-tuning that, too. So, I think what we'll do is we'll maybe wrap that into like when we share the information for the budget, maybe we can package that information so customers know how to take a look at that. Yeah. Great. So, you were on the calculator. Yeah. Okay. Well, somebody came and presented to my neighborhood and I realized I should have done it then, but that was last meeting and so finally

I like it. I think that affordability piece is a really good point and I think that having some control over it with the time of use is even better. Y yeah, control it helps. And and when there's I guess there's just there's ways that light power recovers our costs, etc. But how do we make sure that we're using public resources really wisely and um passing on cost containment wherever possible, too.

Yep. It goes back to the mission. So, I mean, going back to the mission slide, Carl, if you want to just go back to that. Um, that's going to continue to be the driver is being able to deliver affordable options and solutions for our customers. Cool. Well, this is great. Thanks, Carlo. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. Last up, Kelly with the annual world report. I don't really have much to say. You saw it in the packet. Uh every year we do an annual report. It's getting better and better each year.