exist no yeah yeah we could you could certainly write something up for the next meeting if if members feel comfortable enough to do that I mean I'm just you know I just want to set the policy make sure we're on the same page okay all right with that we go to the report of the CI Advisory Board Ray you're up well I My First Act is new member on the uh Commissioners board was to be on the citizens Advisory board meeting so and enjoyed that role um first time on the big table big person feat um here uh I I really I think uh it was correctly summarized that a lot of what we're going to see today was presented to the capab um and was positively seed by them and their actions on the Motions before them rep kind of reflected their approval of the direction that was being presented so rather than me describe it I'll let the people who are here to tell us about it tell us about it and I will ask all the same questions I asked last time that's fair okay so with that we move on to the minutes but who's going to be our official motion I suggest r that too while all right you do with a little bit more flare oh man never mind I want back better um so we did the suggested motion under five yes yes you do please move that the rmld Board of Commissioners approved the November 15 2023 open session meeting minutes as presented on the recommendation of the general manager and board secretary okay is that second second just for clarity I am the board secretary so all right so um any discussion all those in favor please raise your right hand say I motion Carriage 5 Zer all right we go to an update and release of executive session minutes so um in the executive session we have um there's a lot of minutes we are we are going to approve we releasing them are we releasing the minutes some of those minutes or just okay well I mean the approval is to release okay we review them we looked at the appropriateness given on where we are and where they were okay some of them go back to 2014 many of I was here Mr Talbert was here also and some of those so um we will approve them and release them on the from the executive session on that so that that'll be in the executive session to be released okay we Mo on to the Perma insurance review well thank you guys for having me hopefully everyone yeah now I have the mic maybe up okay so my name is Nicole magnifico I'm the executive director of the public utilities risk management association I a clicker did you already give it to me I'm like actually nervous it's like I've never presented before Oh my God what am I doing um so I've been here since July 2020 but prior to that I was the claims liaison for per I just worked with uh the brokerage firm that Perma works with so I've actually been supporting the Public Power Community from an insurance perspective for 10 years so I've been around and I'm very familiar with all of the Perma policies and so the reason why Perma is so special this is in your materials is because we're a nonprofit trade Association founded by the Northeast Public Power Association back in 1997 and our mission is to provide risk management Insurance procurement Education Services to the public power community in the Northeast we're also um like I said we're a nonprofit and we're governed by a board of directors who are all made up of Our member utilities so they're representatives from our members I'm not going to go over the next two slides they're about our captive Insurance programming in which reading Municipal light department is an active member of both of our captives um I guess just a couple of highlights such an insurance person like I'm not not going to go over it and then I'm just going to talk about it um so couple of highlights the reason why our captives are so unique compared to like folks that go out and buy insurance from the commercial Marketplace is because our captives are very restrictive with membership and eligibility so you have to be a municipal um or some kind of quasa government organization that's tax exempt in order to be a member of our captives and that allows our captives to be tax exempt insurance companies which is very very favorable to our members because it's allowed us to have long-term rate stabilization that's really the big benefit so this slide that you see here is on pumik um that is the public utility Mutual insurance company and that provides our liability coverages to our members which reading is a member of and the next slide is about our property insurance captive um public energy insurance company which reading Municipal department is also a member this is just our work chart it kind of helps our members this is uh the presentation you have is like a condensed version of when we go out and meet with our members and talk through um who we are and what we do and how we can serve them so this is our org chart it explains how we interact with our captives and then the other divisions that we have so we consider ourselves to have three divisions our first division is to run our captive programs our second division is to provide Education and Training and other Risk Management Services like uh contractual uh contractual reviews um indemnification additional insured all of that stuff certifica of insurance management lots of really fun Insurance jargon and then our third division is if we cannot Place something within our captive um and we have to place it in the commercial Marketplace we will oversee that process to make sure that um that the premiums are in line with what we see that the coverage forms are uh the best that we can procure on behalf of the member we review the coverages and we work with the broker to make those commercial placements the next slide is I don't know why it's like this but um it's just a list of our members you'll see a lot of folks that you're familiar with the majority of our membership is out of Massachusetts and I think that's just because Massachusetts is such a public power uh friendly State whereas many of our other states that we work with like Connecticut Rhode Island Vermont have much less Public Power also because Perma was founded by NEPA which was founded in the state of Massachusetts I think we've just always had a long history here and the majority of the traditional electric utility MLPs in Massachusetts are members of Perma and this is really why we're here is to kind of talk through uh the insurances that you purchase through Perma and how you know I'm here to provide any information or answer any questions that you might have about these insurances so I'm just going to provide a quick overview of each coverage and then you know certainly let me know or jump in if you have questions about a particular insurance so our auto program is covered by our captives that is really great because like I said when something is placed in our captive we have uh long-term rate stabilization and we're able to also control the coverages that we're providing so our coverages are always um comparable or better to what you can buy in the commercial Marketplace if there's ever an opportunity for us to enhance our coverage offerings at a reasonable price then we do that so with auto um one thing that I want to point out I think it's important for the board to know is that even though your limit for auto liability says $500,000 the excess liab ility policy that rmld purchases actually sits over that limit so that's very standard anytime even if you're in your own personal life if you purchase a what we call like a primary underlying policy and you purchase an umbrella policy it sits over that primary policy so you're extending your limits a rookie question you talk about Auto we're talking vehicle so it covers the trucks yes yes yeah absolutely question here no you got it so Auto liability is going to be in es where an rmld employee is operating a motor vehicle and damages property you have to explain it for want to make sure we we were talking to trucks yeah absolutely um and so the reason why that $500,000 limit can be concerning if you didn't understand that the excess that's over it is because there are so many circumstances where if you're operating a motor vehicle you could injure or you know potentially even worse to a third party so we want to make sure that you're fully covered for that exposure and your exess policy is 20 a $25 million limit so plenty of auto insurance and then of course we also ensure the physical damage to your your trucks your private passenger vehicles um so if you have damage to the your Fleet here at ourm LD then uh that would be covered by our auto insurance policy as well the next policy that you purchase is crime crime is an interesting policy it's like one of the oldest insurance policies available you know a long time ago this really was meant to cover break-ins when folks were you know when it was more likely that you had cash on hand and folks were coming in and and breaking and entering this policy would still be triggered in the event that that happened but more likely what we see for claims are employee theft claims these are going to be like long-term embezzlement type claims where it's uh usually a small amount of money that's taken month after month after month and and gone unseen and then the other big trigger for crime is social engineering social engineering is another term for a fishing scam so that's when an email um somebody's Outlook or email has been compromised and so now you have a bad actor that's actually sitting in that person's email box kind of impersonating that individual and maybe they are asking another employee to pay a bill that's fraudulent or to go buy gift cards or something of that nature that's going to um have an economic advantage to the bad actor and economic disadvantage to rmld so social engineering um is also endorsed onto your crime policy that's an important coverage to have uh quick question um assets does it when I say assets like materials so so the stuff is highly valuable today does that cover that so if someone came in and say borrowed a real cable that might be worth $50,000 is that covered yeah absolutely so from an employee theft standpoint so if an employee has stolen assets um and I've I've seen this before selling it on eBay or something like that that would be covered there but yes if if another like a third party just came in and stole your stuff that is ABS that would absolutely be be triggered under crime so you'd have the coverage there could also be um covered under property so there there's kind of duplicate coverage for theft just because of the nature of theft the next policy is cyber um these in in my term terms like cyber's a newer policy even though it's pretty much everyone has a cyber policy at this point in time and if they don't they're trying to get one because it's such an important coverage but you know before 10 years ago no one was really talking about cyber insurance so this is an evolving risk that everybody has to face and unfortunately municipals and utilities are both industries that are highly targeted from a cyber standpoint and so to be a municipal utility you're you're like double whammy it's even more concerning um for the most part the majority of the time you're not looking at grid disturbances with cyber there's so many checks and balances in place to not allow for somebody to be able to access the grid through the network but what you're really talking about is ransomware exposures where your systems are frozen and there's you know there's um ransomware attack on your systems you don't have access to your systems and so you're down you're just operationally down and you need to rely on your backups and of course if there's a ransom this policy is going to negotiate with that bad actor if they're legally allowed to because in some cases you're not allowed to if the bad actor is um is uh engaged with a terrorist organization so I know I'm going into the weeds there but from a cyber standpoint uh one of the biggest threats is Ren somewhere and if that was the case your cyber insurer would negotiate the ransom with the bad actor try try to get it the uh settlement to be as low as possible um exchange cryptocurrency or whatever it might be there's a lot of very interesting sorry there's a lot of um really Niche and interesting expertise that comes along with cyber claims um so it's very important when you're selecting your cyber insurer that you're going with someone that has the expertise in place and so Tokio Marine Kiln is is a great placement for our folks here we just recently um increase that cyber limit from 1 million to 3 million which is consistent with just unfortunately um the average cost of a cyber claim nowadays is now over just over $3 million so that threat has really been evolving over the last five years or so especially after covid it's been big evolving threat after covid because of all the the folks that work from home and are traveling any questions on Cyber so public officials liability this is a very important coverage for the room here this is going to be the policy that covers our public officials elected officials that oversee a public organization such as yourselves and the cab of course it also extends coverage to The Entity itself so our MD any employees within the entity the difference is when you're a public official you know you're either volunteering your service or you're getting paid a small stipend and if this coverage were not in place and the commission were to be sued you would have to hire an attorney yourself to defend yourself um and so that would be a huge burden for folks that are serving on the commission and so this policy has a $3 million limit um it's a good it's a sufficient limit to have in place and this is going to protect the elected officials that are serving the organization in the event that there's an allegation of what we call an error or remission which is a very broad way to say pretty much anything that could be alleged to have an economic damage so policy decisions um claim examples could even be you know um again open meeting violation so you didn't give enough notice to the public that you were going to have a public meeting something as simple as that there are lots of lots of examples of public officials claims but rest assured we have the coverage in place for you I got a question on that mean today I signed two indentification agreements for the two members can you see my identification is somewhere out there some where I have a feeling mine was signed yeah because it was way back when yeah we'll take that that's a good question it may have been chiseled out might be in the Box down an action item yes yeah the next coverage item is Employment Practices liability insurance it's a mouthful but all you're really saying is these are going to be claims that are coming from the employees of rmld alleging discrimination and when I say discrimination I'm I'm talking about everything from sexism to agism to racism to everything in between Ada violations there's so many examples of Employment Practices claims the neat part is it also includes thirdparty coverage so if a third party was to allege that rmld was discriminating against them in some way um that would get picked up under this policy as well the general and excess liability will tackle together so these are going to be your typical claims for bodily injury or property damage um this this most simplest way is if somebody slips and falls in your lobby and gets injured because you know there was um water on the floor or something of that nature or if somebody slips and falls in your parking lot because it was not um there was ice and and you didn't tend to it quickly so these are allegations against the organization that a third party has sustained a bodily injury or some kind of property damage and that it was the negligence of rmld this is the most common claim that we see um at Perma these claims are you know they come in often because we're representing so many members um and so what we typically do is is assist with the investigation to determine negligence and then if negligence was present we work to settle the claim if the organization was not negligent then we work to defend the claim fiduciary liability is the organization's responsibility to administer employee benefits that would include retirement plans so there's typically an obligation to all public entities to have a policy in place to protect um the retirement plans or what we call orisa plans and so that's what this policy does it it aderes to that compliance requirement if there was ever a claim that there was mismanagement of the retirement fund or that somebody uh was not enrolled in health insurance or something of that nature and they should have been this would be the policy that picks up that exposure and liing contractor's equipment is very similar to Auto it's just not your road vehicles it's it's other Contractors Equipment that are getting picked up and then your property policy is going to cover your buildings uh really everything that you own but your Fleet so Fleet is under Auto and then property is going to capture your substations any generation equipment your buildings um your warehouses your garages things like that it also includes everything in the building so we like to say building coverage is for the building itself and property coverage is for anything that would fall out if you picked up the building tipped it upside down and shook it everything that falls out is property so we we call that property coverage and you can see there's a very very large limit there um for the property program and that's because this is a group policy there are other members that are insured within it very geographically diverse across the Northeast so on that particular item you know I think we've all seen the bridge get hit by the boat right are we how would you if you're if that's a mutually um used fund right now we're investing in more substations which you know again you need to replace that is that a look like replacement value and I know a lot of times we always get the you know in insurance policies like well that's age that's been there for 30 years so you're gonna get 130th of today's value h is there anything in that policy that operates like that and are we going know if you lost our substation for whatever reason some dramatic event um would that be something that policy would cover or or is there um you I'm might be getting way too into the weeds but are we covered enough with our assets and there are mutually insured $250 million would that cover replacement of it you know imagine some kind of catastrophic event like that yeah it's a great question so um first answer is the valuation so you're right there's actual cash value and there's replacement cost your property policy is a replacement cost policy so if you have a substation that's 20 years old and it burns to the ground and it's going to cost $20 million to replace it that's the value that you that's what you get is is your check for $20 million the only exception to that is if you decide not to replace the asset so so if it's a substation that's 20 years old you have no plan on replacing it then you're not going to get replacement cost you're going to get actual cash value so you still get to cash in on the asset but you're not going to get the replacement cost follow up on that so if you're if you decide you're going to replace it but you're going to do a different technology than the generation equip you know system that was destroyed or if you want to move it to a different place like what if you know potentially there's a flood and you want to move it away from the new flood zone or something are you allowed to do that yeah if you have a total loss like let's just use substation because it's a great example so if your to if your substation is now in a in a flood zone like a an unfavorable flood zone um and you have a total loss and you want to move it you'll absolutely have under the policy they'll let you move it they don't um care very much where it gets replaced as long as it's within your you know as long as you're still going to continue do it it's within your territory if it was a partial loss so that kind of gets in the weeds if it's only a partial loss um they're not going to pay for you to uh tear down the whole thing and move it just to remediate a potential future loss so that is a caveat of the policy um that's standard with insurance policies it would have to be a total loss if you do want to move it um the other question you had was about the limit and the exposure because it's a group policy right it's an excellent question so the the limit of 250 million is a per occurrence limit so in the event that there was an ice storm today and uh when Windstorm in three days and you know a a wildfire or some kind of other fire in a week that per recurrence limit resets with every event um so it is plenty of coverage and also our group members are geographically diverse from Rhode Island Connecticut Massachusetts Vermont and New York I always kind of joke and it's it's not super funny but the only way that you could really foresee an event that um would take out all of our systems at once and we wouldn't have sufficient coverage would be like a meteor and if that happened none of us would be here so nobody would need insurance ever again um aside from that I mean you're not gonna have a windstorm that hits Coastal Massachusetts and also hits you know upper New York in the same event it's you know it's just not practical it's not going to happen so yeah we do feel very comfortable we do also Analyze That limit once every couple years and just make sure based on the amount of exposure we have that it's a sound limit speaking of the limits you mentioned that the Cyber limit changed have any of the other limits changed I looking at this because we're renewing so yeah anything else changed you can let them know that we got okay yeah we're gonna do the public po so so we're GNA increase the public officials from three million to five million so we're going to do that midterm as of April 1 and that's just because of um the um you have the cab and you have the B see I say so you have two boards really so we just want to make sure that there is enough limit to go around in the event that um a claim a very large claim transpired and you needed a bigger limit um other than the Cyber none of the other limits have changed the excess liability limit being 25 million is um a very large limit of liability um at this point there really isn't a need to change that limit Massachusetts is subject to or Massachusetts municipals are subject to the mass Tor claims act which essentially says that municipals um have a torque cap of $100,000 that they would be uh subjected to if they were found to be negligent um there are exceptions to that rule but for the most part when we do receive a claim we're able to negotiate that claim within $100,000 or some circumstances if there's gross negligence or something egregious occurs that you're that t cap w't apply the last coverage on there is just railro liability and that's because you do have an MBTA track in town and you need to maintain your lines and so the railroad does require you to purchase this policy to protect them in the event that in your normal course of Maintenance you have an error and you damage some of their railroad that is all that I have for you does anyone have any questions John if we We have tree Tri that are contracted by us doing work in our Direction SOA any possibility our be involv because they're GNA go you know go deep right so any of these coverages cover something like that that's a great question so this happens all the time many of our members contract out tree trimming services and so what we do from a risk management perspective is we look at that contract before you place it with the vendor and so we look at that contract and we make sure that your vendor is carrying enough liability insurance to respond to any claim of negligence many times um your customers aren't going to know that it's a contractor who's trimming the trees they're going to assume that it's rmld so they might come to you first with the claim so we make sure that that contract is very tightly worded so that um our MLD receives coverage under the contractor's insurance policy primarily first your policy would fall excess to it so if for some reason you couldn't get coverage under that policy because they didn't pay their bill um you know they they showed us that they had an insurance policy but they really didn't something went on of that nature then your excess liability policy and your general liability policy would be primary but our goal would be to transfer that risk because it's not your negligent so that's our first line of defense you're welcome okay great thank you everybody thank you I think we'll just we'll move forward with the your section and then when T arrives and then John so we have two guests that are expected to come here uh to join us um yeah I'm sorry Phil should we move on to the next agenda item yes what item right yes yes thank you um so I want to talk about U multi-day um storage um we are um we've been working with form energy on defining a solution for um the service territory um so the solution we've come up with um and we call um I've been schooled on multi-day storage versus long duration storage multi long duration is multiple hours and multi-day multiple days so um there is an advantage to having multiple days of storage as opposed to hours of storage um so uh we've been working with form on an iron air battery um it's a 10 megawatt system that would uh store 10 megawatts of energy for 100 hours so it's a th megawatt hour battery um and it will help us uh smooth the transition to Net Zero um electricity and maintain the mission of reliable lowcost and non-carbon electric delivery um and it creates value a few different ways one is through Peak reduction um to manage uh you know offset some of the increasing costs of transmission and capacity on the ISO New England system um it also gives a little more flexibility in intraday um Arbitrage so when the price of electricity is low and particularly when there are a lot of Renewables on the um on the grid it's going to drive prices down and when those Renewables go away the prices are going to rise and the idea of having a long duration asset helps you take advantage of those um price volatility uh uh moments um and it it also the other thing that multi-day storage does that the other uh stor you know the other commercially available storage uh Technologies do not provide is um the ability um to offset mandatory load reductions um in the case of reliability issues on on the grid um also it it gives us the opportunity to create a clean energy up um you know the for energy um technology is you know fairly Cutting Edge um Massachusetts wants to be on the Forefront of clean energy technology um for is a Massachusetts company and you know rmld is leading the way on you know adopting these types of Technologies um so we think that sets us up to um you know put rmld out in front um and also to attract more uh grant opportunities because of that first movers get first GI on money um so uh from the peak reduction energy Arbitrage opportunity um so this uh chart here is what for model we check this model and uh we agree with it as you can see um so the the sort of pink area is uh is uh the the Imports uh to the uh to our service territory the black dotted line is our load profile so as you see it it it's low in the overnight and it Peaks during the day um this particular um was modeled for the for uh first week of or second week of February um so I see this particular chart on my my next section completely um yeah we got thinking the package might be backwards yeah okay all right okay all right go ahead go ahead okay um so as you can see we're uh we're filling the battery we're the pink is over the dotted line um and then we're uh we're discharging um both the lithium ion and the iron air battery went in the dark orange up above um the purple down below is when we're um when we're charging the lithium ion battery so this takes into account that we do have lithium ion batteries we have um solar and we also have um the iron air battery as you can see the iron air battery has the capability to discharge over long durations of time uh 11 hours 16 hours 15 hours uh as necessary and it will allow us to kind of smooth out the import so we're using we're getting energy from the battery when um when Peaks are occurring and we're filling it up when our usage is low thereby levelize um the uh the output before you leave that one bill actually I think one thing to notice in this as we have our Peaks that we are providing power the iron battery certainly provides a substantial bunch of that but we can there's multiple responses we're taking I mean we're using the solar uh we're using the um lithian ion as well as the iron so whatever is Optimum at the moment are are choices you can make it's not just we not only the iron we're depending on although it's providing a substantial benefit yeah in this case yeah just want just want to emphasize the point is multiple responses no managing the PE so can I two questions on this too so so the solar we're seeing engaged during the middle of the day obviously on but there's no charging of any battery associated with the solar not the solar in our territory because we'll be using it to help meet the peak okay and then there's also a uh an item in the legend of gas peer but I don't see that here are we essentially saying this will eliminate the need for a gas peer yes okay the exception of that on a solar would be like if it's a sunny mile day on a Sunday demand is extremely low yeah there's a lot of generation midday then it could yes this is for a winter so winter case with high loads so it's possible that charged we could use the capability exists for solar to charge battery yeah so we could and when there's more solar on the grid it would give us more opportunity to store that this is modeling just what the community solar projects that we have in the territory right now okay a question so it's 10 megawatts um I'm assuming it gets set up at a substation or adjacent to a substation so it's limited to that feeter distribution out of that substation you can't transfer this in and like you you've got multiple circuits right coming out of that so it'll be near a yeah it'll be your high demand so this isn't all territory this isn't I I just it's not all four towns it it it's geographically specific to an area you can't distribute so to answer your question it'll yes it's it'll be it'll be linked to so we have 17 circuits it'll probably be linked to five or six of them we're still doing the design work on that um but again if you do that then well it it it by itself it's only 10 megawatts right so it won't support the whole thing but it'll unload some of the other circuits um the intention for us on this particular system this combined so the location that we anticipate this one going to would be the uh um part of that 41 Acre parcel which 16 is usable it'll take about nine acres roughly but it would be in that area on the route 12593 so it's it'll be near the new substation yeah that's part of the design as well so as you distribute out amongst you know I know it's 10 megawatts for 10 hours but in reality at 100 hours uh 100 hours but it's 10 megawatts at the at at the end of the day and no I'm taking five circuits each one of the circuits could be seven megawatts at a time so you're talking 35 megawatts of of distributed load yeah maybe higher so so it it gets disperse rather quickly yeah amongst that power supply so it's it's a it's a math problem you know as as as you figure it out so I know it says 10 10 megawatts seems like a lot but when you distribute that that 10 over that those five circuits it's not as much you might be getting one to two megawatts to supplement so that time frame it goes 100 hours that's not 100 hours per per circuit I I I I I know it says multi-day but that peing over that that's what I'm getting my head around right now yeah I think In fairness Bob the you know part of um there's a lot of modeling that's going on yeah there's there are and Sam's cars out there so sure be yeah yeah yeah okay I might be jumping ahead a little bit yeah we might but but but the point being is is um you know so there's a there's um I think four systems that are currently installed right now and we'll let our guests in a few moments kind of present those systems um but we're all going to learn in terms of you know 100 hours like what do you do with 100 hours I mean there's a whole bunch of factors that go into it yeah it doesn't charge you know it charge times a little bit slower because it's anyway there's a whole bunch of pieces the but the intention for us is is to uh with Grant dollars Etc this in this particular case the proposal or we're planning on is actually owning this asset um because it will able to our investment would be very low relative to the total cost and part of the reason why we're um why the set when I say the setup we're presenting this to you now and we want to there's a two-step process here we want to ask for permission to ENT into negotiations there's a window of opportunity for some Grant dollars that come available and as B mentioned earlier um we want to be early to the game there um and the motion is is not for the final contract and the final you know the final relationship to it but anyway all said and done um it'll be adjacent to it has tended to be collocated with the carbon capture fuel cell so that whole site you know if we're discharging and generating that could be potential of 30 megawatts but there's also an element where if we have low periods and we're running that that carbon capture fuel cell we potentially might be fill in its battery system as well so there's a bunch of you Cas use cases that are still to be worked out follow I mean it but when I say it it its basic premise is positive but we're going to learn together in terms of how to maximize and optimize 100 hours because nobody's done 100 hours yet and back to's point the other thing is there'll be multiple circuits tied into this um uh and it'll you know its intention is to take this this storage system is just that it's a storage system it's not a generator um so we have to charge it in order to charge it so what we're really fundamentally doing is time shifting and that goes back to that's way that's way a typical peak hour system the other systems that we are in the process of installing the 5 megawatt three hour systems um those only discharge for three hours and you got to you know recharge it under hours is a whole different it's just a different game so these the gentleman coming tonight can explain how they wire this thing in and how they wire it out and no he won't be doing that design which he's gonna sprad the technology our engineers and and PLM will do that that's significant you know aali oh you all people you know exactly it's it's substation sized I mean that's let's this is yeah meaning you got to tie into each circuit it's got to have protection it's got to have everything associated with it so lunation fiber yeah yeah this is no joke yeah yeah this is not trivial um good you finish good sorry yeah okay um and then just as a winter reliability resource this is was a very interesting analysis that that form had done um this showed because it really illustrates the issue with winter reliability um so it's somewhat complex you know this shows a um uh from December to uh mid-February this was modeled out in the 2029 to 2030 time frame um and as you can see the top is the supply of energy into the syst system so the green dotted line at the top is the um the natural gas capacity coming into New England the um the top Brown Line is the capacity of oil storage in a typical winter um the the green line the green area chart is the um the basically the the the gas demand for heating um in New England and the the tan um area chart is the gas demand that goes to making power so it's not a problem as you can see in December um but then in early January you see the the the power generate the the need for power generation from natural gas exceed and heating exceeds the capacity limit um that's when we start drawing down the oil Reserve so that's why the Brown Line starts to drop and if you look at the chart below the the stack bar chart there the you know the the the 10 uh bars are uh Power Generation Um from the gas generators which is you know uh the majority of generators in New England at this point um and you can see in early January those oil those dual oil so the oil and gas units start burning oil instead of gas because there's not enough gas to make Power um and and you can see there's also some red areas that's where um ISO New England because it is starting to to hit the limit of uh of what's available for gas they're starting to ask people to reduce load um so that means they would call us and say you need to shed 10% of whatever load you have because the system is in danger of not having enough Supply um and uh this goes on right so as in this scenario as the winter goes on and you you might be able to refill some of the oil reserves but probably not so as you you draw as the winter is colder and colder the heating load is really high the demand on power generation is really high you're drawing down that oil Reserve to almost nothing and then there's there's not a lot left and that's you know the fear for for for winter reliability is hitting this scenario um and in those you see all those red areas those are where we would be called on to to shed some load and in our case if we have a a a 10 megawatt 100 megawatt hour battery we would be using that battery to help shed the load so it would it would be an apparent load shed to ISO New England but we would be pulling it out of the battery instead of um as opposed to training customers so that's an it's an and you know the how we value this is you know not easy because how do you value the loss of of power um you know Jason small in the in the cab gave us some ideas on how to do that um with lo you know loss Revenue but I still think it doesn't reflect the the loss you know the the value to people who are being turned off what the the what the value of that event is um but our but our initial investment would be Justified on Peak shape yeah so that this is additional value which is what we intend to do with the other Battery Systems as well they'd be justified on Peak shaving but they would provide value in the in event that we need to do mandatory loads which is been very rare but yeah yeah so it's the question is why aren't you just putting in another 10 megawatt lithium ion battery it's because of this multi-day element that can that also provides some backup in this winter reliability case the the time window you've chosen is important because one it's not far away so I mean yeah it making decisions now and putting things in place in order to manage this um is that these things are not very far off in the Horizon but it's also not so far off that there will be a shift in the amount of natural gas used for Residential Heating load as people start moving to more uh electrical power MH which changes this graph two ways one is that we will have more natural gas available or natural gas generation um but then we'll need to generate more because there more people will be wanting electricity for their power so shutting people off from power is not something we want to do if it's going to home heating so it reinforces uh that even if there was to be more natural gas available due to uh people shifting off natural gas as a fuel yeah that's very good point um so the path forward um we're promoting the project within the Commonwealth um we think this gives us the ability to establish a clean energy Hub in in in rmld territory um and it really positions us U with another component of the in territory um strategy that we've developed um and it also allows us to see seek a state Grant um we are the path forward we're developing a risk mitigation plan there you know this is not without risks as you know Bob also pointed out um we need to confirm the land parcel where we are placing it um and then we need to to Really ver find the commercial structure with form um and update the financial models and negotiate a contract with them um then we need of course we will bring that um those details to you um to get the cabin do any questions so far you're talking Seven Acres of coverage for this battery this of this of this size okay and and associated with that seven acre and and which we're still talking I mean I mean yeah yeah know we're still the reason why we're bringing this to you now is and we want to have U approval to start negotiations um we'll we'll do a final we'll come back to you for any final approval for any final contracts is that um us being um uh engaged with them them being formed will allow us will allow them and us to apply for some grants near term would the grants cover the tieing costs would the grants be specific to the battery but would the grant grants cover the connect the cost of connect me is meant to cover the whole project the whole project so we're estimating the whole project to be in the 30 to 40 million dollar range and our net bestest would be at the Six to1 Million I I well well just I'm just thinking the tiin the Protections in the tiin is going to be well it could be that cost you never mind the cost of the battery you know so yeah here you so I think it it's going to need some really good like upfront costs from the engineering side like yeah so before we engaged with with PLM and and our so our engineering team is starting to do some work but um we're we're gonna we're GNA engage in that initial design work as part of this negotiation with form it's a different it's a again it's a new anim yeah new an yeah yeah and I just you know I like it but it's just you where it's per substation but if you get the benefit of if reading gets asked to reduce the load by X you know if we're consuming 60 megawatts of power however ISO goes they say we want you to take 10 if this goes 10 does that mean do they do it by substation or do they do it by so they'll do it overall territory so they'll do it by T so so in the winter time right now um our average load is roughly in the peak hours in the winter time is about 100 megawatts and so what they'll start with is a 10% load reduction if that's not enough then they'll do a 15 and then they'll do a 20 okay so 10 of 100 is going to be 10 megawatts and this is meant to be part of the program um the other the other pieces that we have in the uh in the in the plan not in the plan but we're actually in the process of installing are is another 20 megawatts of shortterm three hours so there's the projects the the citizens project in in um station three um and then there's the cassage project these are all project that we went through last year um for approvals um that'll be on forom road so those two and they're on different circuits Etc so they those but those are only three hours right and a typical load reduction is going to last two to four hours maybe six so so again what we're trying to we're trying to do is create a a scenario inside of our Network where we can do load reduction because right now the only way we can do a load reduction mandatory load reduction is shut offs and so the idea and you have to obviously you can't discharge a battery if it's not charged right so it's GNA be a little bit more challenging doable because we'll have an idea that a a uh mandatory load reduction I won't say it emminent but is likely so we will prepare for that time because it doesn't sub me I mean it can suddenly happen but generally it's in a it's in a weather pattern should not happen in the first world country it should not it yeah that's that's a whole other point but but you know part of the reason why it shouldn't is is some of the things that we want to do to say if if ISO makes that request then our goal is to basically discharge batteries this would be part of it now this has 100 hours as opposed to three so it becomes much easier but back to your point this is there's no Silver Bullet right this is part of a bigger plan yeah okay and and the other point you know not for tonight's discussion but it is um very close to sub you know station six so that's part of the in part of the switching and the linking that's going to be part of the solution in terms of how we distribute the energy but anyway that's I mean distribute the power coming out of it that's part of the plan too I don't it's not going to be a full substation but there will be switching gear in that location which is just down the streets from the 326 ballor bill um we were um so I if you want to you want to train do the for so literally these cars out there I don't know where it is so we had we had a representative from form here um at the at the cab meeting Remy yeah go back um if it's okay with you we'll just have so um it was pretty interesting discussion I'll let bill just kind of walk through some of the highlights of who form is because we haven't had chance to introduce them to you um uh I'm not again our you know my apologies for him not being here right away um but the two gentlemen that were so Ken and Ray had they were part of the discussion so it was a pretty engaged discussion um but I'll let I'll let Bill try and do some of the highlights of this in the context of uh my apologies for prend not being here right now yeah does that sound okay with you yeah go ahead okay so um this is an iron air battery um uh so it's basically uh rusting and unresting iron so it's not any exotic materials um it is it is iron um uh mixed with air um with a um um electrolyte in it and that's what's making allows it to to generate electricity um so what it it there are there are many reasons why the iron is uh is um advantageous one is iron is much more abundant than lithium um so uh there's plenty of of this resource in the US uh it can be domestically sourced that means 100% of the uh the battery is in is manufactured in the US um which makes it available to more um tax credits U which we can receive uh in the form of a treasury payment um and it has a a low cost um it's nonflammable um it scales uh very well because they can you know like a lot of these Technologies you can you can continue to add modules onto it um and then um it the 100 plus hour duration really allows you to be um uh flexible in in the amount of time that you you can store energy um so this this uh form itself um you know their headquarters is in Somerville Mass um they do have Manufacturing in uh Pittsburgh and uh West Virginia and they also do engineering out in the Bay area of California they got about 700 uh employees um and theyve invited us to visit their lab and Sumer go whenever we want their headquarters there road trip yeah yeah good a short ones short one this one um so they they they're relatively young they were formed in 2017 um uh spun out of MIT um with a specific um you know they started with a kind of a blue sky strategy where they looked at every option of what they could use for B chemistries and what they settled on um was the iron air um cell um and in the meantime they've raised uh quite a bit of funding um you know obviously the steel companies are interested in them because they're using their iron um and of course there are a lot of utilities uh and uh governmental entities interested in it because this is considered an enabling technology for um for the clean energy transition um so they just broke round uh last year on a 500 megawatt per year form Factory um yeah oh that's here right yeah um so this is in West Virginia you know this is where they're transforming one of those energy commu communities um you know they're close to steel production in West Virginia um and of course it it it it helps bring a state that might not be uh be um supportive of the energy transition you knowl against political support there because they do have a lot of jobs associated with with that picture on the right is a February as you can see from the yeah yeah the left is the concept and the right is the the progress that's so um so they do have we're not the first um utility that would be implementing this they do have a one and a half megawatt battery in Minnesota with Great River Energy um they have they're working on two 10 megawatt batteries with Excel Energy in Colorado and Minnesota um they they're working on one in with the California energy commission which is 5 megawatts um they have one with Nera insur of power and Dominion all of similar sizes um so you know obviously it it meets a mission where you're looking for Reliable low cost and zero carbon it's almost like they've been looking at our at our slides um so they you know their their focus is on that in ensuring reliability and and low cost and uh facilitating the zero carbon and in your package there are some links um in uh in those uh slides to various other information um yeah yeah sure yeah so and just um for those that the this is very similar the same company um that's present was give not this presentation but U we as a group we introduced to form at the NEPA 2022 annual conference up in STO so right after that we uh we met up with them and that's this is kind of a where we are in terms of the nature of the relationship the idea of them doing something in Massachusetts it's it's close they have engineering resources but the company headquarters in Somerville they're trying to find something local to test um they think it's good PR for them they access to dollars so they're motivated to do something with a local company like us so go ahe uh so lead time if you know from the word go when would a system actually be in place um so the we haven't gotten to the delivery times yet and since the factory isn't complete yet um would be coming come from the West Virginia Factory sorry what was the timeline on the factory end of this year end of you get during construction now that but production is supposed to be in fourth quarter yeah so we think you know 2027 would not be enough exactly and then the materials and the what's the the useful life of this system so they say it's uh 1300 Cycles full Cycles like that's what they're planning for but since they don't have long-term you know they've only been around since 2017 I don't think they tested that but I think they're being um conservative in estimating it'll be 1300 Cycles so that's what would be in the guarante longer it lasts but it's all based on the yeah fully yeah fill it and discharge it so I mean what is our modeling 15 20 a project plan 15 or 20 years okay yeah and from a maintenance standpoint is there anything there's some yeah there's some uh so it does uh consume water um so because the air is flowing over the electrolyte um you do have to refill um water into it um and that's why one of the the things about pairing it on in a clean energy Hub with a fuel cell is that the carbon capture portion will generate water that's one of the outputs so we can treat it and use that to refill the the battery and it all depends on the the relative humidity in the air if it's more humid less water evaporates from the fuel cell from the from sorry from the battery if if if it's dry then you you get more evaporation water is the consumer that's the major and so depend on where you are that could be a big expense for us yeah that schematic didn't really provide a lot of details in terms of the uh inputs and outputs um and I and I did ask where the oxygen is coming from and it is air and the one contaminant in the air they're concerned about is particulate matter so you don't want particular to get into that um membrane or that uh electrolyte and and be a contaminant so they would filter the air so there's maintenance around filtration maintenance um water supply uh to keep the electrolyte at its proper hydration uh being the two main things they didn't seem to think any other air contaminant was going to be particularly bothersome nox sulfur dioxide carbon monoxide those would be other air contaminants would would be common depending on where it is not a you're probably not too far away from 93 Highway at uh the site so you know car exhaust would would not be trivial um at that point um but but a filtration system could but a particular filtration would be certainly a a basic element of it so filter maintenance a hype a heap of filter some sort of membrane filter would would certainly be appropriate for treating the gas stream and maintaining that and then water other than that I I don't see much downside terms of the reactants the the other is is say seven acres of this like each building what's each building like I I don't well that's again we to the weeds who's doing all this maintenance is it them or us I'm assuming it would be oh I would assume it would be us because there's no way that they could maintain all these facilities on on as as they grow right but so that's part of the business model discretion said we haven't finalized yet but give the point one of the reasons why we want to do something with them or they want to do something with us is we are so close so that we're gonna you know we're gonna be part of their test bed and you know what's working what's not working and then back to your Building Concept you know these are I think you said 140,000 so they're basically you they their size basically is track to trailer you know the trailer portion of them yeah it's meant to be modular you know as they need to swap things in and out if something doesn't go right they can swap them in and out that's part of the design um they are kind of heavy because it's iron it's Al you know so any it's going to require land and that's part of the reason why you know have to there's a whole bunch of pieces that are coming together U the mo the momentum's in the right direction but part of the reason why we put it wanted to put it where we up in that area goes back to the load that's more industrial commercial it's the larger area of load um it is um um it's it's easy on easy off relative to 93 and and and Route 125 it's it's in you know not going through a residential area to do this kind of stuff so those are all the benefits of and then it would be theoretically close to a source of water which is another element and that land um you know you know we have some environmental work to do on it but it's uh it'll handle the weight that's part of the question in terms of our evaluation but it's not it's not our landfill project we couldn't put it there so those are those are different factors in terms of how we're thinking about the location you're thinking of water coming from the fuel cell I I don't see much of a problem with that except that you would have a very low pH coming out of the fuel cell so if you want to bring it up to neutral or something or and minimize any mineral that you would have in it through that process you would have to manage that but other than that um yeah in fact you know based on discussion we had last Thursday night um there's been email traffic going back and forth into two in terms of what requirements do you have for chemistries and what's coming out so that's you would want if you put a lot of calcium in in a stream that they going into a battery but um could do hydroxide or something which would be very simple chemistry there's enough water coming out of the one to support so far based on indell analysis yeah so when is the F maybe you mentioned the financing of this who but how is this being financed I think you mentioned I didn't catch so so the so the big picture um is that a combination of their funds via discounts um state grants Federal Grant Grant and the state grants is the one that we're trying to move quickly on because there's a window of opportunity for us to do applications and they needs to be partnered with somebody and then our net cost will probably be somewhere in the range of six to 10 million six to n million somewhere in that range that Arch is this add to plant yes add to plant yes it is so in other words the 2% could could go more to yes sir that's exactly right in in this case the above the line payment that's correct too yes it's a win for everybody there's a benefit to the the four towns in the district wait once you exist for the rest of the okay so under the 20 year agreement we had to go to the state to get legislation on this um basically there's the what call the above the line payment which is basically 2% of the net plant and it's divided among the four towns based upon kilowatt out usage in each town on that so if we add more to the plant we basically increase the payments that are going to the four Towns at this point there's that advantage we also increase the bottom line too the below the line payment but then that we got to take that from the rates which is you know which is always a consideration this point so that would basically be more money that would go to the towns every time we add something to the plan as one of the managers said someday we'll buy a gold goldplated truck about that probably not um and then I'm sure we're going to look at this as we get closer if we're we move to approval of the investment but ballpark savings on an annual basis from avoiding Peak plant usage yeah that'll s the modeling is you know five to 10 years um that six6 to1 million dollar would be covered five 10 year yeah payback yeah to cover the final modeling this one isn't as mod as as advanced as the carbon capture fuel cell one we've been working on that one in more detail okay more specifically but yeah that'll actually be part of and obviously you know what has to be part of that is in this particular case we're going to talk about adding on in a few minutes of line item to our budget so that we can potentially go through the process of doing a bid on this one this one probably is not we're working with um Council on this one but because this is such a unique one this might not be a bid process unlike the carbon capture fuel cell even though it's Unique might anyways we're walking through the process but we want to make sure that we get provide flexibility for us to do that if that becomes an option so in either case um we're not asking for permission to to contract with either one of these players but to move the process and are these two projects independent the fuel cell and the yeah they are independent they haven't been collocated um there's there's synergistic value of putting them together but they're we're looking at the two separate projects I just that happen to be collocated and to the extent we're trying to you know optimize everything that comes out of that carb capture fuel cell system if we can find a good use work try to do that the water right obviously the whole idea behind all this is to provide electricity so but everything else what can we do with it we to positive not just throw it away you throw water with with in-house engineering right you know it's uh it's always a challenge just to get them to do anything because they're already taxed but to get an estimate to to create this to tie this in you know it's it's a big to me that's a big deal right and yeah I just do do you want to Outsource that I mean that's that's something that but that's a significant expense you know engineering can be 15 20% of cost of any job yeah so I think we do it to answer your question Bob we do it in two phases so the engineering team is already looking at how this might in that location what the circuits and how it might look um so that's step one we would probably engage and plms do in our design work um lit like litter right now on our substation yeah so we would add we would add the potential of the circuit design I mean they're literally working on it as we speak yes which is why we trying want to get this PL if we're going to do something with this we think we should um that'll be part of the design they do there so so PLM will probably do well not probably Our intention is to have them do the more detailed design work we're going to run our business modeling and what do we actually do with with form specifically in parallel as we get further down the road um probably have a little more detailed engineering from the PLM guys before we um before we do a formal projects we're going to come back to you with a formal proposal we'll have an so we have to have some estimates so what I'm saying is the PLM guys are going to say you know the cost of that the incremental cost to add this system to the substation is going to be x million dollar not going to be 100,000 it's going to be yeah should it's millions and that millions and and and whatever we tie in for for some type of storage or or Peak management system it would be good now to bring that in to say or do you have to say they might tell you I I can only Target Two circuits I can't I can't do all seven it's it's it's a POS yeah and you know whe whether it's two five you know that goes at the other element in terms of you know you know intimately well and for the rest of the know we have different circuits and so part of the circuit design is is to is to not have any individual circuit to be the you know try and balance all the circuits out um but the second element if a circuit does go out the ability to move that load to another circuit so there's a redundancy that's built into it and it's not just a one for one redundancy we've got a we I don't say a complicated network but it's it's a sizable for an MLP it's a sizable Network um the fact that it's 138 um provides some flexibility and it might actually this might be the mechanism you know again if the Linfield piece comes together and the maple metal piece comes together in talking with with PLM this might be the right time to actually conceptualize the 345 KV ring um that ties the main generation then have the circuits pull off of that so there's a bigger design piece that goes into this but it goes back to the fundamental issue you know to support load and loads coming and you know right the conductors can handle a significant amount of additional current going through them um but the Transformers and the switching gear you're exactly right they can't so that's that's all part of this this you know get we need to we need to be you know doing stuff now for the load that's coming 10 or 20 years yeah I think I think that getting getting back to that stin that study if you're going to introduce it and you want to put it in a new substation that's perfect time yeah let's let's tie it in let's build the infrastructure that it will be able to interact right so you're going to have to if it's sub station here and this place is not here you know down the street you know another conduit Bank going down tie it all in together it's not going to go in overhead pole lines because it's just it's not going to be it's not going to be able to do that so you know the tie them you know one source of energy going back in it distributes out so it's a significant add to that substation design so there's there's the design itself and then the cost of it the trade-offs but you you're the yeah you're I think you're prompting us and encouraging us to to look at this now I I I would if I I like the idea of peak shape I think it's I think it's a good idea and I think it's economical I think it's coming but it's it's just a very good time when you have a substation design to give it give that to them Incorporated in and they might say well we could do X right and it might scale this back to five it might turn around they say great you can do 10 but I I can't do 10 for there's no yeah yeah good point good point you know I so might scale it up could scale it up I don't I don't know yeah no but that's part of the you know again we haven't done as detailed design work on this one and what just so you guys all know there's the business model design of the economics but this is what we're talking about now what we're talking about the technical design there there's there's details in terms of how you plug you know anyways there's a I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying so you're you're saying make sure that we're not oversizing for what the different yes connectors can actually and and distance the longer the farther you go the more it costs so for example I'm just going to throw a number on 1500 feet could cost $1.5 million in conduit that's not cable that's not anything right that's 1500 feet now if you're that close you're fortunate if you're a mile okay you're talking $6 million just for conduit we have to think what's it going to look like 10 or 15 years down the road because we can't do this is you can't build it all in one fell swop you got to do it in phases I just think that you know this this is a good Peak shaving is a good idea it's just that with it's location in and what we can do so let's continue talking but on the flip side we've got to figure out if you have a Target put together numbers to get from point A to point B talk to your substation design Engineers have them build capacity for Italian y right now I I think that would be um very good on our part being full with thinking at ring light just to clarify one thing when when you say Peak shaving you mean getting a battery that delivers some Peak that's what you mean by that's what you're saying the battery the battery discharging battery discharging not not customers right turning off peak hours I'm sorry it underscores broken record over here but the real peak shaving is getting that demand suppressed during Peaks as opposed to feeding keeping on feeding it with more and more generation or battery sorage both yeah I mean that exactly right part of the 2024 goals and thereafter yeah I mean pan made the point that we had the capacity of turning on a generator well that's burning hydrocarbons and that's consuming fuel so if we turn discharge a battery that saves I get shaving yeah no yeah I know yeah this when because Peak shaving really means suppressing Demand right but or or but supplying the peak is what is what a generation or a battery does yeah but supp Supply the peak demand the offset is do I have something that can be a gas generator that could cost $3 million versus right $12 million the economical economic benefit of that even though I'm you we I hope we never ever get into shutting off the lights for anybody in this ever right but you know at some point yeah I could I could Peak shave it but our rates will be to pay for that Peak shaver you know we we've got to consider that right that's the bance and it's I would agree that I mean building a small cheap gas Peak generator and having all that extra money available to just encourage the demand side reduction is a conceptual approach as well okay all all the I mean it's all the I hear but if it's tens upon tens upon tens of millions to build Banks of batteries before we've really rung all the waste out of the system is as all yeah so you I mean you we've talked so it's a common theme in terms of get the lights on manage the cost be compliant right and I think what collecty we're all saying is there's there's no one Silver Bullet to make it all happen it's a combination of a whole bunch of pieces and as you as you and again I think Dave you're reminding us yep um you know load load reduction in terms of lights off or Systems off or whatever you know so that load is not present during the peak is something you're saying don't forget that it's free if you can make it happen it's free yeah well not to yeah it's inexpensive it's inexpensive but yeah relatively speaking agreed all right um oh back to you motion so we'd like to we'd like to continue getting more for again we're going to come back to you with something more detailed relative to Forum but we would like your approval to more fully you know enter into negotiations and more detailed discussions with form en want to read the motion right mov that rmld Board of Commissioners on the recommendation of the citizens Advisory Board vote to accept the general manager recommendation to enter negotiations with form energy for a long duration energy storage system with final contract approv approval under separate and subsequent motion is that move is that second second second Dave second forther discussion all those in favor raise your right hand say I I motion carries 5- Z we on to nine another guest well maybe they uh because they were here last week they might have thought it was on Thursday so our apologies otherwise see Sam's car so any we're gonna we're gonna continue going forward that's right we're just we're got gota wait so with your with your permission Phil uh this is an option study great right keep going okay so um I want to report out on uh the technology assessment report done by bioli North America so at the request of um of this board uh last fall we undertook a uh study of in territory generation options um we did Issue an RFP in December um for the report um violi North America there are sustainable industries of buildings division was selected um violi and rmld create a list of potential Technologies um uh to meet basically the criteria would meet longterm energy Supply needs um keeping with our mission of reliable low cost and increasing the non-carbon electricity delivery um we did brainstorm the screening criteria um so the screening criteria that we put into their model was the capacity requirements uh the capital cost non-fuel operating um Opex costs uh carbon emissions uh fuel costs uh incentives available the time frame that these Technologies would be available uh the technical attributes as well as the the land area requirements which were in territory uh generation is very important so this is and we do have a full report that was uh distributed um but this just gives you the Highlight so um just to uh lay out uh this table along the top are the uh the units so uh in the technology so we have um wind solar um carbon capture fuel cell geothermal and then looking at hydrogen engines both in a high cost fuel scenario and a low cost fuel scenario um so when we looked at the capacity that's basically we said how many megawatts do you need to install capacity in order to generate 100,000 megawatt hours of energy um so as you can see uh this with the next line that down the capacity Factor um or kind of inversely related so the wind um you know has a 26% capacity factor meaning that in order to get 100,000 megawatt hours of of energy you need to uh yes and I will invoke my privilege as meteorologist there is no wind resource within the with the district as one Hill which you might be able to capture wind resource so the numbers for wind I think serve a useful comparison yeah for the value of other things but as far as an option in the district it's really it's really not an option and then on solar um you know in order to it has a very low capacity Factor so in order to get 100,000 megawatt hours you need to install 69 megaw of capacity um because it do have a 17% capacity Factor when you look at the carbon uh capture fuel cell the fuel cell has a is base loaded has a a pretty high capacity Factor 95% um so in order to get 100,000 megawatt hours you only need to install 12 megawatt of capacity um so that plays into the into the the footprint as well geothermal um that has a a fairly high capacity Factor so again need uh very little capacity to generate 100,000 megawatt hours and then the hydrogen um engines have the same profile the only difference in these options is the fuel costs but they have a high if you can get the hydrogen they have a high capacity Factor uh and a you know a relatively low uh capacity profile um so the levelized cost of electricity that's basically based on the operating cost and the uh paying down the um the capital the amortising the capital um so uh we uh calculate calculated that as a base and then we also added the land cost so the larger the footprint of these options the higher higher particularly if they're in territory the the higher the uh the cost of the auction and as you can see um the land costs for some of them are huge um uh so the solar and wind even though they look relatively cheap um when um when you do not consider the land costs associated with them once you add in the land costs they really are are are quite expensive um and for the fuel cell even though it's it is the operating cost is higher um because it does have a fuel cost associated with it um it the land cost is very low because it does have a very small footprint um so the um and and the the basis we used was a half a million dollars an acre which for this you know this real estate market is about what we're seeing for other under um the geothermal um also has a relatively low land cost if you don't count land um that you need to drill down into vertically um which you don't I guess if you get drilling right um and then um the hydrogen engine you can see here the real difference between the fuel cost so it um the the low fuel cost is about half of that of the high fuel cost um and of course the land cost these are are very uh small footprint U so that you um that doesn't have a high land cost but again it's still um just the fuel cost puts it out of the the running as far as the total levelized cost of electricity and then the time frame you know varies for some of them so um you know it would take three to four years to develop a wind project you know solar projects are are very quick um the the carbon capture fuel cell would be just a little longer than the solar geothermal is a longer term um because because it is a very low temperature um geothermal resource that we're sitting on top of um we need the technology to advance a bit more before it's ready um and then the hydrogen um if we in the near term it's going to be you know a very high fuel cost and then the Outlook is that it may be in eight years and Beyond the the cost of that drop of of accessing hydrogen drops but this is sort of the result we wanted to give a you know an overview of it if you look in the report there are a lot of details on each of the options um and the assumptions that went into them um but you know I'm happy to answer any questions that you have on so what is the conclusion I'm supposed to draw from this the conclusion is well if we're looking at the lowest cost options um um you know we the the carbon capture fuel cell is um is the lowest cost AA and has the highest um availability um it it is available in a relatively short time frame um and then the next you know but that doesn't mean we we do the carbon capture for fuel cell at at the expense of everything else we can still do solar is this you know we need to be um selective about where we put it because land costs are expensive yeah um and if you take out the land cost and we can put it on rooftops you know it it becomes uh less costly and I think so the other takeaway is carbon capture is economically viable the second Takeaway on solar if we have to buy new land to do you know so we're looking at putting a significant piece on Maple Meadows um that land cost is going to be less so we're in this we're in the sub $100 range um on that we've modeled that very detailed I think the other key takeaway is geothermal right now because the technology is still early um it has a lot of interest relative to its small footprint but it is currently expensive um and it's still way out there so ultimately we think in terms of what we can see um carbon capture is a good intermediate Bridge technology we'll do as much solar as we can we think geothermal has got legs and potential we're not the development um uh companies that are doing it but um in terms terms of what's available for our territory if we can do something down um that looks like a viable solution and we're going to continue to look for other Alternatives so that you know those three metal columns I think s are are are the key takeaways carbon capture makes sense as a bridge I mean all these have trade-offs there's no like we said there's no perfect there's no Silver Bullet right yeah just just to follow up what you're saying I'm disagreeing with you're saying I agree uh when we choose the word term geothermal yes we're drawing heat from the ground this is heat to generate power ex not heat to transfer heat to buildings because we're talking about geothermal a lot in terms of hilum school using geothermal power different and that's a heat pump system where we're just transferring heat from shallow relatively shallow Wells which could go down a thousand feet um but we're talking much much more than that because because you want to get to very much harder environment and and transfer and make Steam and drive a turbine so geothermal power system as opposed to heat transfer so I want to make that point in terms of people looking at this very good second what that means when we talk about solar and and the advantage is not putting it on on Fresh land but getting on top of buildings on top of kilum on top of Eaton on top of the ice rength on top of any building we can possibly put a building on making sure that all those structures are capable of of having solar using solar I think we need to make a greater penetration into our residential solar uh array look at our options there and make sure that we're incentivizing people to do that um because it is the land cost yes bill you brought up a point earlier that levelized cost of electricity might go up a little bit as we move to a smaller unit sizes but if $100 goes to $40 then that's a lot of money we can move toward incentivizing the uh the solar site so so I think this is this has more penetration on building and Residences for solar and uh as as a complement to what we're doing with the fuel cell yeah I think your qualification on geothermal is exactly right we're talking about generating electricity very different than heating buildings Bigg a good thing to do but but but yes it's um it's just using the one term it's just an adjective it's not the it's not the verb we're move on okay okay um this is we already have guests but it's the bill show tonight so he's going to do a quick summary um and and several of you are actually able to join us for the carbon Quest visit and then we'll do the capital and then uh the executive thank you um okay so um this is a report out of a due diligence uh trip that uh members of the Board of Commissioners and the citizens Advisory board made on uh March 7th to look at the carbon capture uh one of the carbon capture options for the carbon capture fuel cell um the the system we visited was at 1930 Broadway it's a 232 unit 3 story apartment building built in 2002 uh there are two 400 horsepower boilers uh in the basement uh they are currently diverting flu gas uh to the carbon Quest System since uh 2021 um so the process basically is uh dewater uh compress and the zolly absorbs CO2 um and then it's subject to a vacuum and the uh the CO2 is released uh from the the zeolite it is not cryogenically stored it's low temperature Refrigeration oh I didn't say it as as um and it's trucked away um uh and there are uh this system is about five tons a day of CO2 removal from the boilers the system we're looking at will be if it's on the 20 megawatt uh fuel cell it would be 150 tons per day so there's a scale up what what relative size is that a tanker truck a day two what oh no I think they said every three days every three days there be a every three days yeah at this location at this location were you ask at this location no talking about location One A Day One A Day somewhere between one a day and one a week but that's plan on worst case one a day depends on how much storage you have on site um so for the rmld project we're looking at removing 92% of the CO2 from the fuel cell at the uh exhaust flange um and the fuel cell will provide 20 megawatts of Base load capacity um that is compliant with the 2021 climate law um the modular design um would integrate with the fuel cell so the the fuel cells are modular and then the U the carbon capture if if we utilize this process it would also be modular so you could match up groups of fuel cells with groups of the uh of of the carbon Quest process um that simplifies the scale up and it also reduces the construction risk because everything is modularized and um on skids so it's easy to install um so under the current business model carbon Quest Market the CO2 captured uh they're in the um the site that we visited they are sending it to a brick manufacturer in Brooklyn where is um put into concrete bricks and the the wall of the building we were in was made from those H bricks reportedly um and uh you can they're also exploring um selling them selling the CO2 to polymer and chemical manufacturers as well as liquid fuels um under the model they've discussed they would be purchasing CO2 from us from fuel cell um so there we would not have to be involved in the marketing of the CO2 to end uses they would be giving us a guaranteed price for the for the CO2 um the path forward here is um we are reviewing other carbon capture options um I we were I think um we were we were all in impressed with the the way that this was functioning um so it was you know was a uh the boiler was operating the day we were there and we could see the U um the unit working um It's relatively simple in process and um relatively easy to understand um but we want to continue do diligence on their process so we we'll look at the risk mitigation plan and that's you know the the main uh risk um elements are you know the scale up risk um there is a supply chain risk particularly on some of the um the you know the Zite we want to make sure um there's a steady supply of that um we want to evaluate counterparty risk carbon Quest is a startup um the principles have had several successful startups um um but they still are startup so we want to make sure they have we have uh counterparty risk mitigation um um and then of course there's performance risk um the longevity and reliability of the system risk and then regulatory risk um we want to be sure that we have that covered and we're we're diving into all c um and then so the next step would be to develop an Loi with carbon Quest um where we would you know do a more detailed design and we'd make any movement forward contingent on threshold economics performance and Regulatory hles and all of the items that are in our risk mitigation um list so with that any questions on you you're probably gonna get the idea I get a lot of the question guys a lot of question uh maybe my enthusiasm will temper down with with duration and up as mellow as Phil is after 30 years but right now I'm still in my first meeting so lot of enthusiasm um while they do have a number of sites that they're operating they're still operating on boiler exhaust there's not much experience yet on fuel cells and while they did indicate that they were working with the fuel cell uh natural gas fired fuel cell manufacturer um there are a number of things we're going to want to see that success before we understand it one issue was they were talking about cycle gas going back to the fuel cell that there might be hydrogen slip well there also could be methanol slip methanol is also a byproduct of the um that can come through the um the processing of natural gas into the fuel cell um and then how much moisture Cycles back and a number of other things so what are we getting what is what's going back to the fuel cell is that affecting fuel cell performance with that recycle stream or what are we losing by on the light side of that um extraction the gas mix for a um boiler is a lot of nitrogen a fair amount of oxygen and then you get to carbon dioxide and other and water um we're going to have nitrogen carbon dioxide and water and pretty much that's it and so when you they're probably at 92% because a good chunk going to go into the water the condensate leaving us with a a low PH condensate so which is fine but let's how they managing that how they treating that we're going to want to we're going to want to know that too so you know as we look at this technology I just don't want to be the first one applying this to a fuel cell U I want to be the second person apply fuel cell yeah where these bugs get worked out because it it's not the same now I think separating water from carbon dioxide should be relatively easy they're differen in molecular weight they're both polar but they they could very well set separate quite easily as long as you're not getting into a liquid phase um in the uh through the through the media um but I'd like them to experience that before we tried it um La regulatory we do need to probably keep an eye on our own Senators um there's some pressure to not look at Carbon recovery as a viable green Energy Solution um so let's try to keep them common mellow while we in transition here look at that methane methane will still be coming is still leak through pipes in the ground and so it's not not completely green but it's it's it's a necessary step I think to get there um just to follow up your your point on the want to be the second they were talking a bit at the at the visit about the uh systems behind the Walmart targets or the whatever the stores were that I think fuel cell those are fuel cell with with carbon capture or just fuel cell so is there something in the pipeline that is these two together that would be ahead of power so so two so two thoughts so fuel cell so in terms of the fuel cell themselves that technology is well established um what's different about this is bolting carbon capture onto a fuel cell right so on that Comet um we we agree we don't want to be the very first commercial installation so blumas already they're if we're in parallel with them we look evaluating a couple different groups um they will probably they'll have a work so it's part of our requirement and they're already on a path they're going to do a a commercial we won't be the very first commercial system we'll be the third fourth probably not the second we'll be somewhere in that range um but advice well taken for all of us because at the end of the day you know our Char collectively all of us our charges you know minimize risk right I mean the charges keep the lights on but there's a whole bunch of things that go into that and risk management is a key piece of it relative to um there's there's a regulatory and legislative group um and so realizing um that our metric our compliance metric is um retirement of non-carbon certificates that's our metric our metric to meet in 2030 2040 and 2050 is not carbon um there is a push we so there is a there is a momentum to reduce natural gas projects in the Commonwealth um so that's part of the reason why we basically position this as a bridge technology net net CO2 output is dramatically less uh so some of the modeling on the earlier analysis we've shown in earlier slides is our net CO2 output in tons per year or tons per hour um would be 40% less than the current path on right now pretty significant um we have met at the recommendation um well we've met with a couple of the regulatory teams in particular the one group that would be responsible for qualifying this system as um for clean energy certificates um and the qualification is to be less than 50% of a combined cycle natural gas system um this is roughly you know 92% less um but they're still so we're still working with that group we met with them a week ago Monday um there lukewarm would probably be generous on on the concept um we have also met with now nine um so senators and and representatives particularly those in the local area we've done a presentation to them in this project um so we're keeping them up to speed um they're all been you know they're encouraged with us trying to figure out an Innovative Bridge technology and it's not just us right you know but we're we're we're part of the catalyst so we're done I think we're doing a very good job on the legislative side and we're starting regulatory side so um good advice on that I think we're we're ahead of the curve um and and we're with you in terms of we don't want to be you know Leading Edge is okay but not Leading Edge we've got more work to do on this project um it's you know it's novel um and then you know related to the comments that we talked about on the form battery system um this is a 20 megawatt system net output will be roughly 18 megawatts so back to Phil's comet it's nice to generate it but you got to get it into your network and this is intended to be a Bas load system so that's part of the design as well that's why this is a $100 million plus project um and that goes back to so a whole bun of it's a lot of factors here but but this particular one U so you got that's the key point so yes on the I mean I like the technology I I don't want to just put it down oh no you're not no I mean that yeah reduce the volume of gas you're treating through condensate getting the condensate out uh pressure swing is established for a lot of gas separation technology it's not it's not a new technology you the media they use might be Innovative but the concept is not concept so really U your compressor is there just to overcome the head loss across this the sand across the media so you really it's very basic very simple um and so it's nothing nothing extraordinarily complex process but the whole package but as you as you put the two pieces together and you you look at the efficiencies between the two um there's there's some losses there's some gains there's some consequences and you just need to understand what they are and have somebody figure it out before it comes to us if if the environment legislative environment is looking at this like they were looking at biomass yeah go ahead I would Ron run yeah you know and do we want to do that you know we that that was a pass the street yeah like thought thought we had a great source of of non-carbon energy yep went went raging forward um entered into a contract had to put on the brakes and basically had to live with it for three years of hesitation and in trepidation to to break free um if the legislative environment here will not include that then I think basically just just run with the it's a it's a fuel cell you know that that again I hate to say the word cost but at $100 million for 20 megawatts that's that's a huge huge so it ends up so so two points one is um part of the reason why we brought this you know we we brought this to the November meeting and it was on it was purposely to to um raise you know make it visible um and then we started in well actually started in December talking to the Regulatory and legislative for that exact reason before we got too far down the road you know if we're pushing on a string then we're going to go we're going to find another ball to pick up and work on so um we are highly sensitive to that because we don't waste time and money I mean we don't you know right now it's time yeah but before we get too far down the road so we are purposely being as opposed to having this you know kind of all baked and ready and to go by the time we bring it to you guys um you guys are part of we're sharing this with you partially to to to make it visible outside and that's why we're doing you know as I shared with a couple of you guys we're doing these legislative and Regulatory meetings because if it's a if it's if we're like if we're pushing on a string then we're gonna push on something else so well advised and that's how we're approaching it so that's why we're not you know this isn't you know we're going to talk in a minute about increasing the budget um to allow us to move forward because we in order to to keep going down the road we're trying to keep our options open but we we're not presenting for either one of these projects you know um approval to to contract we're going to do that when we have a little more details um but the I think publicly for all I think everybody uh in the discussion today um is cautious but trying you trying to figure out a solution but you know anyway you got the answer so that's I think that's so any other questions on the on the results okay I want if we could still keep the ball moving forward we can we can go to the budget and then the general manager and then get to the side all right okay um so two two okay so big picture um um so we've got several new capital projects that are starting to materialize and this is one you know the carbon capture and the fuel cell are one of them these are three kind of blocks the the real the message here is um these are projects several of these projects are going to require us to go out for some sort of bid process um and so working with our purchasing team and councel um and learning from some of the lessons that the other MLPs have done in similar projects for example we are part of the Watson project that was a 200920 um project um it was another 100110 million project so how did they do it so trying to learn um which is why we're going to ask to increase the budget um the budget line in the motion is $140 million I want to put that $140 million in the context of our capital budget that we approved back in October $34 million so this is a massive amount of money right it's it it is bigger than our revenue forecast for the year um we want to do we want to put that as a line item because in order for us to do any sort of bid process if it's not in the budget we can't do a bid process so that's why we're asking to put it it in the in the budget but you give you a little bit of context here so these are kind of a couple different groups um the top one is basically the uh the energy um the energy Park that bill and I were talking about this is the Route 125 area so carbon capture fuel so on the left hand side project name um the battery the fuel cell and the land um you know the gross we have two lines so a quick description there's the gross capex and then there's the net rmld capex and part of these would be net of funds and discounts Etc um and then an idea and then that next column over is it in the 2024 budget or not there's only two items on here that are in the budget the Route 125 land and then the metal me metal land so those are both in the budget um and then just to give us you know all of us but you guys also an idea what the annual capex uh capex outflow would look like over the next four years um so these when we talk about $140 million we're not going to spend it all one fell soup these are multi-year projects um if we were to do them but just to give you an order of magnitude so there's the carbon capture fuel cell long duration battery um yeah there's gross cap numbers there um we think net net the carbon capture fuel sell will be somewhere in the $80 million range the long duration Bry is somewhere between six and9 million fo n um the energy Park that 8 megawatt solar AR Ray um that's going to be another at least another year down the road until we clear title but that's a $30 million one so you know we'll start 2025 commission 2027 that Lindfield water that's the project um you know that's going to be a 25 26 event those these are not none of these are approved right just so you know trying to basically set the stage and then you know several of you guys have mentioned last week and this week you know rooftop Town type stuff you know so Town PV and North Reading Town PV and and uh PV for phot take and reading uh North Reading and Wilmington so there are specific projects that we're working on right now um we have we have estimated dollars we've had uh uh uh EPC uh you know potential developers look at these so those that five one and2 Million numbers are real you know those are real ballpark numbers in terms of people actually looked at the sites not us kind of shooting from the hip um so you know potentially if you were to do all of these projects um the net capx to us would be in the range of $140 million um what we're and then you get an idea over the next you know we spend that over the next four years you know 20 40 54 so big numbers we would fund these um primarily out of you know so the net um rld cap X would be a combination some rate payer dollars well it's ultimately all rayed dollars but it would be bonded um and so we are working right now with the town um we had a meeting earlier this week we've got some follow-up stuff in terms of how we do the process so there's funding stuff that needs to be worked out as well but all of these projects and we talk specifically about the carbon capture fuel cell project but if we were to bond it um and we were to do the uh an $80 million note um and we did it 4% and we did over a 15-year period which is the period um it still with all the cost into it um the financial model is it's less expensive than buying on the wholesale market right now so at the end of the day it's a net savings even though I spend $100 million there's more work to be done on that or $80 million net so we're looking at these a little more carefully but I wanted to give you guys a little bit of context in terms of the big picture and then I'm going to go back the slide um so this is the carbon capture one little more detail of um um we haven't finalized the model but there's a scenar so back to Phil's point he mentioned earlier um there is a motivation for us to actually own assets where there's not a lot of technical risk a fuel cell doesn't have a lot of technical Risk by itself um however um you know we're not quite you know the current thinking right now is we would most likely do the carbon capture talk system under a Services agreement or we not owning the asset we're not taking the technical risk of the asset you still pay money for it but you're moving the risk to somebody else um we put a contingency into the budget Etc but net net it would be probably an $80 million project um as I mentioned before cash flow um realistically is going to be in the second year but no later than the third year and we'll share when we get to approve the project we'll share the stuff in more detail but just to give you a big order of magnitude um a carbon you know $80 million 20 megawatt carbon capture fuel cell is is uh uh positive right out of the gate um with a bunch of assumptions so any I'm giving you a bunch of big pictures but what we're asking for you to do right now um is not to spend the money but to add $140 million to our capital budget for 2024 right this is what we approved back in October to allow us to um prepare to go out for a bid um if that proves to be the right scenario with me so far questions yeah um so two of the items that are included in this 140 on the on that page yeah are already in the budget that's correct so do you need the full 140 or can could we do one well if I were to so um yeah so um I could do 130 the only reason I'm sticking with 140 is is we were looking at 140 to do the full carbon capture they said we're probably not going to do that so we did a we did a writing in the meeting with the cab so it be appropriate unless we going go back to the cab to change the number it'd be just simple to whether it's 130 or 140 or 150 that doesn't really move the needle it's just a budget line and I say it's just don't don't misunderstand I'm not saying that it's trival dollars yeah but that we're not saying we're g to spend it if we would changed the 140 number we'd have to go back to the cab and do the some process over again so that's why I would suggest us to leave it at one I know that's an administrative piece but yeah you got yeah so but so it it it's just an astronomical number right massive I I I get it right I budget's code 100 million 50 of it's really operating cost 50 is buying electricity 703 but yeah yeah you got you 3x that budget right it's massive massive I I get it so that's I think too big for our bridges personally right I I think that the only way I would be comfortable entering into that is if we partnered we maybe not Bond but we partner with other mun right and you take that kind of approach to it if they're interest 20 megawatts still isn't to me a a an un it's it's fuel cell right it's yeah matter what we're doing it's fuel cell we're burning gas we're capturing the gas does some anary stuff okay great um I just think asking asking for that when we're still in such a early State I I think it's I think I I I applaud the that list right there yeah but I think take that on line item out and yeah I'm willing to work with that amount of investment for next year I and I know they want to see commitment from us yeah right in order to move forward but I just think that that 140 is just really the the the fin us financing that could absolutely destroy Reddit if that does if it goes sou if you put that if that started and went sou that would white but so and if it if it didn't go the way we thought um take all your cash reserves and take you basically nonexistent anymore before you respond uh to Bob can I chime in on this little bit because I'm coming at it from basically the same point of view but with a slightly different take yeah which is that as I have understood over the last few years that the GM has if you're not all powerful you're close to all powerful once we put things in the budget you do have the unilateral ability to to go into contracts for power supply um and yes you've been good about coming to us for votes and there it hasn't always been the case that the board was affirmatively involved in every you know oper decision you do have the P power under the law once we put it in the budget to go do all these things without us necessar having that you know okay let's stop and look at each piece and and vet it and make the decision so I I it go ahead so I I'm more comfortable with okay let's do one thing at a time and when you need more money cab has already approved this magnitude so it's not like they're going to object you but we want to look at each thing and get if we need to add to the budget We'll add 10 million a Time 20 million at a time when we know exactly what it's for and that we have a deal and I think the these private parties know you know we're we're we're serious about these things and we have the ability to back it up but yeah but to just give a $140 million capital budget increase is not something I'm comfortable with okay so so let me just make sure so I hear you right and um and and I appreciate so I hear you absolutely um I guess technically I could spend it in 10,000 or you know $1,000 blocks but remember anything about $50,000 have to come to you anyways so so no just hear me out but I don't know if that's actually but well not a this is not power this is all asset purchases right and I come to I mean I literally you guys have to approve power supply too so literally the fuel cell is not considered power supply it's an asset but it's power generating it's a generation capacity so um so yeah I just don't see why we have to do it now versus when we have a vetted project that we all understand and are comfortable with and have seen all the options and downsides then we go and add it to the budget so one of the requests that so this this is just clarification of process so so you know while the GM has a lot of leeway to run the operations he doesn't have the ability to write a $140 million check hell he doesn't have he can't write a million dollar check can't no just literally does you know has to come you know for these big ticket items has to come before both the cab and the Board of Commissioners step one step two is you know back to managing risk it is a big number and is not and it's not I told you it's not lost on me we've I've shared this with you very openly at the whole group we're trying to find Solutions we have you know go back to to Bob's point in terms of working with Partners there are other MLPs that are very interested in in potentially doing something with us but again you know they're not next door to us so you know if if it makes it you know we might go so we have had there might be a scenario where we say look we're going to do two of these projects simultaneously and there might be some dollar benefits for doing that and it works in the state so um there's another large MLP there's a couple of them but they' be large as well so that's that's part of the processes as well um we are not able so one of the requests so we did the comparative analysis right on these different Technologies one of the other suggestions that came out of the board was maybe we do it RFP yeah right but I can't do an RFP unless I have dollars in the budget for that RFP and we know that this the no just this is process this is not this is process that that I'm not setting right but collectively if it's not in the budget I I I don't know if that's true that you can't do an RFI RFP that that asks for proposals that if we like the proposal then we go forward and then we fund it I don't know that that's categorically true I just think it's it's worth WR an RP you need a scope to define the scope you need budget to that sets the engineering and the parameters one of the problems with this technology is it's not standard scope so you're you're going to be writing something that's going to be targeted to a limited number of Technologies you still need you you still need to start so so Dave how about this um so what we do on so I hear you right and you know how operate so let me let me just interrupt sorry sorry go maybe we just add something in the motion yeah at the end it says no amount of the 140 million shall be contracted before receiving the approval of the cab and the IML dat I I just still think $140 million right right right now without having uh I don't have a project in my hand to look at right I I I you know so so I address St no I he can't do anything until he comes back to us with that contract no no but pH I guess what I'm what I'm saying is um I I when I look at $140 million we're GNA spend a a third of that on a brand new substation that's going to generate a heck of a lot more than 20 megabot right I know we're taking power from it but this is for Generation so I I just think that um if I'm looking at you know $7 million a megawatt for Generation right that's a gigantic number to me I I I I I just think I just think it is and um so I'm not asking you for to approve a project well and and then let's you know see how the Pres see how we progress I I if you think that I'm asking I'm asking you to allow me to progress more deeply at this point in time yeah okay and putting the putting the line item in the budget will allow me to do that this year as opposed to wait till 2025 then I I think we we turn around and I I don't think a $140 million is something I would ever want to approach right right now um I I okay maybe we take a a portion of that and move it forward I I'd be more comfortable with that well if I'm thinking you know the the one thing that looks good to me on on the that you've discussed so far tonight is the is the long duration the battery you know we take a look at the battery take a look at those couple other projects that are on on the board the land procurement that's a you know the the other the the other one the Lindfield one which I think is another great idea conceptually short money to prove out a a concept you know I I think but just blanketly saying $140 million I I I think that's a maybe it's just numbers to you know to me that it's just shocking me but it's so big relative to what what we are you know I just don't yeah I would thing I would add aside from the dollars that I just like your perspective on is just the I Love The Innovation and the ambition right um it's a lot of different projects that are all new to us right can can we actually thoroughly vent and assess all of those at the same time we going to get them all done they're all some of them are going to follow with excit so we're trying to keep the pipeline you know this is a this is standard whatever kind of company you're running yeah you got projects and couple of them come to the bottom um each you know to answer the question we need to be moving as quickly as we can we are we are we are trying to work with Partners so that it's not it's not all internally developed um you know I I again I'm not asking for approval to do the project so what my recommendation would be then take the 80 million out and just I'm doing this real time here so 40 5060 million do it's going to cover the other ones we'll put at the very back of it the same thing we did with the motion on uh on the fuel cell and say with final contracts final contract approvals under separate and subsequent motions or whatever we could word SM any way you want so you're to the gist of it is you're removing the top one the carbon C fuel cell off of that table and then asking us to approve the the accepted that one well that so um I'm trying to figure out a mechanism that allow us to continue to move the stuff forward I will try and figure out a way to keep the carbon capture moving forward I mean that seriously I there there's no antagonis I'm just I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out the process um I mean can I ask can I suggest flipping that I mean if the concern right now is you can't move forward in a significant way to further vet the carbon capture fuel cell option isn't that the one that you need and I don't know if you're still gonna have heartburn over 80 I can understand if you did but 60 though it would be 60 not 80 left I'm looking at I'm looking at 80 there still 80 left so what I'm saying is like the the sense of urgy is the sense of urgency on the other items as well or is it just on the 80 because you really can't move forward with the 80 you can't move forward with anything without having approval on the well the lot the lot um you already have approval on the 125 you already have approv on The onap Meadows yeah you're you know what you're getting into when it comes to the the solar array yeah well you know asking is for let okay so you know if you want if we want to look at it that way I wasn't that's not how I structured it but if you want to take the maple so the maple metal energy the the um the solar rate itself that 30 million we could take that off um because that's not going to happen till 2025 26 anyway so that's not you you look at it look at column 2024 not required um you know because I'm not going to come to you guys with a proposal till 2025 at the very earliest because again it doesn't make any sense because I don't have clear land um yep so out of that 140 we could take we could take the 30 off that's 110 and again you already have the the six and the three so frankly you can take that off this list to so take out take take another 30 you're 100 go down you want a two-digit number not a three-digit I I you know it's this if it's just big it's big but if you think you know is it you know you're GNA go out to an hour voting here is just the line that we're not voting to spend this money correct and I mean that's why I think we should add at the end just no amount shall be SP I I don't want to put my nameb on $140 million I mean get approv from us that's what I'm saying why we put a billion you know you know it just it just then put funding then then put the word funding you know up to whatever you know I I just think that it and and and I know right I I understand the perspective right the 140 isn't just a you know pick a number yeah I mean it's you know there's a logic behind why we got to that number so I mean I know you know that but just for benefit of everybody Ray you want to say something well I mean I let's let's let's try to get a number which allows it to move forward but we've already seen models today where by 2029 we may have shortfalls and we if we're going to wait to 2027 before we decide we're going to invest in something that takes three years to put in we're not going to get there so we need to invest now in order to get to 2029 where we don't have to turn the lights off and yes investing in capital is a capital expense and it's a big number as long as we have the checks that bill suggested that we we come back as we hit these milestones and get approval for the projects going forward we're going to have to invest and the capacity of rmld is going to double over the next 10 or 15 years double so take a 100 million that we're spending now you're going to be looking at a $200 million budget before long so so you can't look back and say oh my God we've never spent this money before you're right we've never spent this money before and we're never going to spend as little as we're spending now going forward so put whatever checks along the way you want I think Phil's suggestion about coming back is a good one tweak it down if if we feel better about 120 or or 110 or 9950 um fine I mean is it we don't maybe have to assign the budget of 28 um million in 2027 in this meeting uh and then take the other six out that you know that gets us down to 19 9.95 um then that's that's a number that still allows us to work over the next couple years toward project million then we'll make it work I mean again we're gonna come back to you over and over again can't be zero it can't be zero and and I get and we can't just use the past to limit us going forward we're gonna double okay I was just gonna say my again I think my point is let's focus and approve things that we need to do now to move forward to keep to that pace that you're talking about and there are things on this list that are either frankly rounding errors yeah or things that we don't have to allocate now and if we if we allocate 0 or not even allocate if we allow you to pursue investment in something that is potentially $80 million by putting it in the budget it may come back where we're not going to do that we reallocate that to Maple and Meadows elsewhere and you never have to actually you can ask for more money again as things progress right give me a number I will give you a number my my and I'll say why it's the number is not 140 but 60 and the piece I want to hold off on now is implicitly saying we're greenlighting this large carbon capture fuel salt project which I feel is needs a lot more vetting and understanding and even giving that number in now basically says yeah we're kind of good with this and I'm I'm not good with it right now so I don't know why I'm asked to put it in the budget the other pieces I am good with I think they've been discussed a long time some are already in the budget they're well-proven approaches and Andor their small dollar figures this 80 million for the carbon capture fuel cell I mean I I didn't go on the field trip but I understand that the carbon capture that was seen was carbon capture out of the exhaust stream of a combustion plant that's not what this would be this would be carbon capture out of a steam Reformation process of natural gas on the intake side so it's not even we were taken to see an example that isn't what would be built here so that's that's just one indication of where where are we seeing the carbon capture from the steam Reformation process that also so that we didn't see and that works at this scale from an MLP and that there's a market for that compressed CO2 and understanding all of the energy penalties for the the storage compression transportation of the CO2 and that there's a market there's so many pieces to it and because at the end of the day as we heard from the presentation the actual Energy Efficiency of this of the energy out of the natural gas is around the same as a modern conventional combined cycle natural gas combustion plant it's not like we're getting 80% % out of the gas we're getting the same 50 or plus that we get at a combined cycle so it's like it's this huge uh apparatus with all this extra addons that we haven't seen work anywhere so I don't know why I'm putting 80 million in the budget for it so my number is 60 explicitly for all the other stuff and not that one at this time you 60 or 50 whatever it is if you take out the carbon Cal fuel cell until we fully understand it and understand all the options and understand all the pie 6 you come with that that's what it is taking out the carbon capture F cell2 so what I what I would say is I I definitely hear all of those those points I I don't think that addresses what Greg is asking which is he needs something to move forward to continue to explore them so I think if we're if we're saying no we're not GNA prove why do you need money in a capital budget just to have conversations we we could at any meeting if we can do it today we could do it next Thursday or the Thursday after that we canish I think I think what he said was and actually what we explicitly requested at a prior meeting was to conduct an RFP process so that we are sure that if that we fully V the solution we go get as many proposals as we possibly can and make sure it's the best possible most cost effective solution which I fully agree with I trust him when he's saying he has to get a budget to do that so if we if we're saying no to the 80 I think we're saying no to the RFP process my point was there are certain things and and I don't know if that's true maybe we need to investigate that to confirm if that's true or not but I think if I think my my point is let's focus on the things we have to allocate some budget for to continue to pursue to me that's if we want to do the bid process and and we require budget for it yeah it's the carbon capture fuel so it's 80 million there it's the long duration battery which is 9 million and then I don't know as much I think we talked about maybe talked about Linfield H2O I don't know when we last talked about that it might just be forget okay so obviously I got to go back and RIS my notes there but then there's seven so to me it's 96 that's what those are those are the key projects that we need to continue to move forward the other stuff is rounding erors that we should get in standard capital budget and there's Maple metal which we don't have to do right now I guess the piece in all this discussion is where is the maybe it's a legal opinion to tell us that if we don't have money in a capital budget it's impossible to put out an our p i I just don't I don't think so I don't know if that's true um that and and given that we can at any given meeting we already have cab preapproval that any any meeting if we can just go add money to the capital budget well if we like the RFP we add money to the capital budget you know I don't know why it has to be before we isue an RP I don't I don't I want to know from some some other wait till next meeting to make a comment on this you have an opinion right now okay okay we're not building we're not authorizing building no you need money yeah I mean so you don't need money to talk to somebody right you don't need money to talk you know we go up for an RFI for exactly I think we're looking at this like a Transformer right so we need money in the budget to buy Transformers okay great we you know we we request a Transformer we budgeted that money we here your your RFI so just you know on those school projects on the um on a Transformer we can't do a bid process for a Transformer unless it's in bu right that's what I just said so this is not this is a this isn't a piece of material purchasing this is a concept we just you're just talking to somebody right now and if we do decide to ever enter into any type of contract you know they're going to put put on the table that the I don't think anything stopped you right now from pursuing anything I I I I really don't I don't think you have to have a budget but I I I mean I I think well the I will need a budget for the long duration battery so the number is not zero so whether it's 60 or 90 you know just whatever you we'll get back to you next month and trying to figure out again there's no I I'm not frustrated with you guys at all just that these are Big Numbers we gotta be careful um I want to make sure we do it so and because they're big numbers collectively for all of us right we want to make sure we do it right and and I'm first and foremost so there's no problem with me why don't you guys decide what you want so I'm going to recommend you do 90 or 95 not 140 just to give me some flexibility I will go back before the next meeting and and confirm so what I have to do and you can put the condition out of behind the fils thing that's probably fine that's how I'm gonna do it anyway so may I Mr chair one more think I think the the initial I versus p is hits on something I know this I can say confidently public entity can issue an RFI to have people come in and say here are the types of things we could do in the order magnitude of prices and here's where we've demonstrated you do not need a budget to have a capital budget in order to do an RFI and have vendors come in and tell you things you don't you know and even an RFP it's only when like Bob said when you're Contracting for it yes I now want to buy your fuel cell system then yeah you have to have it in the budget but yeah you don't and certainly if if you're doing we haven't done an RFI right we haven't done that so let's do the RFI and then when we understand all the options and then we understand the ranges we can go to budgeting and but yeah I I don't even think I'm comfortable with the 90 million so don't do zero well so here's the question is because we have to go back to the cab anyway um would it be better for us to just hold on I don't know what the term is but essentially hold on the voting for this until we get an answer on sure that's great let's T well since they appr 140 it's implied that they've improved approved smaller amounts yeah well already appr you guys approve I don't think okay that's a important they've already approved it so yeah it doesn't have to I if they said 140 and then we turn around we say we'll do X Out of the 140 that's fine up to I think I would think yeah okay if the case keep it simple I would say they they did 140 I don't think our numbers have to match you know you say I didn't agree with that scratch that's line you know yeah I think it's the it's the right you can't go higher than what they approved but it's certainly it's the minimum consensus to the group is 60 I think we should vote for 60 I think we need to advance the process right I I would agree with this meeting saying we're just G to put it on the table and not do anything and if if we can't if we can't get a consensus or majority or whatever the for requires to get to 96 then I would say let's set the motion for 60 I personally would accept the comments that people have made put conditions in the motion for coming back for expenses and go with the 96 number myself but um I would accept the consensus position on 60 allow the general manager to pursue those projects which uh are active in engage and give some authorization to move forward I I just don't think we can just wait we we 2029 is not that far away and our job is to keep the lights on and not doing things and particularly not investing in the Solar projects that are up there no we can't we can't not do that so so want to make the motion at 60 yeah I would go with that so let let let me read the motion how I'm GNA there it should go so it say move to theal the Board of Commissioners on the recommendation citizen VI rate well up based upon the yeah vote to accept the general M's recommendation to approve an additional $60 million increase to the 2024 capital budget is a new line potential in territory generation and storage projects for commission the next five years no project listed as part of the 60 million shall be uh be contracted for before uh approval by the cab and the Board of Commissioners that sounds good to me Y and again the 60 is to support yeah everything except right the carbon capture fuel cell with the assumption that we can do an RFI without the carbon capture fuel C budget and we put the we put that discussion on the next meeting forther discussion on that at the next meeting on the on the carbon captured fuel cell I think there's questions that's what we can cannot f okay Greg you okay yep I'm good thanks I appreciate thank you much get the motion did you get it okay second okay ray moved so moved second I so second okay moov second further discussion all the favor raise your right hand oppose that motion carries we're gonna go real quick now get the ball rolling so general manager update I'll do three minute summary and then we'll go to okay real quick yeah um a lot of good stuff percolating um new director of HR is on board um and running um activ Le recruiting director of engineering um uh we talked a little bit at the last meeting um you know we've talked consistently about communication how do we improve the communication from rmld up to our customers um we're kind of rethinking that more of the focus on education and marketing we'll talk more about that a little bit later um we've got some reconfiguration of 230 as that's been in planning stages for two years we'll probably get that executed this summer um uh second round of uh grid modernization Grant that's a 31 $31 million Grant we applied for it last year they sent back some recommendations one of them was to partner with an MLP so back about to your point on the other projects so we're doing it with with p uh with P Municipal Light plant um it' be roughly $21 million rmld $10 million and we're both trying to do an Ami so good thing um it's due in may we hope to get back by the end of the year that would net out $21 million we have to match half of that so net net $10 million um there's another 10hour a different project nickel metal hydride different chemistry the grant submission went out um back in December we're supposed to hear back on that first round in April if we get that first round we'll go back and do a more formal one um so anys we we continue to work on grants right that's a big so there's the there's the IRA 22 ITC investment tax credit and production tax credit stuff either one or the other we're going to pursue those but these are also additional funds whether it's state or federal so actively working on that that's really good um good news I believe I shared this with you but uh we have a fully executed Loi now the LOI is non-binding um it's not and I'll come back to you when we get to the point of the purchase and sale but the the seller requested that we do an Loi so that we could um pursue our dut diligence so that started realistically if everything goes and there's a bunch of things we have to do a lot of process but probably by the end of late summer 2024 is probably realistic um Maple Meadows we had a very good meeting with D um there's a path for us to get to a site ready for PV um kind of a major a major hurdle overcome um so that's it's going to take some time to work through that but that's good news um we're probably relative to clearing the title for us to to move that ball forward we will have to take an interest in the property the way we're going to take an interest is an interim ground lease I'll come back to you before we do that it'd be a $100 a year kind of ground leas it would give us an interest so we don't clear the title um realistically the ownership of that's not going to be 2025 it'll be late 26 27 so pursuing that it still makes sense so etc etc um station six um good news is um last December we got the the iso New England um syst some impact study complete that's really really good news um to in this year I think we mentioned it on a different meeting but um we'll end up doing site prep Transformers should arrive late this year um we're starting to do equipment orders Etc um that's making good progress um the initial commissioning was targeted to be fourth quarter of 2025 and then move all those circuits over by 2026 it's more likely to be sometime in 2027 um we working with a transmission an operator in terms of their schedules they've got processes that they need to work through so that's that's the key driver of probably pushing that out 12 plus months um the question that should come up or that would come up is well what are we going to do in the meantime you know is station five going to be okay um we did a pretty significant um uh maintenance for the Transformers and and equipment at station five station five is uh is the one of the oldest ones um it's and it's near end of life but it'll run through 2029 2030 given the load we have on Etc so we're not the delay associated with station 6 is not putting any customers at R not not there's no obvious um additional Risk by that delay so that's a good thing um small little note uh so some of the Transformer orders that we had put in um you know a year or more um some of them have come in earlier than we expected which is a good thing and then the last element is um uh there's a you know there's a lot of double poles and butt there's a lot of work that needs to be done on poles um our uh because some of our uh our Digger truck um is delayed in terms of delivery we actually are going no we we we are renting a uh a Digger truck so we can get a little bit ahead of our our polls um for this group it's not a big deal but it's just it's it's nice for us to have a clean pole line as opposed to double and half hung and anyway we're doing P line stuff so anyways those are real quick updates generally speaking lot of momentum things going well um that's it for me any questions on General M update okay all right so just we got the warrant schedules in the in the agenda see if anybody anybody has any problem let us know and our next meeting is uh April the 17th on a Wednesday so I won't be available for that meeting okay unless you're gonna have it in Philippines be nice you inviting us you're welcome to join me bring your bring your uh high pressure tank regular mask bin we're going underwater okay quick question for you in light of what you said at the beginning of the meeting and then now knowing the ray willon be the next one do you want to maybe we do the reorg I mean no no let's do it next next meeting but just just to press on it for one minute every every every for all the 10 years I've been on we do it the meeting after the election at the beginning of the meeting and it's fine that we did the whole meeting but why why wait till the beginning of the next one was not in the agenda was not in the agenda okay not everything can be yeah was not listed in the agenda so I I understand what you're saying all right but it's not listed in the agenda the only thing I'll add that it does say at the bottom the agenda does not necessarily include all matters you know yeah I mean it's so typical that we do this all the time and you do address it at the beginning that you want to discuss the I just don't know what the difference is it just gets it done Ray's not going to be at the next meeting okay again it's not on the agenda so you know the public didn't was not had notice that they could they could be here to discuss it okay I'm sorry all right I don't I don't yeah you well the gble gets passed at at the beginning of that other meeting so yeah could can what's the impact of adding it I right now I I I'm I hate those questions you never you never know the answer what do you mean the impact why why not just do it now if we do it now it's is is it valid because it wasn't a motion that's my concern with all the with all the hollow blue went up there we do it now I think we you know it would not be a social thing to do we can do it the next meeting would should we consider rescheduling the next meeting then so that all how about a how about a quick meeting in a week to do it then about that we could do that okay I don't know how I can get to another meeting I it could be a 15 minute like posted meeting zoom and just to just to do it then think we should do it in person 15 minute person I mean given everything that's going on I just think we should we should get it done and but yes your point about having it on the agenda right how about a special 10-minute meeting whenever we got be two weeks right so it would have it would have to be uh before the 12th long 12 10 10 the 10th I would have to be Zoom but I yeah actually more people can attend Zoom meetings than can attend in person so I don't think it needs to be in person well I've always preferred in person my own person feeling so what are we looking at we're looking at uh six six o'clock you want to do 10 you want to do like the third the 10th I think you got to do the 10th right you how many days you need posting two I the third yeah two days yeah it have to be the 10th or some that week you could do it the thir because you have tomorrow's business day will you be back by then on the third third of April I don't leave until the 12th so around until the 12th you do the thir um Thursday is not good the Wednesday is better wednes so um I can work with you to make it happen yes I don't have coverage on month so we can make it happen yes we'll make it happen we can make a third halfen it looks very capable Pard me it looks very capable yeah we'll get it done if you guys want on the third six o'clock we'll make it out we could do it on on May April 1 the April Fool's Day no and then not have the me I I would have to be remote is that that's so is it third or 10 what's your choice third works for me six for me six okay the agenda item is the reorg is the organization of the right VC then you'll get the uh the list of subcommittees out in advance of that meeting uh yes we will do that so that because you know board subcommittees you still keep the meeting on the 17th for all the other business yes please yeah yeah that'll clear up some housekeeping so unclutters that next meeting yeah like um so Phil actually the list it should um I have it in the packet but um the list of of secretary audit committee and sub audit committees are actually in your in your package so I'll make sure we send this out to you yes so we'll get it to yeah it was in the packet that came out but we'll s it separately okay it won and you won't see it till Friday fine all right thank you okay great all right and the citizens Advisory Board is um April the 18th that's still on is the Des me that I'll break in the bad news we didn't we took 80 million back from them yeah CLA back sorry is is that April C coverage April cab coverage is uh on the Cs Advisory Board 18 so sorry so are these are these wrong yeah we got two different lists cter and got two different lists up above isn't that interesting did did you trade I think the two you I tra I traded I traded you traded April you traded April May I traded a I traded April for May right okay all right so in April it'll be cold sorry Dave you won't be call no no the cab cab I went I went to um what so you're going to May I'm going to May you're going to make okay so we have so Dave is going to okay who's on first so make sure that we give it to um Erica so that bottom table as okay as it sits yes okay great thanks okay all right with that we have nothing else I entertain a motion to go on Executive session great um am I reading something the yes move that the arm of the Board of Commissioners go into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 164 section 47d the exemption from public records and open meeting requirements in certain inst instances to discuss the development of security Personnel or devices or strategies deployment not development deployment deployment thank you okay no corrected deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect there to relative to cyber security the approval and release of executive session minutes and the return to regular session for sole purpose of adjournment note uh roll call vote required right so in this case we will vote seniority Mr talber hi Mr C hi desos hi Mr Mr Porter hi M Pino I wait a minute that was an order votes the chair always votes l e