May 18, 2007

 

The Lincoln Electric System Administrative Board held its regular monthly meeting May 18 at the Lincoln Electric Building. Items from the meeting, as well as other pertinent information, include:

 

PURPA Resolutions Passed by Board

 

The Lincoln City Council will decide whether Lincoln Electric System (LES) will adopt Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) standards, after the LES Administrative Board forwarded their recommendations at a meeting Friday (5/18).

The City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing in June and will vote on the standards in July. A public hearing was held by LES on Feb. 20.

The purpose of PURPA is to encourage the conservation of energy by electric utilities, optimal efficiency of electric utility facilities and resources, and equitable rates for electric consumers.

The six standards acted on by the Board and its recommendations follow:

• Time-based metering and communications – Not adopt. The current Power Purchase Program would be continued. The other pricing mechanisms (time-of-use, critical peak pricing and real-time pricing) present a variety of identifiable financial and operational risks to LES and its consumers. Staff will continue to monitor and evaluate time-based rates and their applicability to consumers in Lincoln. LES may implement a pilot program with a specific rate class if analysis shows the benefits exceed the costs.

• Interconnection – Adopt with modifications. This provides a standard on how utilities interconnect consumer generating facilities to the electrical grid. The Board agreed to interconnect with generating facilities of 250 kW or larger that meet safety standards of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standard 1547 for Interconnecting Distributed Resources with Electric Power Systems.

• Net metering – Adopt with modifications. Net metering/billing is measuring the electricity supplied by LES and the electricity generated by a consumer-generator that is delivered to the LES distribution system at the same point of connection. To encourage the market development of renewable energy, LES would provide net metering/billing service to consumers with a generator of 25 kW or less. The metered energy would be billed in net of all energy supplied by LES and generated by the consumer. Energy generated by consumers in excess of the energy they use would be purchased by LES at its avoided cost for energy.

• Fuel source reliance – Adopt with modifications. LES will continue to produce a list of energy efficiency upgrades at fossil fuel fired generating resources to be evaluated in the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). Upgrades would be implemented if they pass the IRP principles and show to be economically beneficial.

• Fossil fuel generation efficiency – Adopt. This standard is aimed at minimizing dependence on one fuel source and ensuring the use of a diverse range of fuels and technologies, including renewable.

• Information to customers – Adopt with modifications. The Board’s recommendation updates the previously-adopted 1981 standard to reflect current technologies and how LES communicates with consumers about rate proposals and changes and with the Board and City Council on other matters.

PURPA became law in 1978. Amendments to PURPA have subsequently been considered in 1981, 1992 and 2007. LES has considered a total of 21 PURPA standards since 1978.

 

Other Reports

 

The following statistics for April were presented to the Board:

April 2007	April 2006	Change
Number of Customers
125,541	123,902	+1,639 (+1.3%)
Retail Electricity Use (MWh)
223,706	215,091	+8,615 (+4.0%)
12-Month Average Outage Time/Customer (minutes)
25.8	24.7	+1.1

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