Board Meeting Summary

March 21, 2008

The Lincoln Electric System Administrative Board held its regular monthly meeting March 21 at the Lincoln Electric Building. Items from the meeting, as well as other pertinent information, include...

Capital Improvements through 2014 to Total $257.5 Million

The Lincoln Electric System (LES) Administrative Board approved the $257.5 million Capital Improvement Program (CIP) that is submitted to the City as part of its budget. Ron Kratzer, Utilities Manager II, said the amount is down $33 million, or 11.5 percent, from last year’s report.

For 2009-2014, service will be extended to 11,700 new customers, while increasing service to 3,500 customers. It is projected the number of customers served by LES will be approximately 140,000. In the next six years, LES will serve an estimated 84,000 kilowatts of new electric load, which is comparable to the load of a city the size of Fremont—an annual load growth rate of 1.7 percent.

Projected peak demand will increase from 799 MW in 2008 to 883 MW in 2014, the CIP report stated.

The following amounts are budgeted in the next six years:

$36.8 million on transmission—up about $700,000 from last year’s CIP.
$45 million on substations—down $7.9 million.
$19.2 million on overhead distribution—down $3.3 million.
$83.3 million on underground distribution—down $14.6 million.
$988,000 on distribution lines in Waverly—down $19,000.
$869,000 on street lights—up $105,000.
$71.4 million on Power Supply—down $8.3 million.

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

115kV line from SW 7th and Saltillo Road and Rokeby.
115kV line from Sheldon Station to SW 33rd and Denton Road.
Substation at SW 7th and Saltillo Road.
Replace a 115-12kV transformer at the 56th and Q substation.

The CIP will be reviewed with Mayor Chris Beutler next week before it is finalized and sent to City Planning Dept. on April 7. The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the CIP on May 14.

Integrated Resource Plan Approved by Board

The Lincoln Cooperative Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) that analyzes a variety of future power supply options for the community was approved Friday (3/21) by the Lincoln Electric System Administrative Board.

The plan covers LES, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other state agencies (Lincoln Regional Center, Nebraska State Office Building, Nebraska State Penitentiary), and will be submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) for final approval.

Future power supply options discussed and analyzed in the plan include demand side, supply side, renewable energy and new power generation options.

LES developed the plan in compliance with federal power purchase contract provisions. All agencies covered by the plan purchase federal power. WAPA supplies power to LES from its Upper Missouri Basin hydroelectric plants and requires its customers to submit an updated IRP every five years. Integrated resource planning is a process for evaluating the full range of new resource alternatives available for the purpose of providing adequate and reliable service to customers.

The community had the opportunity to comment on the plan at two public meetings hosted by LES, as well as by submitting written comments for the record.

Other Reports

The following statistics for February were presented to the Board:

February 2008	February 2007	Change
Number of Customers
127,083	125,324	+1,759 (+1.4%)
Retail Electricity Use (MWh)
259,687	247,207	+12,480 (+5.0%)
12-Month Average Outage Time/Customer (minutes)
42.8	19.2	+23.6

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