Board Members present: Susie Smith, Dorothy Anderson, Peter Bartel, and Sandra Bishop. Commissioner Mike Dyer was absent and excused.
Other present: Randy Berggren, Manda Bednarczyk, Ken Beeson, Cathy Bloom, Marty Douglass, Dick Helgeson, Eric Hiaasen, Dale Kissinger, Garry Kunkel, Jim Maloney, Roseanna McArthur, Mat Northway, Jim Origliosso, Scott Spettel, Dick Varner, Debra Wright, and Krista Hince of the EWEB staff; members of the public; and Daniel Lindstrom, minutes recorder.
President Smith called the Special Board Meeting (Work Session) of the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) to order at 5:40 p.m.
INTEGRATED ELECTRIC RESOURCE PLAN
Resource Planning Analyst Jim Maloney stated that the meeting would be the 12th Board Work Session on the Integrated Electric Resource Plan (IERP), the most recent session on October 14, 1998. He noted that since then Commissioners had since worked on their "homework" assignments and considered their draft strategies. He said he had met individually with Commissioners and wanted to present the idea of a Composite Strategy combining elements selected by the Board in October. This draft Composite Strategy was to his memorandum dated January 28 distributed with the agenda of the meeting.
Mr. Maloney then distributed copies of a document entitled "The Integrated Electric Resource Plan - IERP--Where are we now?" He said the document contained information to be reviewed during the Work Session.
Mr. Maloney referred to the "homework" of Commissioner Anderson attached to his memorandum distributed with the agenda of the meeting. He highlighted important issues and observations contained in it.
Mr. Maloney referred to a document entitled "Composite Strategy 1.2" attached to his memorandum distributed with the agenda of the meeting. He said the document combined strategy elements selected by Commissioners in previous Work Sessions, ordering them by the number of votes each received. He noted that there seemed to be agreement among Board members about basic strategy directions. He also noted that there seemed to be agreement on the basic thrust in each strategy area--Demand Side Management Strategy, Power Quality and Reliability Strategy, Cost Allocation Strategy, Pricing and Portfolios Strategy, Generation Strategy, Wholesale Power Purchase Strategy, and Wholesale Power Sales Strategy. He reviewed the Composite Strategy Table with the Board.
Mr. Maloney reviewed the Purpose Statement for the IERP included in the document he had distributed. He said the goal of the plan was to reliably meet the present and long-term energy needs of the community at the lowest economic and environmental costs. He also reviewed the Policy Premises/Objectives adopted by the Board:
As a review of the original scope of the IERP process, Mr. Maloney referred to the Fundamental Questions included in the document he had distributed, as follows:
Mr. Maloney displayed a flow chart and described how the Policy Premises/Objectives and Fundamental Questions would be used to assess the draft Composite Strategy. He then explained that the Board needed to provide some further clarification about some specific questions, as follows:
Commissioners discussed the questions raised by Mr. Maloney, expressing a variety of opinions. President Smith described her concept of benchmark cost as being the cost of power some comparison or competitor energy provider would have to charge for power. Her sense was that because EWEB already has some relatively inexpensive resources in its power portfolio, that our average cost could be comparable even when we add some higher priced renewable resources to the mix.
Commissioner Anderson asked about the inclusion of environmental costs above and beyond what are normally included in the market price of power. Mr. Maloney reviewed with the Baord the established policies of including the so-called "Regional 10% adder" to an avoided cost when determining when conservation measures were cost-effective and that when we evaluate power supply portfolios we have used a more explicity trade-off approach for economic and enviromental factors.
In terms of several other discussion points, Commissioners determined that environmentally superior power generation included the use of renewables meeting certain criteria, high-efficiency natural gas with environmental features and mitigation, and other sources such as fuel cells, methanol, and distributed generation.
Commissioners also discussed appropriate levels of incremental development of new power generation. Commissioner and staff agreed that staff would bring back a range of resource acquisitions for consideration.
The work session adjourned at 7:20 p.m.