March 16, 2007

 

The Lincoln Electric System Administrative Board held its regular monthly meeting March 16 at the Lincoln Electric Building. Items from the meeting, as well as other pertinent information, include...

 

Board Forwards Bond Issuance, Refunding to City Council

The potential for significant savings spurred the Lincoln Electric System (LES) Administrative Board at its meeting Friday (3/16) to forward for the City Council’s consideration the issuance and refunding of up to $300 million in revenue bonds.

The Board took the action after hearing Financial Services Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Keith Brown state that interest rates are the lowest since early 2005, which makes the refunding of bonds attractive to LES and its customers.

Included in the refunding are the following outstanding amounts from previous bond sales:

• $31,075,000 on 1998 bonds

• $140,150,000 on 2001 bonds

About $100 million more will be issued primarily to pay costs for the construction of Council Bluffs Energy Center Unit 4, as well as substation and transmission line work.

The sale of LES bonds will again be handled over the Internet and is planned to occur May 1.

 

Capital Improvements through 2013 to Total $291 Million

The Lincoln Electric System (LES) Administrative Board approved the $291 million Six-Year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) that is submitted to the City as part of its budget.

Utilities Manager II Ron Kratzer said the amount is down $68 million, or 19 percent, from last year’s report due to construction of a regional coal plant by 2013 and additional transmission projects.

For 2007-2013, service will be extended to 12,000 new customers, while service will be replaced for 6,000 existing customers. It is projected the number of customers served by LES will be approximately 139,000. In the next six years, LES will serve an estimated 97,000 kilowatts of new electric load, which is comparable to the load of a city the size of Fremont—an annual load growth rate of 1.9 percent.

Projected peak demand will increase from 793 MW in 2007 to 890 MW in 2013, the CIP report stated.

 

The following amounts are budgeted in the next six years:

• $36.1 million on transmission—down $7 million from last year’s CIP mostly due to the completion of the North Tier transmission line.

• $52.9 million on substations—up $11 million mainly because the price of transformers has doubled in the last year.

• $22.5 million on overhead distribution—up $1 million.

• $97.9 million on underground distribution—up $14 million with a 30-35 percent increase in the cost of materials, such as oil, copper, aluminum and steel.

• $1 million on distribution lines in Waverly—down $46,000.

• $764,000 on street lights—up $3,000.

• $79.7 million on Power Supply—down $88 million with the completion of Council Bluffs Energy Center Unit 4.

New projects in this year’s CIP report are as follows:

• 115kV line from 70th and Bluff to 190th and Little Salt Road (county line).

• 115kV line from 91st and Highway 2 to 70th and Rokeby Road.

• A 115-12kV substation at 70th and Rokeby Road.

• Replace a 115-35kV transformer at the West Lincoln substation.

• 345kV terminal at NW 68th and Holdrege substation.

• Ongoing capital investments at Council Bluffs Energy Center Unit 4.

Other Reports

The following statistics for February were presented to the Board:

February 2007	February 2006	Change
Number of Customers
125,324	123,566	+1,758 (+1.4%)
Retail Electricity Use (MWh)
247,207	229,162	+18,045 (+7.9%)
12-Month Average Outage Time/Customer (minutes)
16.3	21.2	-4.9

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