e wait for Greg I don't have a chair recording in progress okay 6 o' we'll call the meetings to order um you be calling order oh yeah we will call the cab to order great um the meeting's being audio recorded and held remotely on Zoom uh and is it being carried live on rctv as well yes um is there any we can open up a public comment is there any public comment no one here okay uh then I guess we' just move on with our we have the cab first item is uh approval of the meting minut move that the C the rmld citizen Advisory board approved the February 22nd 2024 Open session meeting minutes as presented on the recommendation of the general manager and the board secretary second second okay so all in favor I I'll obain I was not present for that meeting so pass is 3 Z1 abent you guys all set yep okay so next we have our um inter inter territory solar uh Bill yes yes so um I just want to run through uh there are a lot of projects going on now and I just wanted to focus on the solar opportunity in our territories and our towns and uh what we're doing to make sure that we maximize great thank you this should be you might have to for oh it's not on oh it's oh um so there are basically three types of solar that we're looking at um the first is ground Mount you know that's typical solar farm uh the benefits are it has economies scale you know they're larger plants so the the fix cost spr over more megawatts so that tends to be a a a lower installed cost per megawatt hour produced um and we're actively developing several projects um one of course youve know Maple Meadows we're also recently um met with the Lindfield water board where they approved uh us uh developing a solar plant there um next to one of their new pumping and then we're looking at a number of Wilmington Parcels in order that might be uh applicable for ground Mount solar and we think the total potential is somewhere between 10 and 20 megawatts in in our service territory um and we're also teaming with the municipality so we are talking to all of them about uh adding solar onto uh onto schools with the with the water district in Linfield about adding it to the pumping station building um we're we're looking at the middle middle and high school at North Reading which is a a large building with a lot of potential um the Parker and kilum schools here in Reading um and then uh we're looking also at uh solar canopies and parking lots at those uh schools though the cost is about one and a half times the cost of of rooftop so the economics are a little more challenging on uh solar canopies um and the total capacity we think potential about 5 megaw and we've got our eyes on about 2 and a half megawatts of actual projects where we've um priced it out and laid it out and I'll go through some of those question um two questions actually First Solar canopy can you just explain oh sure solar canopy is in a in a parking lot when you build a frame park underneath in park underne for the purposes of only of having the solar access above yeah but it also provides some benefits like it provides shading and and um you know snow cover so that's typically why got it you're not eating the esph yes or the car so right you need less air conditioning and then I know there's a lot of activity happening with the Parker and Kellum school project so how are we engaging with that for way on Parker we have a proposal ready so with the pricing um so what we'll do is we'll uh we're offering a lease payment to the school in order to rent the roof and then we'll take all of the output and they won't have to maintain the system all they do is get a a lease payment from us for the for using the roof and we sat down to manager walked them through and we're scheduling some time to go to the school and select work okay and then we're actively involved on the kill of building school committee so it'll be this is on the new school got okay so a quick question each type of the um rooftop canopy and CR so um to get the credits for do does do you have to supply a smart meter register the data who yes okay so there's different rates we set the rates right it's the state so in this particular case this is bait so these are all our all these project that bill is walking through are in territory rmld owned generation assets okay so they'll we'll basically be taking power from them in BL of taking power from the grid okay so the the reason for that yeah the reason for that ask is because it gets very very tricky because if you have different meters and different sources there's different rates you're doing handoffs and if you're handing something off to the you know one canopy one rooftop and then one yeah there's different there's different rates of for those but if they're are assets if they're not our assets that's what it gets more complicated part of the reason it's our asset but I think the other thing is that the metering is very important because there are specific meters that we need to do because we've got to report back that's correct to neeo in order to claim the credits yeah and then on and that's what we really want well not that's we want we need those the credits being the certificates ownership becomes key then absolutely yeah and then on the canopy czy question but it has solid canopy design right yeah yeah okay it's not there's no partitions in the canopies because partitions in the canopies don't don't work it's just we've figured that out that it doesn't work ice comes in and drops and stuff like that so yeah you want a good draining yeah yeah it has to be a solid can can't be can't be partition what about on privately owned building yeah so like the the cni customer before we get to the private just to follow up on the questions about the schools so where where does it stand you've presented to the town manager Town manager town and and reading okay head of facilities and in wilington okay but in terms of in terms of reading but just because I get inquiry sometimes about her town when town meeting what is the next step to forward with either part GNA schedule um a meeting with um Tom at the school committee the principal the school program wise yep and then also we'll have to present in front of the select board okay so we're we're finishing so we have a plan laid out Dollars numbers Etc we have a draft agreement okay for par yes but what about kilum which is I know just in cont stage right now what we offered is that we would um we would uh B we would pay for the solar panel so they didn't need to include it in the budget and again but again it would be a leasee situation like you have the same business Arrangement as you yeah we're trying to keep it all the same at a dollar per kilowatt hour we expect to come off of it so that's everyone's getting the same um offer yes the development of the kilum school is still preliminary they're going through a variety of steps in that process there is a St sustainability subcommittee yeah to the building committee that's developing the kilum school right as a member or outgoing member of the reading climate committee I have been a part of that sustainability effort I will stay a part of that sustainability effort even though I'll be rolling off the climate committee um but still be a voice for this Committee in terms of where that's going okay great they've been looking at various ways of heating and cooling that space they've got a fossil fuel option just for comparison but there's a number of different ways that they're talking about using non-carbon okay or electrical systems um won't go into that because they're just they're going through that process they're evaluating options and and they'll present that to the sustainability committee and they'll make a recommendation but that building will be all electric uh and therefore having a solar power roof is is the way to offset that cost to the to reading um separ be separate systems like the solar power the school the solar would separately create energy that would well I don't how the wires go but but yes this this solar panels be owned by rmld and they would provide so yeah so the K still working this back to your original question Parker is very clear in terms of we're gonna basically Le space on the rooftop we're gonna write them a check on a regular basis um the energy it it's most economical for everybody involved that it flows back into the rmod network and the the benefit to the school is the regular payment and it's basically it's the equivalent of lease payment so that's the model that we're going on after um the Parker like we're we want to get that project started ideally get it contracted this year so it gets installed no later than next year what and what does Action look like on the town side to make this formal and have it actually happen they have to approve the le le so that paperwork's in front of the town staff to look at figure out yeah the contract's not but the proposal proposal this we so we've got to take the contract okay we have to do a presentation to the school and then to the S board but we' talked to the town manager already great keep it moving forward okay I take a lot of said the concept that you use solar use it in that space what's left over you get back to the grid and these larger typ canopy environments if that happens you you get engaged in this very complicated who gets what how do you get paid for it so it's very clean just to say I do this you do this exactly how we're saying it it becomes everybody much much cleaner uh hand up do we have a board leaz on to this process or do we need one oh like meeing like I mean a formal one where like if the school committee has a question board to board they go to you or I I can that role I mean and I'm also I'm just talking about I will the reading this well it's not because it affects every town okay true um so we can look at it narrow and say that really every town in the sense of yes the unattractive part of this whole thing Y is when you go to sell it to a town you say I'm gonna give you lease space that check's going to come in it's going to go into the town's general fund it's not going to come to me and it's not going to the school right so when you these space I don't see but if I get some of that electricity and I can say I'm not paying that electric bill $1,000 a month it actually went to my building opposed to the general fund okay so that's my only and Greg and I've had this conversation I'm you in the back so that's thank you yeah so the way we're gonna approach that um we'll give the option you send it to the general fund or we could put it as a bill credit on that particular School building which addresses your issue that's why like I said when you're selling it to the the stakeholder the school department or the town select board or whoever the lease sounds good until like if I do a LED project in a building that refund doesn't come to me to put more LED lights in that goes into the general fund okay so as much as the town still gets it I you know the stakeholder who's got a budget to manage it's better when I have a so that's that's why we don't have the option and we have the ability to do it and we can do it cleanly which is basically a think you can I don't think you can give them a credit I don't think they get the best of both worlds you have to decide which way to go I don't think you can live I don't think you could J point this I I know yeah you want the credit electricity to lower your bill I don't think you're going to be a if you're the generator and you're leasing power comes back that meter spins back to ring light that doesn't there is no so just so real clear the connection does not go through to the building's meter connected to our grid only that's right and it is meter but it has it has so it just happens to sit on top of that building right and the mechanism is and we have the mechanism to do it and we can track it but whatever that least so independent of what it generates we committed to X dollars a year on a lease a lease yeah and the way we'll pay that lease is in the form of a credit on the monthly bill to that building now it dep every that's every town has a little bit different structure in terms of what building this is exactly what we ended up doing with that right the way when you're trying to sell it to somebody and I have a budget and I can I'm gonna support it more when I know get it to your budget my $2 million electric bill or whatever for the year I'm getting a percentage back so I can show it savings and when I budget I can you're getting yeah so but when the other way again the swn still benefits but if it goes into the general fund I without a decision that to Media I can't take any of that money and spend it and and Bob back to your point it won't be a mix of the two it'll be a or b but we if they want a lease payment to the town fine if they want a credit on the bill fine we can do either one but not a mix back to your point yeah but the credit of the bill would be would be that would be the lease payment correct not that's not it's not you're not giving them the power correct correct you're just this just how how you pay the Le is purely it is a payment mechanism only but back and every Town's a little bit different every building's a little bit different so that's why we're trying to the point that Dennis has brought up as a point that we've heard yeah and we're trying to make sure that to the best of our ability we can accommodate that because again you guys know intimately well towns have all sorts of different departments and all sort of different budgets so get it as close to the benit to the place where the value is being created for us get it as close to them as possible and the current plan and might we might come across some other crazy thing but the current plan we can send it to the general fund but we'll probably end up doing more of it to apply to that build that particular building as a lease payment only not tied to the energy and when you're selling to a school department you can say GE you can tie a science educational plan around the solo that's on the roof that's a great selling point to a school but Financial people don't get the benefit of and that's why the money's got to go back towards something that takes off my bill or you know and yeah so we're gonna again every installation is going to be a little bit unique and we're trying to make it we try we're trying to be as accommodating as we can the the denst the reason I I started on this path of discussing this is because I I watched over a period of years where the topic of putting solar on municipal buildings went on and on and on and on and on and on and and it and you go away from the meeting and everybody had a different understanding of what God Said and and how it was going to work and who was supposed to do what next and that's the little reason I'm bringing it up at this meeting so that I think no that's fair I think it would be useful and maybe if we need a board lay on one of you maybe it's Ray because he's already doing it is like just make sure does everybody understand all of this anything we need to clear up it would just you know we wanted this help facilitate yeah we're here to help know be big missed opportunity if if we have these big projects and we don't I think the other the other important point because we've looked at these for many years and the big difference right now is that as rmld we now have access to the ITC the investment tax credit that makes it that makes it more economically viable for us to be able to do it in a way and the subcommittee's we've looked at some of the numbers so it's actually advantageous what you're seeing what Bill's walking through here is you know we're trying to do in territory generation and this you the first block in the in territory generation is solar PV in territory so we're basically saying here's all the projects we're doing we're going to we're going to be to get to the bottom here's the max we're going to do and and this is the not not just this is the plan this is what we're doing and then we'll talk about other options in the next or the next and not to get off topic with thinking of solar and roofs in the 11 years I've went with to town There's been two Winters where we had to worry about snow load and um now you have and I can go up and shovel it easier without solar panels once you add those and I'm dealing with older School St talking snow loads how am I getting it off the solar panel safely and it off the roof safely and efficiently and um that would be a topic that each town would have to talk about because that's going to be a concern bill will get into it but it's gonna it's gonna dramatically there are a lot of buildings where they just snow or no snow won't be able to take the load yeah so that the the they walking through all the opportunity again big picture let them get through the end but um we're gonna we're going to add what 30 megga yeah it's going to be between uh 30 and uh 40 so somewhere between 30 and 40 incremental megawatts and you know we don't know how it's G work at each individual so we are aggressively trying to put this in place and we just want to let you guys know here all the things that are going on point well taken so that we have a a board person that here's how it works mob's Point simple model just keep it simple and you can't look you said you can't always get on the roof there's so many mini splits on every roof now it just it can't is that's it's limited yeah it's very limited you might get two solar panels on a roof it's not even economical to do it on the roof that was exactly GNA be my question is how at what point does it make sense to do that because I just think about you've got your commercial industrial but what about large residences you know how how big does it need to be to make it worth while and and right now we're still U providing the incentive for customers in residential to um to for them don't ask because it it we don't want to be in the position where we're maintaining a lot of residential whereas if we limit it to larger commercial industrial groups then there's a little less risk and when you look at the newest schools all the technology is going on the roof you do have the mans SIDS which are the metal blocks everything but that's only so much space to put solely you never get enough power out of it to make it worth your while but if I look at the high school every 20 feet 25 feet I a yeah then they put a courtyard in the middle so then that that's all taken so you start looking at all the space on a new school it's a lot more difficult to fit yeah think you're gonna end up in the bottom line we'll do as much as we can there not gonna be a lot do any municipal or school buildings in our four towns have solar on it now say again do any municipal or school buildings in our four towns have solar on the roofs now only thing once we're ring like is a power purchase agreement prevents us from unless we outride by it the power purch agreement prevents us from getting a power purch agreement with Sol so that's been Wilmington's thing for years and then we we keep talking about the older schools have a lot of schools 60 70 years old um you want them from up to 15 to 20 years I don't know if I can commit to 15 years because we'd like to build new schools so it get you know and again Glenn and I Greg and I have had a lot of conversations it just starts becoming questionable of where it fits so I think all four towns probably have a lot of similar yeah aged schools um so if you're gonna build a school and not tear down the other two you know consolidate not tear down other schools you may have that roof space and use that building for something else but you've got to determine that it fits both sides of the coin and bottom I mean at the end of so will let Bill finish his slides yeah sorry about that bottom line this we'll we'll maximize it but it's not big just I mean all these reasons it's complicated it's not easy that's why we haven't done a lot of them we'll do everything we can but it it you know it's it's an important brick important block what is the potential if you were to be able Municipal for municipal buildings five mega b based on based on our how adoption you think you could get or if you did all of them well uh we can't do all of but some of them just aren't they have very like like here the par this is the Parker school on the in the photo so that's very good because it see it's very flat and open all of the panels are going to get a similar sort of uh piece of the sun um but some schools are you know they have it's roofs all sorts of angles so it's difficult to it really comes down of the school is built in the 60s 70s and early 80s you probably have a ton of open roof space it was really the 80s and on that more and more equipment and air handle as were going to the roofs roof space but not structural strength I so anyways let okay yeah carry on no no clear good feedback it's good that you care um so the the third category is cni customers so the we have a lot of large rooftops right and most of them are in Wilmington North Reading because those are where the big ones are um there are uh roof suitability issues and I'll go into detail on some of that in a minute um but does utilize uh underutilize roof and we think there's the potential for 10 to 20 megawatts uh in those areas okay uh so the the suitability of the rooftops first is the condition of the rooftops um uh a lot of our buildings are older right um and they haven't had a a a roof uh uh redone in 10 to 15 years um and they've got to they have to sustain around 20 pounds per square foot in order to um to you know be safe uh for for the lifetime of the solar panel so like Dennis said you don't want to if you've got an old building and you think you're going to do the roof over you don't want to put solar on there until you you redo the roof because you don't want to take off of the solar panels to do the roof over um and we did contact re sh the regional roofing company and um if you wanted to upgrade a roof as part of installing solar project it would cost you about 35 to $40 per scrip foot um or so it's not really doable unless you really need a roof and that's what we found on Burbank iera I think is that they the the as designed was not suitable for the 20 pounds per square foot um uh so the the most companies have done repairs on the rooftops and that and if they've done patch work it can uh putting the solar panels on can cause damage to the to the repairs that were done um and then uh with the current costs of installing solar um and the uh our relatively low rates it is difficult for commercial customers to see a payback worth in investing in for them um and of course they're they're not seeing the forward price curve so they don't typically take into account what's going to happen when we go fully noncarbon so if we can invest now right ahead of that that rise in prices we'll be able to at least get the benefits of the of the non-carbon uh solar energy uh before it's really driving up the the costs overall and we really don't know when that will what that will be um we did do uh detailed analyses this is just a we use a program called helioscope and we can look at each roof and estimate the monthly uh generation from from each project um I won't go to detail on that this is an example of um of a customer in Wilmington um you can see we the the all the blue things are are solar panels um the pink areas are solar canopies and the parking lot so we've done that level of analysis on a number of of these industrial customers and some of the municipal customers um this is another just uh solar canopy uh this is another uh industrial customer you can see we we do have to go around all the things that are on the roof all the the um air handling equipment um and this is in Wilmington this is an example um the shaen ele school um you know it's a relatively small system it's 100 kilowatts um the price you know it it will generate power um at $92 uh a megawatt hour which is you know higher than our our standard um and our base cost but uh we the benefit is we don't have to import it into the territory so we do offset a little bit of transmission capacity cost unfortunately solar drops off in the evening um that's one of the reasons we have the the peak is because of Solar stock generating but it does we have calculated and and currently solar eliminates about 10 to 11% of the the the transmission and capacity costs there is some benefit in that area um this is the solar canopy for the Shi and as you can see in the dollar per megawatt hour it's significantly higher at $129 per per megawatt hour so I really have to think about how many solar canopies we would want to put in um and here's Parker Middle School so that where you know we've laid out all the areas that are good I believe the the flat areas without panels were older roofs I think you can see some of the the the paches on there so that is an opportunity someday they do those areas of roof over we could we could add additional panels um this this uh system cost is about $104 um so in summary that's again the Parker School um we're actively pursuing um these development opportunities um the ground Mount has the the best economies but uh the large acreage we need for scale is also difficult to get uh so that's the boundary on on you know doing you know 175 megawatts of solar um there are many uh large rooftops in our area but of course we have to get buying from the customer and we have to make sure the roof is suitable for it but we'll continue those conversations with those customers about that um and then the our ownership and the IRA tax credits do help us at the the what we think are kind of marginal economics um but it will create a hedge we think in the future against Power prices going above these levels because once we have it installed um you know there's not there's no fuel cost right so it's a it will be a relatively flat rate is is paying off the capital and as long as the roof doesn't collapse we'll be you know there will be no additional right um so that's what what percent of uh commercial industrial roofs have so that that are we only have about about eight% no not eight eight eight projects have been large enough um we've got a customer in wilington currently putting in we have um Camp Curtis put in some solar uh and then we had some other customers that you know a solar developer comes along and musts to use their roof um but again the economics have not been great for that so there haven't been a lot of them that's why we think if we go and say we will we will kind of drisk this for you and we will pay you a certain lease payment so at least you're getting that benefit and you're also helping us to keep rates down by locking into this lower price now taking advantage of the limited time investment tax credits um because even they you know I think they find TR uh they they can't justify the investment even with the right tax credits because it's above their hurdle rate so the method of getting to try to get these built is ourl Staff approaching uh the owners yeah we we we we have been working with a developer um so we have been um bringing them to help develop it and for they're sales oriented so they they help bring the um you know the the experience and a list of projects that they've done um so we're we're working with them to do that and um they they do have a a contract with the state through Power option so we don't need to to bid it out and still be in compliance with the Cur laws solar Choice how is this factoring in how is that being implemented or so this will create more opportunity so it will create more supply of recks that can be um bought by the people who want to participate in renewable Choice um so there are these re these class one Recs which you know I guess we'll decide on a ongoing basis whether we uh sell them or retire them um and then there's always that choice of promoting it to customers and I think you know having the um the publicity around these projects as we can we can use it as an opportunity to say that that we need to think that through I don't think that's a full enough complete enough answer we're asking the community to go to heat pumps their electric bill is going to go up get it the fuel's going to go down I know I have the data so there there is an incentive there yep but the Bill's going to go up if they put Solo on their Roof then they can offset that electrical cost to anyone with a optimal roof you're going to say great we'll net me to your house you're not going to get much payback but at least your bill will be close to zero yeah for the houses and that's going to be the majority of them we're still going to want them to put heat pumps in we're going to say well and you could put solar on your roof and they're going to say no I can't I don't have the right orientation I don't have the right structure they did plan for solar roofs when they built my 16 uh 32 house wasn't in the design um so you're GNA say well maybe we'll get some tax credits down the road and maybe you can kind of participate that that's no that's that can't be the only answer when we do the fields and and we're we're building the solar panels in in wherever yeah not all your projects are going to qualify that but the the big ones where you you have some value that you can um return back open that up for customers to buy a panel buy a unit of energy and participate in that uh that effort in and saying okay great I can't put solar on your house but I can put solar over in this field over here and we'll give you a benefit for that yeah and and then that doesn't rule out when we get to Rex and we want to have people invest in the uh what's that program that's kind of the same thing choice just not the same thing yeah there's three there's two different programs renewable choice and solar choice and what Ray's bringing up right now um is the is is a third option which is allow somebody to they can invest to put solar on their own roof we'll give them an opportunity to invest and put solar somewhere else and the idea let's take Maple medals for example is and so it's 10 it's 10 megawatts we rld will own nine of those megawatts and leave the last megawatt open with the frames and the racks and the inverters and offer for those that want to buy one panel two panel three panels we obviously have to keep track of it which we can do but they would actually own a panel in a frame that we manage and maintain I'm just telling you it's I I hear you Bob but um yeah it's so back to back to the concept of Simplicity and it's not a New Concept we not no no it's not done two projects way already so it's not I'm not advocating something we haven't done already agree I guess that's why I thought it was a same thing because it sounds like something done solar choices is something we've done and and R I think so choic is in place is is still a third option you're a renter or you're a condo owner and you and that that's you you don't have any control over your heating or Cooling and yet you still want to be able to know that you're doing energy you're paying is going into something that's where Choice comes in um but we need to strengthen the incentives to get more people onto heat pumps and and being able to say that you know we've strengthened the and the incentives to put solar that you purchase on your house and give you value and credit for that but hear about what we're offering and what other people are offering I realize we're not doing a raw straight net metering I get it but we can probably do way better than we are um and if you can then let's do let's do a Sol Trace option we're going to put these in fields at a good rate let's invest in in having people contribute to that because you're right there G to be some places in parking lots which aren't really coste effective let's get some Investments somewhere else where across the board we bring the the Peaks and the The Valleys of the cost something thats our Target is um let's make options for a broader set of individuals in our territory to participate in somebody sa forms so that'll be our takeaway you know I've talked about that a little bit it's interesting but why should we be the Sol of fidelity right that's not why should we be the soul of fidelity right why should we be the one to broker broker this people have a opportunity I I understand that you can't get it on your house a lot of us can't because the trees or terrain or whatever okay you know I I uh it's it I like the concept of you know now we're getting into a a a financial system that we we're rld right transaction we have to be very careful and consistent because we have to treat all customers fair I thinking you know think creatively in terms of how to do this and I your caution I just a unique concept but I just you know it's there two two sides of like why why why should we get engaged in that because we need land and the land is on people's houses it's people's houses and to encourage correct yeah so the power yeah no no so so thanks r i I think I really like your idea and and Bob I think what we have to think about is what Reay is saying is you want to give people motivation to adopt heat pumps right corre so you want you you what you're really looking to do is how do you incent behavior and you have to think about how are you going to make this work if they can't put solar so if you're going to give them an option to get a piece of the action you you essentially opening it up to everyone great you you you can't block others right so if you're going to make this available for one set of customers you make it available for everyone and then yeah and then the ownership piece that um the ownership piece that rmld has can be a variable ownership so you have an asset that initially rmld owns 100% of it but then at different stages you could have people owning different amounts and you can set this up uh on like Greg is going to be building his analytics team there'll be some people who will be working on models like this so the question is how do I build a capability where at one time I can maybe Own 100% of it but then if I I'm getting other people I can let them own part of it and then helping them you know have the incentive to adopt heat pumps yeah and just I I think it's a really great idea R so we need I think what you and Ray and Bob prompt are saying think out of the box and you know and we'll bring back ideas but I want to make one thing real clear is um we look at solar as a generation asset right and heat pumps we have we have different programs that we're putting in place relative to accelerate the adoption of air source so there's incentives and loans and linkages to weatherization programs we'll walk you through over the next few sessions what we're how we're going to modify those but um just but and you have to match and you have to match the it's not the capacity you have to match the the the energy load yeah but but I um Our intention is not to link solar with heat pumps right there's a generation opportunity and those are for people that that want to be more non-carbon and we have we'll have a couple different mechanisms and then there's the air source Heat Program you can participate in both if you want but they we we're going to we don't see a a need to link those two people can decide to do one or the other or both mix and match to the extent I don't I want to be very careful I don't tie them together we'll give them the option to do both but I'm not gonna force them to do both well yeah no no it's a good idea not to link it but you give people to raise point you give people an opportunity I I want to make sure on the same page so good now that you're playing that back I'm yeah well if you're not gonna own the solar panels on a person's house then the person who is correct fine agreed yeah then person who owns the house is linking it very much you know so so that all we're simply saying is that the incentive we give them to to generate the power that supports their heat bump is one program totally fine and and then all tied together right right so so no problem with that keep it up in form another committee question is now we're talking about putting owning solar panels on people's houses no we're notna say talking about a whole new liability issue no yeah no no no no I'm not talking we're we're asking for an amendment to the NBTA communities law to require eight units of solar panels on every single family house my's in that District yeah mine is too onward yes onward good discussion wow bill look where you started figured out how to get solar power which is good he told me we're gonna be done we had a more efficient chair maybe we would okay next agenda item um I don't have any slides but um we've just met once since our last meeting um and talked primarily about some of the communication strategies around um the next session or next topic which is the ENT and territory generation with the carbon capture fuel cell um we didn't come to any kind of final conclusion but I know you guys are going to talk a little bit about some of messaging in the next set of slides yeah I'll talk a little about I think so um one of the things I so you'll see some of it in the next few slides some of the things we talked about um so when you finish okay so yeah so we just we talked about the populations that we need to communicate some of the kind of broad messages um and some of the kind of the yeah the time the timing and kind of the decision makers versus inform just kind of awareness um and kind of the different modes of communication for that so it's a little bit more of an exploratory conversation get getting feedback from the committee um which if few guys took back um and then we just got a quick update on the procurement Milestone so bring it up spe yeah so um so that was that was the extent of our most recent session um I do think you know some of the prior conversations have helped once we get through this um carbon cure fuel cell uh process if we're going to proceed with that um I think the the committee may actually be a great opport great way for us to dig into some of these other options on the on the solar as our next topic so I know we're going to continue the meetings to focus on carbon capture fuel cell but definitely see lots of additional topics to keep that committee focused on anybody else on the committee want to add anything yeah we may have to redefine the scope right that's all yeah at the time yeah if you can switch the slides I'll go through them I'm not gonna walk through every slide great good the reason I put some of these slides up front the mission if somebody's looking at these after the fact they understand the context um executive summary you guys know this I'm not going to walk you through that um this is just a reminder right what are we trying to do we're basically we're looking at load um load growth in our territory uh we continually look at that on a regular basis um it's roughly 2x by 2050 um as you can see we become in this chart on the far right hand side um each one of those four blocks there's 2023 on the left The Middle's 20 38 and the right's 2050 but you can see in the Left End 2023 we are what is known as a summer peaking territory or you know our in our territory is which is consistent with the region as we move to the far right 2050 we become a winter peaking and the reason for that is that light blue is air source heat pumps we've got a bunch of assumptions in terms of the adoption rate Etc um but the air source heat pumps are used for heating and cooling but our assumption is that air source heat pumps um will replace existing or small incremental addition of central air or window air conditioning so there's a small little blue in the summer months but the big change is in the winter months Air Service heat pumps replacing um either natural gas or oil which is the predominant way of eating the dark blue right below it is um EVs and those two are just the residential side um and you can see the EVs and again there's assumptions tied to EV adoptions Etc um you know we're trying to be realistic in terms of where it looks like but that's the driver that's what we're trying to F this is just again big picture right what we're looking at um is how do we in this chart that slashed that that cross hatched area is energy that we have not yet contracted for all the solid blocks below it are contracts in place Our intention is to continue working on the hydro for example you can see that it tapers down Our intention is to keep it at roughly 20% so we will continue to look at as as opportunities come up um to continue you know over the long term having that Hydro be in a roughly a 20% range we are aggressively looking at that we've got contracts you can see our our solar and wind when we get to 25 six becomes big these are contracts that we did last year and the year before where they start coming online we continue looking for those as well but in that crosshatch area we have three core options to fill that portfolio one is to purchase on the open market in either real time RT is real time or day ahead we prefer to buy in day ahead it tends to be a little bit less expensive than real time the second element is to contract more long-term Supply contracts which are the solid bars in that chart or the third element is generated in territory and so or try to do a mix um so just just a reminder right if we do nothing um open market is the is the default plant um some of the things that we think about for the different Technologies just a quick review is capacity Factor so in a in a nutshell um wind solar hydro and nuclear um and the ccfc is the carbon capture fuel cell you can see the capacity factor is very different solar is roughly 1% and while it might be a 20 me these are all just to give you an example 20 megawatt systems if you go across the solar line at a 70% capacity Factor it'll generate roughly 30,000 megawatt hours a year we sell megawatt we sell kilowatt hours so while the capacity is 20 megawatts or whatever that's great but it's got to deliver over time you look at nuclear for example which is got 98% in our territory so that 20 megawatts is equivalent to 170,000 megawatt hours so when we look at all these different options capacity factor is a key piece of it as we had talked about before um in territory generation is the third option right we will we will always buy open market some percentage of it um we will always do long-term Supply contracts the new the new strategy that we're putting in place right now is in territory generation and we'll talk about the logic behind it but it's primarily for financial reasons and reliability reasons if we look at what we can do in territory um all of these are part of our portfolio right we have wind onshore as well as offshore um but it doesn't fit in our territory there be no wind towers in our territory um there'll be no in we don't have any dams or any Hydro in our territory right now and none will be built so while we like it there's not an opportunity for us here um small modular nuclear reactor that's the upper right hand corner um there's probably a place for that in in the region but not inside of our territory and as we talked about offline earlier before our meeting you know hydrogen is it's still it's still down the road so we want to be open to it at some point in time but there's nothing for us to buy in the near term the other options for in territory is solar PV and Bill walked us through our our first step is to maximize as much solar PV as we possibly can and that's what we're doing um so additional 40 megawatts is is is Our rough Target which we think we can add the territory and Bill gave us a bunch of examples um at the bottom row there 2034 is that low temperature geothermal the interesting thing about low temperature geothermal it doesn't take a lot of land space right it's basically going down it's a similar concept to using geothermal it's it's a heat pump concept it's more than a concept there are systems running today but they're not it's not yet commercially viable it might be commercially viable in the in the mid 2030s as that comes commercially viable that's a great solution for not just our territory but the entire region um there's not a lot of open space um the shortterm scenario then that we're looking at is is the carbon capture fuel cell because it's available now we're basically positioning as a bridge technology um so just big picture and this is so this goes into some of the discussions that we had earlier this week at our at our subcommittee group is you know I think the phrase is responsible diversification in terms of our power supply portfolio so the idea across here is if you look at 2010 through 2050 um solar is a is a base level piece right we have roughly 10 megawatts in territory right now that's that first row and it'll continue you know those systems will probably continue running through almost 2050 um we're going to add somewhere that next block is to add another 30 maybe 40 megawatts of the different projects that bill walked us through layer on top of that carbon capture fuel cell again it will probably run just for 15 years will set as we talked about before in this group we'll leave the options to allow us to extend it if we decide to but from an economic perspective it will have basically been fully paid for fully utilized and have some residual value by the time we get to 20 early 2040s and then the other two blocks that we talked about before low temperature geothermal it would start somewhere in the mid 2030s again a lot of assumptions in terms of when that technology is commercially viable probably another 20 megawatts there might be 25 megawatts depend upon load and then maybe in that time frame hydrogen maybe in 2040s but the point being is we're looking at layering Assets in territory Assets in a a in an ele in a way that basically supports our mission of reliable lowcost noncarbon and fits the compliance time as well so that's that's how we're thinking about it so that's kind of big picture and this this is actually this slide came out of the discussion we had earlier this week in terms of how to think about it we'll work on the graphic Etc but this is how something along these lines is what we want to into our broader communication package so people can get an idea of how we're thinking about layering Technologies on top of each other good low temperature geothermal um kind of couch it as it's not quite developed yet yet multiple universities have used it for their on campus structures in which they have a ground Loop which provides a heat and cooling Loop for multiple buildings and there was recently uh approved a residential ground luk and I'm not going to get the right time Framingham is is the first residential style loop I don't see that maybe your question is that that's not generation really so those systems you know are well established and and they work great you know we we're covering 51 square miles and you know so it would be Project based that you would do it in other words like you're putting in a development or you're putting in no actually so so the individual developer would make the decision at that point as a as a so in great example right Ken and I earlier this year um sorry who's the uh anyways there's a 51 unit complex that uh they've had interest in terms of putting in they wanted to put fossil fuels oh that's the to Brothers development to Brothers yeah so they're gonna you know they're looking at the option of doing um geothermal heat pumps well either geothermal heat pumps or air source heat pumps um so that's a decision that they would make on their behalf but it's purely to generate heat when we look at low temperature geothermal this would be used to generate electricity right right I so I realize yes yes understand I don't you get it R but you know people are gonna look at this video later on that low temperature geothermal is electricity generation Generations right so say there's a development or some sort of uh zoning or um review of something like maybe in the Walkers Brook area just for example like hypothetically yeah um you know there's a number of Office Buildings there's a number of commercial buildings all of which demand heat if they all individually convert to heat pumps that's a huge energy demand but if we can do a ground Loop we can manage that and bring that to efficiency so it isn't a generation for us necessarily but it's a demand management option so on that note that's a good that's a good prompt rate you know one of the things that we're thinking about you know what are we in the business providing right we're in the business of providing heat light Transportation um Refrigeration cooking we all do it through electricity so there is a scenario and we you know we've touched on this and we've done some initial exploration but because we like assets we are we are our business is friendly economically friendly to assets other businesses aren't maybe there's a scenario we actually own that Loop you know the the so might cover four or five buildings in fact it could potentially be what we end up coming up for this campus so I think your your Point's well taken and and we're actually I W say actively looking because it's a little bit further down the road but that concept of hey let's think about us being in a slightly different business it still it still is energy still electricity what gets delivered might be heat and cooling good good prompt good prompt this one though the idea of this one remember um it's a graphic that we actually used and I thought it was actually was well received at the the Lindfield um water department meeting but we basically had our map laid out and we had our different tie points and our different generation potential generation asset and you could look at it basically being a ring all the way around so the idea is not have not it's a core concept of distributed energy resources in this case distributed energy generation and so between the solar arrays and you know Carbon capture fuel cell low temperature GE whatever they work out to be it's basically in rings so if we have a problem in one location and you know this weekend we had two we had two squirrels um one one in Lindfield I got the old time yeah that that hit the primary so you know we we want to work very we're working diligently to to make us more Wildlife resistant and tree existed but it's never going to be perfect unless you put it all in I tree truck went down Franklin Street last week so we saw I got enough close view ofing activity so just we're trying to again you know it always takes us back what's our mission right reliable low cost non-carbon energy right so that's what we keep trying to do over and over again and these are all mechanisms in a world that's changing pretty quickly all right um you know so the last two pieces so this is the big picture um in terms of you know 22 I'm sorry 2024 through 2020 on the right hand side um is 2026 um that green basically we have confirmed the procurement process as a um our meeting that we had on the 5th 10 10 days yeah 10 days ago two weeks ago um we walked through that process um we will there's a I'll walk through a little bit more detail in terms of the carbon capture piece because there are approval steps for you guys to approve um as we go through that process but we're still you know looking at making sure that if we decide to go forward we've given ourselves the ability to hit the ITC Safe Harbor deadline so that still is a important there's a lot of work to be done as we as we dig a little bit deeper into this specific procurement piece you know we did two weeks ago was engaging the uh the owner's engineer the bid package was actually prepared it went out um there's actually a lot of interest in the in we're getting a lot of responses back they're due back well we have questions coming in but they're due back U before the July 4th holiday um so in the July meeting we will come to you and say we want to hire you know what we'll have to look at all the different proposals but that'll be that'll be a specific approval to actually start spending money for real on the project um hopefully we'll be able to have gotten through most of the questions we have with our subcommittee um we still have some work we have a couple action items on natural G we have a couple action items in several pieces um and even if we do that we still need to go through about six lines down submit to the Inspector General uh we'll need to secure approval for them and then issue the bid package and then there's going to be an evaluation in September another approval cycle for you guys to approval to to go forward the next step and even when we get to that point in time there'll be some additional off-ramps so there's a bunch of approval stages that we we going to present the board with in terms of moving forward so that's it's kind of a I'm giving a kind of a quick summary of where we are in the process um and you can't quite see it in this chart but you know we're we're in mid June well almost late June questions on I have one question um if you can go back a few slides to where it shows the different types that are making up our total load yeah this one so between 2026 and 2030 it looks like we're fully subscribed is is that where we want to be are we being conservative and thinking that load requirement may be a little higher it looks like we don't have any will be we'll be we'll be 95 just percent hedged is that it's higher than we'd like to be going forward because it it will give us price certainty um so we know we know where we'll be uh the downside is that price is drop significantly the out of the money but we'll still know what the so rates won't go up they'll just stay where they are where they um in the in the more volatile Market that we're in right now we want to be somewhere north of 90% hedged four years ago three years ago mid2 you know 20 2015 um prices were very stable and so being 60 70% HED was fine because there wasn't a lot of ups and downs um you know some of the other presentations that we shared with you guys is we've moved that Target up we've done it steadily over the past three years 75% % 80% 85% 90 so in reality 27 28 it's probably you know I'd rather be 5% less but we're basically trying to hit that ICT Target so we're not creating a problem for ourselves um we still want to we're going to contined tracking um this chart um some of those contracted projects in the particularly in the um in the yellow won't get built so that's another element which even though they're contracted um this is assuming everything that we have planned it stays on schedule which is not happen won't so so we've we've been through over the past three years and we have another project right now um the developer said look I can't make it work unless you guys want to be in the triple digit numbers for solar and we don't because it it's so there's a there's a Challen so the the your question is is really good and very appro um we manage like when I say we manage this like we look at this all the time um and as Bill mentioned Our intention is to make sure that we don't have any price bills that just are incredibly high for our customers there'll be times when hey if we didn't we weren't so HED we might have been a little bit lower but our goal is to prent against the expenses side and sometimes you know we won't we call won't be in the money yeah it's you this is as we talked about the last presentation power supply is risk you it's a risk managing game it's type of energy geographic location who's the supplier you know the nature of the contract there's a whole bunch of factors we look at and so we fortunately are in a very good position because we've got a very um Diversified portfolio and that's why when we key off of our Monday discussion you know the responsible verification kind of fits into what we we're doing already yeah any other questions okay we're going jump to policy review had aoup back yeah we smok at Paul Ms out in the parking lot we smoke at Paul M the parking line not this parking lot the street though so you um again you know we have a procedure of reviewing our policies every three years uh smoking happens to be it's time has come up to to be reviewed um you know you got a chance to take a look at it but I think at the end of the day the key pieces um we streamline as we're trying to do with all of them you guys remember in policy 19 we moved all the board responsibilities into policy 19 we did that I think two sessions ago maybe three sessions ago now so we're cleaning that up um in this particular case we are a smokefree environment um but we basically the main change we did besides cleaning it up was have it tied to the state regulations so we're not trying to create any special regulations ourselves we're just trying to be consistent what the state does so as the state modifies our policy will modify with it there's nothing we don't have a smoking problem here um um so it's I mean this we can we can dig deeper into it but this is not a this is a pretty straightforward policy change any questions question curious um do you have to run this through the union where it's a smoking thing and includes CS when you make a change like this do you have to get any type of input from them okay just because what what this no um we don't these are board policies right these are your policies right the second element is is we're basically being consistent with the state law so even if there was a problem the problem's not with us I just didn't know if there had to be any type of buying at any point for that any questions is there a smoking area here there's not oh there was no there's not was there um at one point in time there was before my time I just I because you know some people still do smoke I mean still y they're part part of it and if do any smoking area then we don't we don't it's we are legitimately a smoke free environment I just don't want that to yeah I agree you know that's not something new in this policy it has been that way saying we we we are smoke free we have't we don't have people that smoke in build or outside the building for that or in the or in the vehicles questions pretty simp to V yeah I'm fine I just see we're sort of moving away from smoking to smoking vaping and and well spitting but it's the the chewing um well spit not to get too technical yeah chew all you want but yeah yeah you're not swallowing I get it um we are literally we are literally queuing off the state right yeah no I get it and I just we just think of it SN but you've sort of expanded the definition but you've also very clear in terms limiting where that that's acceptable so and smoking of other substances other than tomacco is covered into the drug correct well we'll be talking about that in probably August question you don't test your employees to nicotine do you we do drug testing I don't know if tobacco's I I don't I can find out I don't I don't know top of my head okay we don't yeah ready for ready for a vote anybody read the motion who's gonna read the motion I can do that um is it just there's no cabin here okay move that the r Board of Commissioners approv policy four smoking revision 8 as presented on the recommendation of the general manager second okay any more discussion all in favor motion carries 50 thank you thank you um general manager update since we did one two weeks ago there's a lot of stuff in the next couple of weeks I will send you an update on we'll talk about in July but this one um I wanted to use this time this is I'm I'm responding back to a prompt your prompt um there's a lot of stuff here so the real message behind this is um as we've talked about over the past several months um and we talked about it again today right it was part of the discussion in terms of you know how do we how do we accelerate the adoption of how do we change the incentive structure to encourage whether is ancient Air Service heat pumps solar etc etc um so there's a bit of context here in terms of what are we trying to have the incentives do um and what we looked at is so we we have programs in place that are focused on peak hours and peak hours so this is I'm give this is a we're sharing with you ideas and thoughts uh this is meant to be discussion there's more work that we need to do but the question is how do we really optimize our distribution Network um I actually had a call Ben and I had a call with the um S&P rating agency today we do it every two years I didn't get to this slide of this detail but um you know our if you look at our cost structure our system because it's electricity is designed to handle Peak loads and we have a fixed capital investment to handle those Peak loads and the fixed capital investment includes poles and wires and Transformers and switch gear and substations it includes the employees and you know the buildings Etc um right now our Peak our capacity is in the 230 megawatt range um and our Peak load is in the 160 range so we're roughly 7 in terms of peak capacity we're roughly in the 70% of peak range um in terms of looking at megawatt hours or utilization of our capacity over all the hours in the year which is 8760 we are in the mid 45 you know 46 47% utilization so the question we're asking is we know as we've just discussed before there was upward pressure on rates right and rates are driven by or bills are driven by rates times usage and so what we're trying to look at is what things can we do again so this is we're giving you you know a work in process just some of the things we're thinking about in the case so you look at that chart in the middle there and that basically is on the left hand side is load in terms of um hourly load megawatt hours cross the bottom or hours the left hand is one o'clock in the morning the middle of that chart is noon and the right hand side is midnight again so you see on the left hand side that's basically the middle of the night um each one of those lines is a different month of the year this is actual customer data so this is this is 500 actual residential customers um in 2019 um while the thing is shifted we'll do another analysis of it for 2024 time frame um but the peak is always well currently the peak in that time frame has always been late afternoon and the interesting element about Peaks is those Peaks Define our capacity and transmission cost and as you guys on the left hand side there you can see the cast cost categories capacity transmission certificates energy and operating cost operating cost is the building and the employees Etc um and what happens with the peak is what the peak does it doesn't just change it doesn't just affect that hour it basically sets a ratchet that carries out for all 8760 hours of the year so we are highly incentive to make sure that we clip the Peaks as best we can however in the non- peak hours all hours except for the 13 out of 8,760 we we thinking like if we want to keep rates down then we want to basically U our fixed our fixed capacity at a higher level and so what that table is just this is this is food for thought we haven't digest this all the way but we ran a simple model that middle column there um and this is load and net rate analysis during non peak hours not the 13 hours so our typical load residential load is 820 kilowatt hours a month and if we assume and we just did three scenarios let's assume that it's 20% higher and 20% lower and what does that do to the cost structure so we know that capacity during those non- peak hours capacity and transmission is fixed right because we set that during the peak hour we know that operating is fixed because we have as long as we stay as long as we stay you know somewhere between 45 and 70% of capacity we know that the only variable is going to be energy and as you can see in there energy is 28 out of the 143 all said and done that lower leftand corner box is the net rate dollars per kilowatt hour so our base is roughly 18 cents 18.3 cents a kilowatt hour but times to what we are worthly right now but if we were to add a 20% usage during non- peak hours and we basically spread that usage because it's just variable cost or incremental cost they would basically have a more than 10% decrease in our rate so we're trying to think through back to the incentives again this I'm not I'm just we're sharing with you we we're we're trying to think carefully what are we trying to what what Behavior are we trying to change we know we need to clip Peaks but what are we doing on the other non peak hours so can I ask a quick question yes sure please is this basically an argument against the public Communications because we're throwing the uh you know while we're clipping the one hour we're also losing all this load in the hours around it no no no okay looking at capacity utilization of the network is what we're trying to look at and we're trying to go back to the rate there's upward pressure on rate so we're trying to like what can we do to maximize rate and one of the elements we came back to is look we've got a fixed asset here and just like a manufacturing plant like if everybody in half capacity can can we basically add more volume through it and reduce the unit cost that's so so and so how do you incentivize people not to charge their cars between 4 and 8m how do you incentivize people not to use their washing machines and their dishwashers you're not goingon to not you're not going to be able to incentivize them not to cook dinner but you know you're you're trying to push how do you how do you incentivize to do those Choice time activities to but we don't we don't so back to that point we actually don't mind if they move that load to a different time of the day that's what I mean yeah charge your car charge your car at 1 in the morning don't talk to so I you're telling all your large manufacturing facilities and Industrial companies to stop working from midnight till 8 am right I mean that's really that that that's lifestyle Chang that's not a that's not a choice I guess I I was I was thinking this is like how can you identify things that could happen any time of day and instead of having them like incentivize them to do them at that are what we committed to do what well we committed to ourselves but also to share with you how are we going to re revise our incentive program what are we trying to incent so we want to CLI peeks you know just we went back to like last some basic assumptions um as we talked about before our top 50 commercial and Industrial customers represent half of our load right half of our load now Bob back to your point so I've got some experience with one of the other MLPs right and so they had an alloy basically they were Foundry still are they still exist and so um what that MLP did brain tree is they set their rates up so there was a penalty for being for running after four o'clock they basically just shifted their operation they instead of starting 8 o'clock they started at six o'clock in the morning I'm not saying to run overnight and not going to work for everybody we did have a chance to sit down with our largest customer two weeks ago um they run their plan they're semiconductor FB PL so they're not changing anything right we haven't got on I don't you know it's not going to be all third Shi type stuff but when we think about at the end of the day you how can we think out of the box in ter of changing the behavior and you know there's the new load that's coming in EV and that you can change like because we haven't established the behavior yet so and we've talked about this several times you know let's let's make it inexpensive overnight and and make it you know Dirt Cheap in the evening I mean make it expensive late afternoon and very expensive overnight we want to be careful about doing that because when the adoption gets to we we put that chart up a few months ago by 2040 our overnight load is three times our daytime load not good right we want the load to be as flat as we possibly can um we had the discussions earlier this week and shared this with you before um with the Ami vendors and so this goes back to the time of use stuff we're trying to make sure we choose a platform that allows us to do time of use but almost real time our working assumption is our customers really don't they don't pay a lot of attention most of our customers don't pay attention to electric bill because the lights are always on right we have a really good reliability status right now and the bills are affordable not for everybody but the majority of like so just you know I've got other things to worry about Electric is fine don't bother me um we're still trying to figure out ways to modify customer Behavior within certain ranges without them caring about it so we don't have it all figured out but there's a lot of interesting things in our discussion with the 3 Ami vendors that came in of things that we might be able to do so it ties into this we don't have it all figured out yet but what we're trying to tell you guys is how do we at the end of the day what's the key driver that's what's the net cost to a customer make sure the lights are on and then obviously make sure it's not car so we're hitting all these pieces um this is been we've got more work to do on this analysis but this is this is a little bit out of the box go ah so Greg this is good information thank you uh what should like to Pam's point I mean what should the takeaway be from from this slide for us today um I think the takeaway VC is you know we so we like Energy Efficiency programs uh we're gon we're going to promote them as particularly on the commercial industrial side as much as we possibly can um we don't we haven't found any interesting ways to do that um but I think the key takeaway is I think the key takeaway VC is we're thinking about um how do we impact the net rate it's in that green box in the other leftand Corner dollars per kilowatt hour people can use whatever they're going to use when they want to use it but but the rate structure this was intended to focus on incentives we're going to do we're preparing to do another rate study it's another threeyear period to do another rate study and so we're kind of rethinking so the takeaway is we're thinking the takeaway is we're thinking out of the box but we haven't this is not a final we're not making a recommendation yet will the time come for time of use metering for all residential customers that sometime in future very future that that's the only way I think you'll really affect this yeah but it's also going to be Ken your thought it's going to be how we actually you know what the ability of the metering system to do that is going to be a foundational base right so that's part of the evaluation we're doing right now with AMI selection process how we how we apply it is what we're starting about you know how we put rates against it Etc um because even if you got a variable time AB use rates as long as the Bill's not crazy then most of our customers aren't GNA pay a lot of attention but that's assumption is going to change I don't I think you're probably right r is at some point when that Bill gets up to whatever the number gets to be $200 to $300 as soon as you put your first heat pump in and buy your first electric car how much you care about your electric bill is going to change yeah and and so I agree right now when you only see a 50 or 100 $200 electric bill you go like oh it's summer I put the AC on like yeah okay no big deal you see a $400 winter Bill you're going to go oh maybe I can do something to offset that so so but but Ray what you're not seeing is you're not seeing the natural gas bill right you're not seeing the natural gas you're not see gas bill so you have to optimize it that way I don't care about my oil bill or gas bill anymore because they don't have it anymore don't exist know but coming out of my electric bills so now I'm caring about my electric bill so so yes you're right oh absolutely there's there's a net benefit already and that I convinced myself of that net benefit to do the the change over to begin with now that I've bought bought into the changeover now I'm looking at a $400 or $500 electric bill and so now I'm open to things that I can do to affect that yeah I mean the savings and then there's more savings and then there's some more savings so how much can I what can I do on that where the compatibility is is that we also want to affect Behavior we also want you to buy electricity from certain times so there's two incentives there's the incentive of the person who will now care um that their electric bill is is more manageable and that we care when they buy that power so um when they use that power when they when they usey exactly right when they draw yeah and and so yeah I would just caution that yeah no one cares I think they will care and and I think being able to say not not not not the proper choice of words the end of the day what we have learned is we want to make it as easy as possible for the customers to respond and change correct make it easy for them and so those are the kind of things we're looking at um with fact that some of the Ami systems have got some capabilities to do stuff in background mode the only thing you have I think we always have to keep in mind is rate structures should not be punitive for people that maybe didn't adopt right if you did yeah it's going to be a 25 30 year transition right oh it is you don't need to be punishing someone who does get home at for five o'clock in the afternoon kids get home TV goes on you know oven goes on not saying do I'm not saying start your electric dryer turn on your dishwasher energy consumption goes up because everybody's using it right you want to make sure that your rate structure is not punitive for for everybody you know and and time of use is punitive at peak times it mean yeah I mean it it is by you know you're using more but you know if we up our rate you you know rate structure for Pure time of use you have to take into account that know there's a like not everyone can adapt their lifestyle so on that note so again this is again this is this this we're we're discussing and looking and exploring the other element is are there things that we can do in our Network to time shift when we purch the power and when the customer uses the power and so we've talked you know we talked a couple months ago and we're we'll give an update on it is that form energy project right and what's different about that form energy project it is a 100h hour battery system not a two-hour battery system so while while the existing system we putting in place are focused on the Peaks this form thing is more it's it's more of a Time shifting mechanism so we the modeling that that forum and Bills team has been working on there has said hey the reason why we continued to push forward on it because it's it's not perfect but it it it's going to create a different element where we can actually time shift customers so back to your point of not being punitive we haven't got it all figured out yet but we're trying to look at all these different elements it's we're in a back to your point right the annual the monthly bill is going to go up right there's only upward pressure on it because the usage is going to increase and the rates are going to increase and so all we're looking at here is like hey you know what leverage can we pull on rates we haven't got it all figured out yet we know in territory generation for all the economic reasons we'll do I mean however we do it right there's logic this gets into the incentives in terms of what kind of behaviors are trying to drive and what pieces of equipment we want people to adopt we love air source heat pumps because we think that ultimately it benefits the people that put the air source heat pump in and all the other rate payers everybody wins EV is a little bit different air source heat pump everybody wins whether you bought one or not you're better off it I'll stop there so thank thank you for that the the problem that I had given was more specific to this week which is the Heatwave week because we had a forecast last week of back toback 100 100 degree days yep and um I read that IO New England said was predicting today would be the peak so far this year which means unless we get another big blast of the heat wve on a business day it might well have been the annual Peak today might be we don't know but if it is true that it was the peak today as of the year so far it's a contender for the annual PE yeah so the question I had was to walk us through what measures did rmld take to prepare for this SE wve and what happened what was done what was communicated what buttons did you push to educate the board to cap new board members of what did rmld do yeah uh so there was a there used to be a communication strategy that consisted not only of group emails but in listing towns to say things even I I've gotten reverse 911 calls a couple times over the years sometimes when it's really a bad day that gets implemented so what was done this week yeah so um we're at a transition point on our communication our Public Communication but what we did do um yesterday and today um is we ran our generator which was two and a half megawatt red happens all the regularly right Rock Solid always works um and then we also ran our battery so right um the B so we have one 5 megawatt battery system um so in parall so what we didn't do today because we don't have the other 20 megawatts of Battery Systems in place but that's part that's not part of that's a key piece why we're putting that additional 20 megawatts in so you know part of the challenge in terms of battery system is where you put them right how you connect them to the network Etc so so we are strong proponents of Battery Systems because um as as we talked about before and what I didn't finish doing on this analysis da was the Second Step which is you know the 50% of our load is is the top 50 customers and there's one that has the ability you know from their process perspective to make adjustments so who did what today we so none of our I don't know of any of our C so we didn't we were not successful in terms of communicating to our customer today to say it's a peak day um why not but I mean what just tell us what usually happens what didn't usually um our we have a we have an email program that goes out and we have a so we don't have a communication manager or marketing manager hired yet um we didn't get it done today because as we went to go do that um we uncovered that our Constant Contact um the email vendor or the the password is what password so anyway it issues administratively that we will fix next week um but it's it's our internal fault for not doing as much we possibly could from so the mass email didn't go out correct do we do tweets do we let the town halls know to post or do anything we did none of that today Dave the only we did is we ran we ran our generator and we ran our battery system my wife commented she was surprised she did get it yeah that's so so my that and that's a positive that's a good that's a good point that's a positive in the sense that people have been getting the message yeah to shave the peak and they were looking for that feedback to respond now we had limited things that we could do yeah but um but nevertheless yeah I think I think commented that that was missing so part of this goes back to um you know we talked about shave the peak program or Shred the peak program um when it got introduced in 2016 2017 it was pretty effective but it has not been very effective since then so one of the other things we're trying to do is how do we change that and then and um what program we have a program whether we communicate or not in the past we've had very little participation and if it h if they happened to drop load it was by coincidence Not By Design so we have not yet taken the time to update that program when I say program let sh the you know the whole strategy behind it the current structure is not effective so we have we have a among independent of the communication stuff and even if we did communicate it it would not have merited much because it hasn't historically so our first step is really to fix the shred this speak Pro and since it's summer this is an appropriate time to do that um two two things one is sometimes when we tell customers that the bill that you get is in part based on when we get our Peak power sending out a message Shred the peak may not give you the reduction in power but it sends the message that when you get your bill and we talk about Peak power it was these days yeah and so there's a communication about a link between which days affect us and which days don't maybe you respond to that maybe you don't but it's part of an overall communication of when you get your bill and and what things about your bill are upward driving light rates you know we when we say Shred the peak it was because of those events you heard us say these events are happening still part of that messaging um I want to also say can is there software tools that exist and I say we want to create it we're not creating a a software Department here LD that can give the customer I want to say the illusion of control uh in the sense that it would it will pull data from a variety of different places and allow them to see what's happening for them or within the system or how they might be able to make a decision about energy use on a platform some sort of feedback I mean I want to say illusion of control because it might not actually push a button on your phone and actually change a device but it might give them enough idea of system my demand's going up my my individual time of use meters going up how much can we get back to the customer in terms of if we're looking at feedback customer segment but customer segment in terms of what we do um they'll remind me in addition to the Ami system um we are partially implemented with an MDM system as a meter data management system part of that meter data management system includes a customer portal we haven't pulled the trigger to open that customer portal but that'll be another mechanism in terms of being able to communicate with the customer every residential customer will have access to it should they decide to go after it um we've got a program so we're ready to move forward on a um a mobile app again off the shelf type stuff so those will be all elements newsletters are good I think the other element though that that um in talking with other Public Power entities around the country that was the most successful was the guy that basically sent a text at the end of today and said hey you dropped X Y or Z you earn a dollar you tomorrow it would have been yesterday and then tomorrow so todayy tomorrow's going to be a hotter day so you know see if you can earn see if you can do better another dollar or two we have to work through the mechanics of that um yeah there's there's different pieces that you know every customer segments has a different level of ability to drop load how we all feeling another hour and a half sorry I I just had one comment actually Greg I think you answered my question I said you know the slide you have on the screen it talks about our load and how we are thinking about it and I I was just wondering you know there's so many other utilities across the country and so many munis that are all grappling with the same issue so uh what have we learned from them I think you touched upon some of it but is there anything more that looking at this chart and are you comparing notes with other people I'm sure you are but I just you know just could if you could give us a sense of how you're thinking about it in the context of what others are also doing so um yes is the answer the question to learned from from what people are doing um Bill and B had a chance bill um Bill and Ben Blumenthal had a chance to attend the AA Conference last week so they're collecting their notes in terms of what they learned as well we'll be happy to share that with you guys at the next meeting as well so yes you know we are you know I think as as you guys know us as an organization and me specifically we are open to input and suggestions you know we're trying to learn to make it better so to answer your question um we're digesting stuff we got back last week we have not implemented yet thank you you want one thing is like it goes back to what Ray said and I never thought about it until Ray said it comes down to demand management and it has to come down to not thinking about it so when he talked about putting a giant Loop in a neighborhood and things like that that's when you can cause effect and make change but when I have to go home and turn my AC off and not do the normal things I do it makes it very difficult but you have the that program from the medas we have the three biggest buildings in town with the tangent system I can go in and get a graph of um what my usage was for each day for a week for a month and I also get ambient temperature and I watch this happen my temperature goes up my kilowatt usage goes up and when it goes down it goes down and um same in the winter and it's just amazing how it works but I can't change what's going on because I can't stop the public safety building from running 24 hours a day I can't stop the school from having events at night so it's all those different things you look at and soon we'll have two electric buildings and so all those things are going to increase but it's also going to follow that Peak so my usage is higher in the day but at night I'm still using more when I'm not gonna not have meetings in those buildings and not use them but it's interesting to watch the weather really contr we we're getting more and more data and how do we apply that data and again we're there'll be a whole bunch of different like everybody so back to Vex people are trying different pieces but the time shifting piece is the one we want to make it again the core piece make it as easy for our customers to do load which means they don't do anything right they basically say hey we'll give you here are the parameters that you can play with in my in my load you can you can go between you know 68 and 78 you can you know you can jump my water heater between X and Y temperature you can charge my EV or dis charge my whatever they work I mean we've got an idea of what they look like but within that and and you know you know let me know how well we did we'll be doing it at the end of the day it'll be an expert system but that's ultimately we think where we're going because again make it easy as possible for the customer to participate and the other element we've got which is a benefit we have a we have a broad set of customers right school's gonna operate differ in the public safety than a residential home than than semiconductors anyways more work to be done we good good good I one one question was a little close I'll wa it's on the financials but I so oh I thought we were I thought we were through the agenda already it's on the thing so on the um on the financials where we look at our current year to date and we get down to our power expenses it's on page two of the five right we had a you look slide 68 or 69 68 look at the up right hand corner what's the what's SL I don't have well so second the one that came in the package is what you're saying came very one of the very last pages in the package on the appendix yeah so this is basically results through the end of March yeah so page two and the purchased power our purchase power went up 50% from last year significant jump um so I guess a morning why a power uh fuel charge has gone up so high this year you know relatively speaking guess you know what's is that a pass through what's going on in that particular one for purchas is it a straight pass through or did we do something different because I don't think prices are that significantly different from from this year to last year so why is that one jumping off the page well keep keep in mind that's a that's a net mix and so the biggest piece of that is that Hydro became a bigger piece of the portfolio in that this is the first three months and hydro is is more expensive than natural gas natural gas was low but we are we are hedged this is what we talking about before we might leave money on the table we're trying to dampen mean these are these are straight expenses and we haven't done any magic changes to our our supply portfolio yeah capacity this is just this is just just to purchase fewu right that's that's that's that's Fu right that that that seems like a Straight Energy well the the other element is this winter was colder so it's both the rates and it's also the amount so remember last year we were 3% lower we're now 3% higher so we did less energy purchases in 2022 year to date than we did in 2023 year to date this is 23 versus 24 right I'm sorry 23 vers 24 yeah just see it's just a big you know just that one seem to jump jump off the because that's that's a big change that's three million bucks me did we shift anything from capacity into purchase power W look at that number I'll double check it I see that yeah that should be relatively same yeah well it's tight it's Ty to usage yeah we'll go back take a look at it okay that's aome okay scheduling we good with the up upcoming two meetings yeah yeah no changes okay maybe uh maybe at the next meeting we could just walk us through what is the updated or the newly implemented Communications plan for a peak day and if it Happ to fall between now and July 25th maybe let us know like what happened like what were what were you able to do when you got the warning from ISO New England of a projected Peak like what did the department do I would be a nice report to get okay sounds great yeah um so I think that leaves us with the most important motion of the day mve at the citizen Advisory Board the chair session we call secondy Jim Kell move to the Board of Commissioners adjourn regular session second second okay all in favor how I this concludes the meeting thank you thank you back to the your things e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e