 Welcome to the Wednesday, July 13, 2022 meeting of the Burlington Board of Electric Commissioners. My name is Laurie Lemieux, and I'm the board clerk for the commission. The July meeting is the Burlington Electric Commission's organizational meeting, and the first floor of business is to elect officers. At this time, I open the floor for nominations for chair of the commission. I'll nominate commissioners seconds. Second. Second. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, we will move to a vote. By show of hands, please indicate your support for Gabrielle Stebbins of the four members present. Three votes were cast in support of Gabrielle Stebbins. Congratulations, commissioners Stebbins. I'll now turn the meeting over to you. Thank you, Clark. The next officer for election would be the role of vice chair. Is there a nomination for vice chair? I'll nominate the commissioner Moody. And a second. Second. And all in favor, you can raise your hands. And commissioner Moody is unable to attend tonight, but I will let him know that he's been volunteered. And presumably, he's fine with that. And we also have the nomination of the clerk, if I recall. Could we have a motion for someone? I nominate Laurie. Is that? Yeah, Laurie. Second. Second. Yeah. All in favor. Aye. Aye. And I forgot to ask if there were any other nominations for either seat. Thank you. So welcome to the regular July monthly meeting for Burlington Board of Electric commissioners. It is July 13th at 5.30 PM. And first up on the agenda is the agenda itself. Are there any modifications or changes or edits suggested? Commissioner Herndy, you leaned forward. Nope. OK. OK, so we'll move forward. Up next then is the minutes of the June 8, 2022 meeting. If there are substantive content-related edits that should be noted, this is a good time to raise them. If it's just clerical or spelling error, we can address that via email. Any changes that people see? So then if we could have a move to approve. And a second. Second. And all in favor? Aye. Aye. Yeah, and one abstain. Well, one abstain, one not here. So three approved. So next we have the public forum. I see a name I'm not familiar with on teams. I'm not sure if that's a member of the. Rodney's with our team at McNeil. Hello, Rodney. Thanks for joining. Sorry if I don't know you and your face. Hi, I'm very, very new face. Have you been here? Thanks. And any other members of the public interested? As always, you can feel free to call our customer care team and also join every second Wednesday when we hear. Moving on, we have the commissioner's corner. This is a discussion. So anybody have an item? I do have an item I want to raise. But first, let's touch on, if anyone else has something that they want to raise. Well, the only thing I was going to say was I met to send an email to Jen Green. I saw that City of Chicago is giving away free bikes as a net zero energy thing. I don't know what the uptake is on some of the other incentives, but I wonder if that's something to consider. I thought it was interesting. Free? Free. 500. Free bikes. Is that a good price? No, they're giving out 500 bucks. Yeah, I mean, because I think it's hard sometimes to get people to bot. I know local motion or maybe Old Spokes Home, they do donating for 200 bucks. I don't know what the incentive is for the e-bikes, which I used and love my e-bike, but probably could get a bike for that amount, too. Do we know that potential net zero energy strategy? Chicago is giving away some free bicycles. That's part of their net zero energy strategy. A mechanism or way to do that, but do we know it? OK. So I thought it was fun. Yeah. Anything else? Otherwise, I have two items. So one is, and we can touch back on this at the commissioner's check-in, but one is just to check in with regards to an August meeting years past. Sometimes we have not met. And last year, we did meet still in the middle of COVID and keeping an eye on the budget. Wondering from Darren and the crew what your thoughts are on August. And we'll also see where the conversation goes from the commissioners. But in terms of workflow, in terms of budget, in terms of any critical votes coming up. We've planned around not having an August meeting. So number of items that you have this evening, more items coming in September. Of particular note, the presentation of the Triennial Customer Survey by Michael Moser from UVM. So Triennial, but we haven't actually done it since 2017 because of the pandemic. So it's been almost five years. And the data is very interesting. So we'll have that for you in September. But we don't have any planned items or votes at this point for August. OK. Any thoughts, initially, from commission members? About August meeting? Yeah. OK. So at the end of this meeting, we can make a decision. If it seems like there's nothing critical, then we can plan to not meet in August. But let's go through tonight's meeting and see if anything percolates. The other item I wanted to just mention is so at least a year, maybe a year, maybe nine months now, we've been talking about. We've heard from some Burlington residents about how much new street lighting they're experiencing. As a recap for folks who might just be joining on this meeting, back in January or February, the commission asked the Burlington Electric Department team to reach out to IES, the Illuminating Engineer Society Standards Society, that essentially is a volunteer entity that sets the standards by multiple experts in the field. And they did not necessarily respond all that much to our feedback or to our questions of when might these standards be updated? Can you give us some feedback as to what the most recent standard is? We did connect with them a little bit. And Andy, I might ask you to fill in if I'm getting any of this wrong, but please do come up. We did get some feedback. And at the last meeting, we all heard that a new set of standards had been rolled out. That was 600-plus pages. So at the last meeting, we said, OK, that's a lot. Hey, Andy and your team, go back and read it and see if we can make some modifications and changes. And we'll check back in on this in September. Between the last meeting and this meeting, we had a couple of South End counselors reach out to us because they had heard new updated complaints and concerns. And so we had a conversation commissioner, Herondine and myself, so it was not a quorum, along with Andy and Darren and Paul and a few others, as well as the two counselors. And in some, we talked about essentially what we talked about last month, except there was a little bit more discussion about what the policy is that this commission has some jurisdiction over in terms of if we wanted to modify it or change it. The policy right now basically says that we will follow the IES standards is my assumption, right? Correct. OK. So one of the things that I recall being discussed, and it sounds like it maybe this wasn't everybody's recollection from other folks in the meeting, I was hearing one of the counselors say that we could decide as a commission to modify that policy to say, if it is a residential street that has had the same lighting for 80, 90 years or however long, that we could change it so we could say that it doesn't necessarily have to be updated to IES standards. That was what I heard. And I thought that we had talked about having the BED lawyer take a look at the language. Even though that would be probably not all that successful because he would probably say that it's still a risk and still a liability. That was my recollection of the meeting. I understand that now you've been through all the standards and there's some additional updating. But before I transfer it to Darren and Andy, Commissioner Herendine, does my summation of that meeting, do you want to add anything to it or is that essentially what you heard? Essentially what I heard, that I did volunteer at the end of the last meeting. And I restated that during the meeting with the two commissioners that I would do some homework to report by September to the commission. And I will. The particular question was, are there examples out there of communities that have backed away from the recommendations from the IES successfully? So that's a bit of a precedent, which may be out there. And I will report on it. OK. I'll start. Oh, sorry. Not long, not long. Sorry, one more comment. I would like some time to have a look at the book, RP4322. That's the new recommendations. Do we have a copy? It is a PDF. It's copyrighted. Certainly show it to you. Is there a way I can get it, or do I have to come in and look at it on the screen in ED, or what? I think given that it's copyrighted material, I might have to show it to you on a screen, but I'm certainly happy to do that. All right, I'll be in touch. Darren, do you want to chime in and Andy with your thoughts and feedback from the meeting? Yes. So I similarly recall there was a suggestion during the meeting that the commission has the authority to look at changing standards. I know Commissioner Herndine's looking at whether other communities are still following IES, and we were going to follow up on that in September. The couple of things I wanted to mention is subsequent to that meeting, Andy and his team finished reviewing some of the IES standards, found that, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, found that the sidewalk standards are lesser now than the prior standards. One of the communities where we had had concerns raised with Scarf Avenue, we I believe are going to be able to reduce the number of fixtures from 23 down to 14 as a result of those new standards, which we've communicated via letter to the residents on July 5th. So I'm not 100% certain that a policy change is necessary to accomplish the goal of reducing the lighting that was affecting some of the residents at their homes. I don't know that they'll know until we finish the project, whether they're satisfied or dissatisfied. We can carry that standard out now in further projects. I think in terms of advice from our council, the advice would continue to be that if the department is tasked with doing the street lighting, which we are, that we need to follow a standard and have a process for implementing it, which is currently we do, if we're doing any upgrades on the street, we look at the street lighting, or if somebody calls us to complain that there's not enough street lighting, we'll do a study. So I'd be reluctant to move ahead with a policy change, at least prior to being able to implement the new IES standards at places like Scarf and see if it addresses the concerns. I also am just conscious that the department doesn't necessarily seek to have this responsibility. It's been placed on us by the city, but given that we have a certain liability standards that we need to meet. So I would recommend that if we're considering any kind of policy change at September or any subsequent meeting, we invite Bill Ellis back just to be able to provide advice and, I don't know, MVP of other. May I ask a question first? So it's gone from 23 to 14, but that's an increase of how much from current standards. Do you recall what Scarf had? Scarf did not meet any standards prior to the project, so it had. Sorry, how many light poles are there along Scarf now? Currently, there are 23, because we completed the project. So you're asking how many were there prior to the project? Okay, sorry. I believe there was one per block, so there was a total of two on the section in question. So I guess my point is it's still an increase from two to 14. My guess is the Scarf folks, so you've completed that project, they have 23 currently, or how many do they have currently? Yes, currently 23. So we're basically going in and taking out nine. Correct. So my guess is they'll feel better with that, but I still recall, because it'll be less than what it's been. Moving forward though, for other streets that might only have two, what I recall us talking about with the counselors was, if there haven't been complaints and this has been the status quo, is there a discussion to be had around grandfathering that in some way? And besides Scarf, do you have any other streets that are currently, what I'm trying to ask is, if we don't touch this until September after Commissioner Herndine has done his research, et cetera, if we don't touch this until September, are there other streets that were like Scarf that only had two that you will be updating to 14 in the next two months or three months? We would be starting the project, so the next project in the queue would be Lyman Avenue, which is the next street up from Scarf. The work is starting on that street, but we wouldn't be installing the lighting until later, probably the spring, or winter at the earliest, so. Okay, so do we have some time? Yeah. Thank you, and the other streets that we heard about last year, home, Richardson, is the plan to go back and? We're currently in the process of re-evaluating those streets with the new standards, and similarly we're seeing that we can reduce the output of the fixtures, and in some cases even remove them, so the plan is to go back and implement that as well over the next few months. Thank you. That's also on Lyman, you say, the lights wouldn't go in until the spring, but would you be putting poles in before then? No. We would be putting some underground conduit in where the lights would be planned to go, but we wouldn't actually install the poles and the fixtures until later. It's just on the bin costs associated with doing that as well, I assume. Yes. But you have to do that regardless if you have two lights or 14 or 23. Correct. And we're also, the main project is to install electrical infrastructure on the street, so that's the bulk of the work that's going on. So first of all, I hear this is, you prefer not to do this job, Darren, and it's, or not prefer not to, but it is something that you are required to do and the concern about liability, I do hear that. And I also have to say it's much to my chagrin that we followed the standards and then the standards were updated, and so now we're pulling them out because it's like, ah, that's also waste. On the other hand, at least we will be addressing, to some degree, some of the concerns that we've heard thus far. So thank you, because I know it's going back around and around and around, and that's always really fun. So I, could you guys, could one of you send the commission what the policy is so that we can look at the policy and just see what the, where in the language, you know, highlight the portion of the language that basically says we will be following the IES standards. And then my other question was, if we can still have Bill Ellis, as much as he's gonna say, no, thank you, but draft up something to the degree of what it would be like if we were to grandfather in those other, you know, existing streets, what their streetlight. I think we can send the streetlighting policy, certainly. And we'll follow up, Andy, if you can send it to Lori, Lori can share it with the entire commission. In terms of Bill, I think the drafting likely wouldn't be significant, but I think he'd wanna come and talk about it. I don't know that he would wanna draft something that he feels wouldn't uphold the department's standards without having conversation first. Okay, well, so for now if you can send it. And although we may not meet in August, if we could all plan on breeding it, and if you could highlight, like I said, that the portion that would be specific to this policy standard, that would be helpful in terms of automatic updating to the IES standards, if you can highlight that portion. And would you like us to add Bill for the September meeting? Could you FYI him? I don't wanna ask him to come and pay for him to come if it turns out that Commissioner Herndy needs more time or whatnot. Why don't we will tentatively get it on his calendar? And if it turns out this is an agenda item and we're ready, I'd like to have him there, but if not, we can always let him know to postpone if that's okay. Well, let me also say, committee, you can't, that that I intend to go into, I can certainly deliver and say by the first of September. Great. And Lori, if it's possible, once you've drafted up the meeting minutes for this portion, could you share that with the two councillors, councillor Shannon and councillor Travers? Travers. And you can CC me on that. Thank you. Cause then that'll prompt me to follow up with them. Do commissioners have any questions? I do. So one question is, do you, there's no public engagement that's required? Like if you go and you put in 23 electrical polls, you don't have to tell people that you're doing that or? Cause I guess I do tell. I mean, they send letters and people are notified before it happens. Yeah, we do, we do make a point of doing some outreach beforehand, you know, before we even start the project, just to let folks know that this is coming. Okay. We provide our contact information if they have questions or feedback or anything like that. So you said we're going to do this, let us know you got 30 days, 45 days, nobody says anything, the polls go in and then you get the phone call. And then the other thing that kind of concerns me a little bit is, you know, it's the squeaky wheel syndrome a little bit. I mean, probably it's very dramatic if there were two polls and then there were 23. I don't dispute that, but sometimes the people don't are some, they're not speaking for everybody, right? And then that is also something that we need to consider cause I know that that neighborhood, I don't know, last summer they had a lot of car break-ins and tires being slashed and things like that. So it just, I think we're in a very precarious position, right? Like, I get that counselors are involved cause people are making calls, but they had an opportunity. I mean, this is, yeah, it's a little frustrating, I would imagine, especially going back and ripping them out. It's true that not all feedback has universally been negative. Yes, we did get some positive. There are some positive about. That's helpful to know. I have not gotten any of that. Understood, same reason that you're pointing out, people don't tend to overshare the positive feedback as much as negative feedback. And we're respectful of the feedback that we're getting. If we weren't able under the new IES standards to do something to address the challenge, then I think we would be forced to look at the policy change if we wanted to do something. I think we're fortunate in a way that there is now flexibility so we can at least demonstrate to folks that we've heard them, that we can go in and change the infrastructure, see if it addresses the majority of concerns, and we'll know that hopefully soon with some of these streets. And so do you have to get certain number of signatures of the people on the street in order to make this? No, because we're just following policy. It's the city policy, so yeah. But if you were gonna grandfather in old streets, then you might want to get, the street might want to weigh in as an entity. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, those are questions to ask. I guess, Mr. Herndon, to the degree that you find a formation pertaining to what Commissioner Whitaker was just asking, what type of public outreach support was there, that could be helpful. Because if the point of your research is to say, if we're going to think about this seriously, to look at what other communities have done, then having that additional information would be helpful as a guidance as to how we may or may not decide to move forward. Other comments? Thanks. I know that was a very long Commissioner's corner, but we don't get a lot of public feedback, and it's one of the items that we've actually heard about multiple occasions, although it's great to hear that people are also happy with the additional lighting, so. Some. Well, yes, some people. And again, thank you, because I know it's literally going around in circles, but I appreciate it. Anything else for Commissioner's corner? Now that Gabrielle made up her own agenda item. Okay, so next up, General Manager's update. Thank you. Good news is this was in the update, so we can skip that portion of it in the interest of being efficient. We are working on a report due for the July 18th meeting of the City Council, BED, and the Department of Permitting and Inspections about initial thoughts relative to the charter change that was passed, what we might do with building policy for new construction, for large existing commercial. The drafting report is in real time at the moment, and we'll gladly share a copy with the Commission when it is final. We've had a good process with the Building Electrification Institute looking at policies in Boston, New York, and Denver, all of which have different variations that we can look at drawing from. We're conscious that this has only been a couple of months since the charter change passed in the City Council issued a resolution, so there'll be some significant additional public process and policy research prior to us making any final recommendations to the City Council, but interim report due on the 18th, and I just wanted to flag that for the Commission. In terms of public events, we have a number of public events, busy time of year for us. We were at the Lake Monsters last week. I'm pleased to share that I was able to get the first pitch over the plate. Tom Messner was razzing me a little bit, but we got it done, and Mike Cannerick and I were there with our colleagues from VGS tabling at our customer night. We had a lot of customers who showed up. For that, we have tomorrow night, Summer Vale, Chris Burns, Jen Green, and I will be there, and we'll be tabling there. Have the Chevy Bolt maybe? Yep, people coming up and asking about the Chevy Bolt, the BED labeled one quite a bit. I think at 26,000 now for 2023, they've received a significant discount, so it's one of the most affordable vehicles, period, and it happens to be electric with pretty good range, and so people are interested in that. We have a table at the Old North End Farmers Market next week. Adam Rabin and Jen Green will be there for that, and just a reminder that the free bicycle has kind of brought this up again for me, that we will have our September Net Zero Energy Festival planned for the 17th with the rain day to the 24th. We're going to have e-bike and EV test rides there, vendors from our heat pump partners. Champ will be making an appearance. We have two live musicians and a DJ, fossil fuel-free food trucks and drink carts, and a variety of kids' activities, touch a truck with our BED bucket trucks, Powertown, so we're excited to do this with the community. It'll be from nine to one on September 17th, and we'll be working on advertising the event publicly in the month of August to make sure people are aware of it. So we're looking forward to that. I think we're trying to get a bike tune-up station as well for that, so why the free bicycles had touched a place in my mind, and I think we're not gonna have free bicycles, but I think we're gonna try to have a few giveaways with raffle, potentially a free giveaway electric mower and maybe one other opportunity for a green-ride membership, so a couple of nice net-zero-related items. In terms of budgets, rates, and the IBW contract item, so we're in fiscal 23. We've implemented the fiscal 23 budget. Council approved that in June. Our rate case, our surcharge is scheduled to take effect in August for the 3.95% rate change while the rate case is pending at the PUC. We have our filing in for the energy assistance program update to move to the 12.5% from the 7.5%, which you all have approved previously. We have a new four-year contract with the IBW. There will be a signing event in this room on July 27th at 10.30. Commissioners, welcome to join if they're interested. I will have the mayor and Jeffrey will met from IBW and formally sign that contract. We appreciate the work we did with IBW, appreciate their partnership in reaching that agreement. And then lastly, in June, we had a letter agreement among BED, VGS, the city of Burlington, UVM, UVM Medical Center, the Intervail Center, and Evergreen Energy to guide our further work on district energy over the next six to nine months. The goal here is to do a number of things, including fully form the non-profit entity that would be Burlington District Energy that would be operated by Evergreen and would manage the project, including permitting financing, construction, and operation if we reach a go decision. We're gonna try to get updated financial information through the course of the end of the year, updated construction pricing, financing rates. James is gonna be working on some updated fuel-related pricing as well. We were clear about there are some headwinds in regards to all of those items, and so we're hoping that by the end of the year, some of the impacts of rising rates and inflation on construction and other things are able to be addressed in a favorable way. We're also in the process of a significant amount of paperwork to receive the 5.166 million from Senator Leahy. The council approved accepting that grant and had a resolution supporting formation of the 501C3 for the District Energy non-profit. So a number of items related to District Energy are underway, significant amount of work that'll be happening over the next six to nine months under that letter agreement, and further forward motion with some economic headwinds with that project, but quite a bit of work happening. And that's all I've got. Go ahead, that it's moving forward, but still not quite a go or no go decision. Not yet. I anticipate end of 22, early 23, we'd be in a position to make that decision with partners. I don't wanna speculate too much, but I think the engineering and design is largely in a good place, and so I think it's gonna be an economic decision, and factors will be what they are. But this gives us some time to have some factors, hopefully turn in our favor. We do have a federal grant pending that we applied for competitively that we're hoping to hear from the federal government about, which would further enhance the economics on the project if it was successful. Is the global turmoil and upheaval with regards to energy costs, just in terms of the fact that we can't control them at all, helping to sway any of the potential concerns about gas has historically been low, but when it's not, has that helped at all? I think it's true that the delta between conventional gas and either district energy or other renewable fuels like renewable natural gas has gotten smaller because of the upwards pressure on natural gas as a commodity. So that would be something that might favorably impact the economics of the project, certainly. The idea that you would have a hedge against fuel price volatility by being part of the district energy project, also absolutely a plus. I think our challenge is to get a price structure that really tries to minimize the impact of volatility on the district energy price. I think that's something that James is gonna be working on. If it was based on forwards in the ice in New England market, that's not very helpful at the moment. Those are incredibly high for winter and we're very high last winter. So looking at something that's tied in a different way is something that we're interested in. Obviously, the one impact that we're seeing is diesel prices do impact wood chip prices. And so we're seeing that. I don't think to the extent that we're seeing the pressure on gas commodity costs, but there's upward pressure in a variety of areas. I think to your point, the overall delta has probably moved somewhat in favor of the project in recent months. Any questions or comments from the questioners? May I ask, it mentions a global leadership program. What was that? This is in policy and planning. Just curious. Was that your program, James? That was my program I was attending. With the World Affairs Institute? Council of World Affairs did a global leadership program that ran over eight months and I was accepted into it and it just ended in June. Was it good? It was good. I mean, it wasn't quite what I expected. I expected it to be more engagement with global leaders and less engagement with US leaders about global engagement. But it was still very well done. The speakers were excellent and you certainly got exposed to a large variety of viewpoints. No, again, they've asked us if we want to offer anybody up for the next, this was the first year of it. So the next iteration of the program. Thanks. And I did just want to ask how the multifamily EV charger, because that's really hard to, that's just such a challenging nut to crack in terms of, is it per spot, is it one unit and how do you manage payment? How did that soft launch go? So, and James, I don't know if you have more detail on this. My understanding was we had approval from the PUC to do the 50 to 60 additional through the EV match program. We're kind of using that soft launch to reach out to customers. We have 14 installed already. The software is great because it allows you to set it for certain times a day for residents, certain times for the public and set the charge. And you show up on the plug share website. So people who are searching for an EV charger know that you're available. I don't know what indications of interest. I know last time we were oversubscribed when we had the initial 14. So I'm assuming we'll have a pretty strong level of interest. And then just the other thing I'd mention is we just signed the grant agreement for state of Vermont that we can put in the five street light EV charger level twos that are going to be going in areas that we've identified as being a higher percentage of low income and higher percentage of renters. I think largely kind of in the downtown South end area as well as the old North end. So we'll have five new level twos going in through that grant. But I don't know if you know anything about the uptake on the. Well, the pilot was done. And we've just done the soft launch in June. So I would have to check and get that information. And I think the Act 151 reallocation of the funds is still pending too. We were planning to move some of our preferred dealer program funds into multifamily charging because the dealers right now basically can't get the cars. So we were looking to reallocate some of those who were waiting for approval to move those funds, which would allow us to do more of them. It'll be interesting to see how that pans out because it is just so tricky. If it's street parking, where do you? That's why the light poles are going to be, I think, critical. I think that's a great idea. But not if they pull them out. Different light poles, I think. Not the ones Andy's. Utility poles. Yeah, we just excused. Well, parking. Yeah, I would all. Because the parking could be an issue too. Yes, true point as well. So yeah, we had actually proposed three and they gave us five. We actually proposed five and expected to get three and we got five locations for the multifamily, street side, EV charging. We had to make a couple of modifications because the statewide contract was structured around people who didn't have electric rates and things like that. So we had to make a few adjustments, but it has been signed as of today. I'm happy to check on the status of the soft roll out and get back to you in August. No, July, September. Well, Darren and I would be willing to come back in August, I'm sure. Where are the light poles going? I have a map. They're mostly in the Old North End, but I think there's one on Pine Street too. It was done, Freddie and Tom Lyle from my team basically took a demographic overlay of income levels, multi-unit housing, and looked for locations that would work with DPW and selected five on that basis. So again, there's a map and I'm happy to provide that. Maple King, Pine Street areas. Are they in already? No, we just signed the grant today, but they're being largely funded by the state grant. So over the next year, we'll be getting those in. It's a multi-year grant, but hopefully in September. It's a cool project. I was when you were talking about the multi-family charging. I was like, why don't you just put them in the light poles? We are. Five of them at least. I think of five double heads. Yes. There's 10 charging ports. Yeah, it's perfect. It's a pilot, so if they work out well, we can pursue. But there were just some funny things. Make sure that you facilitate nose-to-tail parking. It's like, I'm not going to get involved in the parking ordinances in Burlington. So special street snow clearing. It's like, well, we can't really do that. So there had to be some amendments to the contract, but the state was very accommodating. We fixed those things and signed it today. Was this ACCB for the grant? Yes. I ask about this because I sat in all those. I sit on house transportation, so I sat in on all those. We were very accommodating. Again, like I said, we've got the draft contract. It's like, we'll file a tariff. It's like, got one. And then just I trust you guys are doing this. But for Burlington Future High School, you guys are going to try and make that as net zero energy as possible. Yes. Chris is on it, along with other members of our team. I think we're exploring a variety of options. Can I mention? Is it? We get a big one. OK, so we're looking at geothermal. Cool. That's 12. Sounds promising. Great. Yeah, and I think transportation is also important for their new high school because they're building it in a very antiquated. The last plans that I saw were pretty much like suburban style, assumed of people. And give preference to cars over the bus. And the bus carries many more students and things like that. They weren't that amenable when I talked to them earlier, and they weren't that interested in listening. But I don't know now. I know Jen is on, actually, my wife is on it as well. The design committee that's providing feedback. So I know Jen Green's offered some feedback on transportation, I think, through that medium as well. We have less to do from an incentive standpoint, plus they're looking at EV chargers or things like that. But I know she shared comments relative to the net zero plan as well. Emily, did you have? That was the point. Oh, OK. Yeah, transportation sometimes falls between the cracks, I think, because nobody really owns it. But it's important, too, yeah. Yeah, that was one of the reasons why it would be great to have it more downtown. But moving on. As a new North Ender, I can't object, but. OK, so financials. Wait, you're done? I am done. Thank you. And it's when I read this report, there's just so much going on. So thanks. All right. Let me share myself, if they can figure it out. Share my screen. All right, before I pull up the actual numbers, I thought I would talk about there's sort of a funky anomaly happening in the May financials. So it's been mentioned in a lot of the updates from finance and policy and planning over the last couple of months. But we have an accounting change that's going to go into effect related to how we account for renewable energy credits. In that, we are shifting, historically, what we've done is when we buy renewable energy credits, we expense them in the months that we purchase them. And then that's all that we do on the financials. The change that we're making is we're actually going to, they're effectively an asset because they're good for three years in terms of when we have to sort of turn them in. So we've changed it so that we're going to qualify them as inventory when we purchase them. And then we'll expense them based on what our compliance is for that year. So there is a shift that's happening. We bought a good number that we found. James's team found some cheap recs. We bought a good amount in May. It's a relative term. Cheap is relative, right? Yeah, sure. Bought a good number of recs last month or in May. And we expensed all of them in the month of May. We're going to make an adjustment in, we decided not to make the adjustment in May because we're going to have to do a year-end true up in June. So there's going to be a change in June to the tune of about half a million dollars. So it is a significant, it makes the financials look like we're in worst position than we actually are, but it's going to change in June. The FY22 year-end financials will be updated. It was just sort of, it was the end of May. We got one month ago. Why make sort of extra work on this? So this financial analysis, it's helpful for all the other perspectives, but sort of that bottom line number is definitely going to shift when we get to June. So I'll walk through it, but wanted to put that out there before we got into the numbers. It sounds like this is essentially an accounting difference, not a real financial difference. That's true even for the fact that we're holding them as inventory for three years. Yeah, so they won't be expensed in the years. They won't show up on the income statement. So our net income for the year won't be impacted. It will, like they were historically, it will sit on the balance sheet as an asset to the agency or to the department. Cool. So with that said, I will dive right in, which you can see it's pretty apparent when you look at it. So for the month, the net income was $274,000 as compared to a budget of $1.34 million. So it shows we're a million under, but that's really, if you adjust that by half a million, really only about half a million at a budget. And so for the year, this also shows that we're 173,000 under, but if you adjust, we're actually to the good for the month. Just going down quickly. I'm confused, because this is till May, I thought you said you were making that change in June. We are going to make the change in June. So the May reflects us expensing the full purchase of the renewable energy credits. In June, we're going to undo the expense and move it into inventory. So it will just be, it'll just be the expense will reflect just the amount that we need to comply, not the full purchase that we did this past month. So you could add 500,000 to the net income and instead of a 173 variance negative, it'd be a 300 some odd. Positive. So real quick, running through sort of the month end, it was a good month for sales to customer, both residential and commercial were up. Residential was up. The majority of that above budget variance was due to residential to the tomb, about $100,000. Other revenues were down about $91,000, primarily driven by EU every month. That's generally what it is. And similarly, the power supply revenue was down 28,000. This is due to that sort of under production that we've talked about in prior months and how that comes through. So this, the power supply expense line is where that half a million dollars that change is. There is also the ISO exchange line was about $581,000 over budget. There was under production at, if you'll recall, May. McNeil was offline in May. So there was under production McNeil. There was also some under production at Winooski One and in our wind contracts. The fuel was under budget similarly because McNeil wasn't producing so we didn't expense as much fuel. And our operating expenses were about $58,000 over budget last month. Taxes, same story as it's been every month. The pilot change has really benefited us. So we've got that again, almost half a million dollars for the year. And our other income was under budget again just due to lower anticipated customer contributions which is really just timing of when we budgeted for those customer contributions to come in to when they're actually, when projects are finished and those funds come in. So if, once you do the true up, it would be 300 something or so in terms of net income for, through May, any sense of where June will land since we won't be here in August? June takes a little bit longer because it's year end. We wanna make sure we get every invoice process, get everything done so that we can, we're in a good place when we jump into August which they emailed today. We're gonna start that process now, so. So, and then I have a couple of questions. Do you feel like the pandemic, the sales, the disruption to the sales has that more or less pan just evened out? I think the, right, our sort of total sales numbers. Like commercial customers was way down, right? And residential was more or less the same or up but they weren't paying, we're having trouble with collections. So is that all kind of evened itself out? I'd have to look more at the data to be, I don't know if the top one. It looks like you're doing great on the budget and I just, I can't remember like was the budget change from, presumably it was, right? Because you're in the middle of a pandemic. You don't forecast as if there wasn't a pandemic. Mike Leach had kind of incorporated the new normal. Emily can add to this if she wants. Into the forecast. So, you know, previous years we had looked at it like, what would normal year be minus a certain percent? And I think the kind of variability from the pandemic is now reflected more in the underlying sales forecasts. That's correct. We actually, for the FY22 budget for sales to customers, we sort of assumed a continuing slight depression in sales, net residential and commercial together through the current, through the whole fiscal year. And if you look at the slide that's in your packet that shows the kilowatt sales to customers budget versus actual over the year, Emily will pull up that one right there. You can see that our guess was pretty good. Pretty close. Yeah. So sometimes we've overshot, sometimes it's been under, but on average, you're correct that we are continuing to see residential a little bit more than the pre-COVID normal. And commercial has been kind of like at predicted levels or maybe a little bit below, but not substantially below like we saw in the early days. March 2020. Yeah. Commercial is sort of pretty much back generally speaking to where we'd expect it to be. And then we're kind of continuing to see that residential bump from the sort of work at home, school at home phenomenon that COVID brought. And we're actually in our sales forecast sort of like projecting that to kind of continue to be the way that people behave that affects their electricity consumption in their homes. So we've budgeted for a sort of a modest residential increase in the FY23 sales budget, assuming that's going to persist as a trend. Do we know, is there an estimated forecast as to when, I don't even know what to call it anymore, city, place, town, you know. The mall, when that might be completed in any sense of like what that would do to sales, I'm guessing that's two years out at least. I think Chris has the best intelligence that anybody has. I will say that we've not, because the plans have not become firm and known, we haven't incorporated it into our revenue projections yet, but you're correct that once we see some shovels and earth moving, we will and it will make a substantial change to the revenues. I would add to that that the city's electrification or renewable space city in ordinance will apply to that project. So of what we're hearing from the design team, the early design team, is it's going to go e-comp. So that'll be interesting to see what the impact is. Our understanding is the hotel version with a small amount of apartments, with retail going above, outdoor gear exchange down to the LLV, is based, that's one project where the whole is a separate project where most of the housing are. But we're looking at an unknown timeline for occupancy. Have you tested any wells there? Are you okay? Not yet, no. Yeah, I mean, because Champlain College is sort of the same type of area and they had some wells, so. Other questions? Oh, collections too. How's that evened out as well? Is there data in this? Collections are, we did the rearage use the ARPA funds. They are about double where they were in February of 2020. That's because we're sort of starting to move into that disconnect piece. So I think it's, we haven't done the disconnects yet, so that hasn't started to drop off yet. So there is a rearage is associated with disconnects that haven't happened, but they are sort of moderate. They were the same in April or in May and June. They were similar amounts. So sort of bought them down and then they've kind of leveled off so far. Great. I'll just quickly jump back. Right, so year to date, we're ahead on the sales to customers, right that no residential is up a million, non-residential is down a million, right? So we're like right where we thought we were gonna be an aggregate, but a little off sort of in the buckets of revenue. Similar, other revenues are down mostly due to the EU stuff and then demand side management. Power supply revenues year to date are down $77,000, which is 1%. So it's pretty good for the year. Similarly are on the expense side, power supply is below budget by about 70, 705,000, which is about 2% within budget, fuels down, purchase powers up a little bit and then transmission fees are down. And then on the operating expenses, we're under budget by about a million dollars due to various things coming in under budget and the timing of projects. And then the last piece, we talk about this every month, but just to mention again, our other income is down about $2 million, both due to the ARPA assumptions, but also the customer contributions and the timing of when those are coming in. On the capital side, we're about 55% of the budget to date. Say it again, right, timing of projects, invoices for the McNeil overhaul came in, continue to come in sort of into June. So there'll be more activity on that by year end. And also there's a couple of projects, including the Velco spending that's not gonna happen, or that didn't happen in FY22, IT forward projects that won't occur and the bucket truck that we weren't able to procure last year, or yeah, last year in 22. So as at the end of May, our cash was 11 million on May 30th, compared to 11.2 million on April 30th. So still in great cash position, credit rating factors, even before we make the change associated with the REC purchase are still in really good shape. So the debt service cover ratio was down slightly, was up slightly to 4.93 from 4.59. The adjusted ratio is at 1.33 and days cash on hand is at 140 days and it was at 139 in the prior month. Just as a, one thing we do know is that at year end, our cash was about a million dollars ahead of where we had budgeted. So we do know, we don't have to wait for the final accountings to know where our cash position was on June 30th. That's all I've got, any questions? So I just have a little question, because I'm used to different kinds of public agencies and if you had a lot of cash in the bank, people are like, why do you have all this money? You're charging, so is that a problem or not? Is your a different entity? I think having a certain amount of cash on hand is important for the credit ratings. Of course, yeah. So typically we always want to be at 90 at a minimum, but right there you're on the edge of A, so we like to have a cushion above that. And certainly if you had a incredibly large cash position that persisted over a long period of time, you might get a regulatory concern around that, just in terms of whether you needed rate change, for example, but I think looking at these metrics, and I know that we'll get improvement modestly in the adjusted debt ratio based on the accounting change that Emily mentioned. We don't know what June holds, so we're kind of interested and anxious to learn what our year end metrics look like. These are way healthier metrics than we saw, particularly during the pandemic, but even pre-pandemic. And I think the rate change as hard as that was to pursue, and then the strategy of having the more moderate follow-up rate change has helped get us to this point where we're not right on the knife's edge of the A metric, but we have some cushion, and I don't necessarily expect we'll maintain 140 days cash on hand as we go through our capital spend in a given period of time that will fluctuate. But having the adjusted debt where it is and trying to maintain or even improve it is a real healthy thing for us in terms of keeping our A rating. So it's a rate increases plus maybe some capital projects proceeding more slowly than expected, that's leading to a larger cash. Yes. So, but it's not gonna be sustained over time. Supply chain may have impacted those capital projects, so our hope is we will catch up on capital. We tend to underspend capital for a variety of reasons at this organization, but at the moment, supply chain seems to be the biggest challenge. Hello, excuse me folks. Are you seeing images in a lot of me you don't wanna see either too big or too many? You look great. I'm having a tech problem, I do two minutes of being, and one of the pills have to screen. Anyway, there's no issue. Okay, never mind. I won't worry about it if you don't. And thanks for joining us. Especially if you don't. Let me just ask one of my standard questions. I know we don't know what the energy use would be for the city place, Berlin general, whatever it's called when it's finally finished, but what we're talking about is if it's huge, or sorry, is if it's large compared with other demand, do we have a ballpark? Because I think I remember one from way back. I don't know if we can share an open session relative to kind of that metric. I recall what it was, but. We can approach it in a mic. I can handle it. I'll let you know what you need. Okay, so I think if we were thinking about a range, not for the new project, but in terms of what might come off the grid with the old project not being operational, my recollection was that's about a megawatt of demand. And Chris is shaking his head, yes. Thank you. You heard that right, Mr. Hernding? Okay, great. So I believe next up we are agenda item number seven. This is the 2022-23 strategic direction and this is discussion and a vote. And I'll just start off with, so it's three pages in the packet. It'll be one page on the website. You're gonna, okay. Have no fear. And you know, looking at this, I just, do we never have under values anything like sustainability? We have sustainable in the mission. The values, I think we had organized a few years back around the four centers that we have at BED. Right, okay. Yep, okay. And there's no substantive change here from what you saw in June. I did wanna reiterate based on the discussion we had last time that when this goes up on the website we will include a link to the PMR so that folks who are interested in the metrics can get the latest metrics in a given year based on that. And do you have a date for the PMR? It's up on the website. Already, okay. Yes, so. But the July 18th report is related specifically to- Charger change. Charger change, okay. And can you just show me, I had asked you to try and tweak one bit of language. And I'm not. Which one was that? I will look for it. I'm not gonna hold everybody up for it. The note we had was that, looking back at the minutes anyhow, was that there was interest in having kind of a link for the real time, not real time, but the metrics, the most updated metrics. I don't think I had a language change but if you have one we can make an edit. I will pull it up. I don't need to waste everyone's time. Have folks had a chance to review the final version? Well, until next year. I've plans through it. Yeah. And are people comfortable with it? Are there additional changes that people would want or is there a desire to move forward with the vote? I had a few comments and of course now I can't find my notes. So really, I guess I have to say I love it. This is what happens baby, it's only worse. They were mostly changing one verb into another. I'm sorry. Ah, here we go. Let's see if there's anything significant. One small point. In the number 600 strategic objective, provide website tools so the customers can evaluate cost and private settings from heat pump technology. I know that's what we're stressing now. Do we want to expand that into other technologies or just stick with it in the specific ways there now? I think that was my comment as well. I think, if I'm remembering. Chris, was this from your team? Was there a, we've talked a lot internally about heat pumps because they're such a significant measure and because understanding the cost savings in particular when we're competing against natural gas, which has typically had favorable economics has been so important to us. So we've talked about having a web tool. In fact, I've worked with Building Electrification Institute specifically on a web tool for that technology. I don't think we're not opposed to having other web tools as well. Is that the basis for it? Chris is going to come up to the mic, Bob. Hang on one second. That's essentially true. When you look at some of the tools that are out there for consumers for EVs, we felt that when you look at the roadmap, Building Electrification is tricky with heat pumps in this climate going against natural gas. We felt a dedicated tool just to deal with the heat pump issue that was helpful to customers was the reason for that and sticking to that technology. But as Darren said, opening up to other technologies, that could be fine as well. I think your point is good. I'm carrying a bit of baggage, which I might have mentioned was before the fight that I had once in my brief employee at the Solar Energy Research Institute when the bucket booth that was thrown out was a house in the Northeast somewhere that had three-inch walls and was covered with solar panels. Which I think in those days were just thermal panels and were electric panels. And the question was, was there an overall optimization over efficiency and supply? And likewise, the question here. Efficiency as a cheaper avenue instead of heat pumps. But if we don't put it in, it doesn't complicate life. And I'm all for simplification. So I can do, I can accept it as it is. That's what I'm gonna come up with. I remember this is what I brought up, I think last time around as well, because I was like, what about all the other technologies? And one of the comments was that we don't necessarily, it's not as core to our business proposition, other technologies. That being said, it'd be great if you could do some thinking to this website tools that there is some language about when you're electrifying a building, what optimization looks like. And this tool is focused on heat pump technology, but there's sort of a balancing act between how much air sling insulation do you do to address what you need to heat and cool? The tool we're drafting right now allows you to model making a thermal envelope improvements for exactly that point. Okay, cool. Great. Well, then that argues, then that argues why, I know we've been peppering you, you're gonna be like, that argues why only heat pump technology? I mean, you could say building electrification technologies. We don't need to go there. That's okay. We're starting with what we think is the biggest and trickiest. Okay. Well, let's see how it goes and we can revisit it next year. Okay, that's the only comment. Would anyone like to make a motion to approve or to not? Emotion to approve the strategic plan. Okay. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have the weatherization repayment assistance program filing. This is a discussion and a vote with James and Emily. And Chris. And Chris. This is why Chris is here. So I'm wondering why we are blessed with your company today. So yes, I'm gonna queue this up and give you an overview. And Chris is here to speak to any programmatic questions you may have. He's been in the person primarily engaged with BHFA and exploring and shaping this program. And James is here because this is probably gonna be a PUC filing. And the reason we're bringing it especially to you is that it may end up taking the form of a tariff. That's something we're still in discussion with the BHFA and DPS about. But if it does take the form of a tariff we will need city council approval and obviously we'd want your approval first before we go to council. So this is a pilot on bill financing program that will help low and moderate income customers pay for weatherization improvements. It's will be financing provided by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency using $9 million in state appropriations. BHFA is hoping to make this a statewide program. There will be a number of utilities hopefully filing before the end of the calendar year BED among them. And we will also, if a customer comes forward and has a project with the scope, bundle in heat pump or electrification improvements along with the weatherization. And that would all be financed as one loan. A couple of unique features of the program as proposed, the loan will follow the meter so that a subsequent homeowner would pick up the loan or a subsequent tenant would pick up the loan. And there will be no disconnection for non-payment of the loan component of the bill. So let's cover the next slide to sort of get into roles and responsibilities. So energy services, the EU portion of BED would vet the project from an energy savings perspective and make sure it's a good and reasonable project of efficiency and weatherization perspective. BHFA will be the one setting the loan terms. They've indicated they haven't picked a financing rate but they expect it will be no more than 2% interest rate on these loans. And then BHFA will communicate to our billing department and finance department, you know, here's the customer, there's the loan amount, here's their payment amount. It's gonna be paid off over this many months and we would put the charge, the on-bill financing charge sort of on the bill. And then we would be compensated for that service by BHFA with a one-time setup fee. And then there would also be a monthly fee part of the loan payment that the customer would pay to cover our expenses for processing, right? As the money comes in, as the customer pays their bill, right, we take the portion that's the loan payment, set it aside and then we send that back to BHFA. So we're acting as the payment collector and processor for BHFA. The program will be filed and proposed for PUC approval as a two-year pilot, but the loans made under the pilot program could last up to 15 years. So we could be servicing these loans even for a while, even if the pilot program is not extended or made permanent. In your packet is a pretty detailed letter of support that BHFA drafted. The idea is that we accompany the PUC filing that we as the distribution utility make that provides a long background on the legislative process that led to the financing, the state appropriation, as well as the discussions among utilities and BHFA and designing the program and how it would work. So that's the overview and I'll stop there and the three of us are happy to take any questions. So it sounds like it's sort of like an escrow kind of thing where, so if I get my house weatherized and some of the loan will be paid for savings and energy theoretically, right? Like I might pay $10 less a month and so I can help subsidize the cost by lower energy. How does that work if you sell the product? Does that have to be paid off or can it be transferred into the new owner? It would be transferred, there's a, yeah, part of the program calls for a filing until you may, I think of a little town clerk essentially right that says that this, there's a loan that's associated with this property that would be assumed by the new owner, the buyer. I think this is a great idea. You can also ask the same question about some global health conversations, but never mind. And this is the kind of stuff that was being bought about 40 years ago when utilities were being encouraged to sell energy services instead of energy. So it's a great idea. I would ask what kind of performance requirement or inspection is going to be a part of it? In other words, will a job be evaluated by somebody outside of the contractor? So the way we envision this is all of the work is going to go through the normal EEU weatherization programs that are available today to Vermonters. So if you're a Vermont gas customer, you're going to want to take advantage of all the technical assistance and rebates and package that into your wrap loan because that's going to buy down your cost. But with that, you get the technical assistance, you get the contractor help finding the right contractor and you get inspection because the EEU is held to pretty rigorous measurement and verification of their savings. So because it's in the EEU program, it comes with a lot of protection to quality control protection. This is not going to be another set of people or another set of contractors or energy auditors. It's all going to flow through the normal programs that are available to Vermont today. Sounds good. Related to that before you scoot back, I would imagine, I mean, as we blend partial heating with gas and then with some heat pumps, that technical advisory group will figure out how the division works with, I guess my question is normally you have to separate out the savings, right? From electric savings to gas savings. And is the loan going to have that separation out too in terms of VGS processes? Some of them, Burlington Electric processes, some of them, the loans? It could be. I mean, we're still in early innings on that one, but we do envision, and in our work with the VGS team, VGS would handle the weatherization portion of the wrap. And if it was appropriate to heat pump that same house, then BED could handle that portion. Also propane and oil, right? And also propane and oil. Where the heating, where the oil is propane and oil, we would be the actual weatherization entity. Okay, so it was just weatherization for gas heated home. That would only be VGS. We would not touch it. Absolutely. I mean, our role would be to help promote it to our shared customers. And the idea here is to try to help those folks that aren't qualified for the low income weatherization program, and trying to help more low and moderate. So a market that both BED and Vermont gas really want to be working on. And how does it work with VGS starting to now also offer heat pumps? Would they not offer heat pumps in the Burlington Electric territory? I think they only offer the heat pump water years right now. Oh, okay. I don't think they actually offer. That is correct. My heat pump water years. That is correct. Okay. So many layers. This is fantastic. It is so great. It's just great that this is actually happening. So good luck because I'm sure it'll be really fun. Related to that, I interviewed a bunch of people down in Connecticut who had set up an on-bill financing program and they said the customers love it, all the customers love it, but it's a lot of work. So related to that, how does BED pay for the administrative costs? Right. So as I mentioned before, there is a provision in the services agreement that we would execute with VHFA where we would receive a one-time setup fee for the initial processing of adding the payment to the bill. And then a recurring monthly fee on each loan would also come to BED that the customer would pay for the monthly payment processing and transmittal of funds to VHFA. Sorry. I developing the rules and regulations, I assume you guys have lots and lots of experts like weighing in on this and people who've been rolling these out in other states, presumably. Yes. So the development, I believe started with VHFA almost two years ago and it started with BED staff and VGS staff that it morphed to bringing in all the utilities and efficiency Vermont. So a whole lot of investigation and planning has gone into the design. And lastly, there's a conclusion in this document that says VHFA would be pleased to address any questions or concerns regarding the program at a workshop held in concert with the DUs and program administrators. Do you know when that workshop is? No, I think that the idea is that that letter that's in your packet, that's a draft letter hasn't gone anywhere. That the idea is that would accompany a PUC filing. So we would make the filing with PUC that says we want to offer this on-bill weatherization program and VHFA would attach their letter to say we support this filing and here is why. So that would be a workshop to be scheduled at the PUC's pleasure, I believe. All right, thank you. Other questions, comments? Yeah, no, I think it looks great. I think the hardest part is gonna be finding contractors to do the work. But we put a lot of million dollars, many, many millions of dollars in via the legislature this past year for workforce development in the trade. So hopefully that'll help, not immediately, but at some point. Would anyone like to make a motion to approve? I would, to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. It was a whole motion. I got that, yeah. I know, I saw it in there. Do you want me to read that? Is that better? No, I'm sure that's far more professional, yes. I propose that the Burlington Elector Commission recommend to the Board of Finance and the City Council's approval of the Weatherization Repayment Assistance Program, RAP, Public Utilities Commission Filing and Distribution, Utilities Services Agreement between BED and VHFA, subject to legal review. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. This would be great if you can keep us updated in terms of how it goes. So the next three agenda items, number 9, 10, and 11. Number 9 is? It's not. Most not. It's not. OK. So number 9 is Airport Arc Wind Turbine Contract. This is a discussion and vote, but not executive session. We're having a slight technical difficulties, as they say. I'm used to doing this from home and not from here. So I'd like to touch base quickly with the Elector Commission on the Arc Industries Pilot Program. But we are calling this an update, because we have spoken to you before about this. And you guys have approved advancing this project once before. There have been some minor changes since we talked to you, and we thought it was prudent to bring it back to you again and make sure that you didn't have any issues with the proposals as it's now. Just a quick reminder, the Arc Industries was a company out of the 2021 Delta Climb Mentoring cohort. It was one of the ones selected for a pilot by us. And it is an Arc stands for Advanced Renewable Concept. And it's essentially a roof-mounted wind turbine. It's about eight feet tall. So it's a six-foot ball with a two-foot stand. And we liked it because it was a chance to deploy something else alongside solar panels on roads and potentially could share inverters with the solar panels as long as the two items weren't producing at the same time. So it had merit from being some diversity for our roof-mounted generation in the city of Burlington. We did want to try to put it in the downtown area. We were unable to do that. Right now, what we're talking about is we are looking at putting it at the airport. And the airport has been very helpful, very engaged. I'd like to make a point of thanking them for being flexible and working with us on this. We are currently authorized to enter a contract to deploy a wind turbine. There was difficulty locating the civil pilot project location for the pilot. I don't think it's necessary that it wouldn't work in Burlington, but for a pilot, doing some real restrictions on what we could choose. We're going to need to amend the MOU that we have with the airport that allows us to use that area that you can see with the black panels for the solar array to allow us to add the arc in the area marked by the red X. So we're coming outside of the footprint of the solar array a little bit, and the original MOU was very specific to solar equipment. But the airport is willing to consider an amendment to the MOU. And the MOU itself talked about major amendments for other things being possible. So it envisioned this. We think the power supply contract would be better for the actual arc agreement itself, the second phase agreement, because really what we're getting out of this is the energy from the plant while it's producing, as well as information on energy production. And lastly, we have the right potentially to buy the plant out or the unit out at the end of the contract. So what we did was we split the contract into two agreements. We have a preparation agreement which we have executed in a long day. It is a one year less term. It really is the site evaluation for anemometer measurements, for wildlife, things like that, and preparation work. Where that work is permitted in the absence of a 248 permit. So some things are permitted. Before the 248 permit is issued, some things are not. And that contract would have a maximum amount of 4,000. Just remind folks what section 248 permit is. 248 permit is a certificate of public good to produce or to build a generating unit in the state of Vermont. And that would cover anything from net metering to utility scale generation. Sorry about that. We are proposing a second operation and installation agreement that would actually take over from when we're ready to install the permit, the ED would get the CPG, certificate of public good for the array. And at that point we'd be moving into the preparation or the installation contract. And that contract would cover from installation of the orb through decommissioning of the orb or through our taking over ownership of the orb at the end of the operation period. The end of project options are still what we talked about the first time. Again, it would be either decommissioned or it could be extended or it could be bought out. The way we drafted the contract is it could be extended up to five years because five years is the maximum power purchase agreement authority that the electric commission has. So what we're asking for is a motion to authorize general manager to enter into a contract with ARC, committing the commercial terms described herein to install and then receive power from one ARC turbine at the airport and seek supporting modifications of the MOU with the airport as needed to accomplish this. Again, this is just a 3KW turbine. This is not a major purchase by any stretch of the imagination. So the cost is, to BED, is that $4,000 maximum? The second contract is $6,000, covers it through decommissioning. If we choose to have it decommissioned, if we chose to purchase it, it would be an additional cost to actually purchase the unit and leave it operating at the airport. The power though comes free during the term of the agreement. So in return for the running the pilot project and getting the data on roof-mounted wind turbines in our service territory, we also get the power, the energy, the racks, any capacity value, all of it for that second contract of $6,000. So a total of 10,000 across the two contracts. Yes, that was the pilot. And that includes the PPA, whatever. Just because we restructured as a power contract, we thought it would come back to you for safety. And when you actually identify, I mean, if you're getting, like normally I'm trying to imagine what a power contract is between BED and BED. Because like they own the equipment, but they don't, so normally a power contract, like you're negotiating with the company that owns the wind turbine, so. This context, they own the wind turbine for the duration of the contract that we're asking for approval for. There will be no charges to us other than the $6,000 I mentioned during that contract. During that contract period, we get the energy, capacity, racks and all for free. We share the data with them as to what the capabilities are of the unit. And then at the end of it, we could decide if it's economical to purchase that asset and continue its operation there, which would be a separate charge and we'd have to bring that to you. And, or we can have them decommission it. And so if we do that, then the second contract takes us to where that roof has been restored to its pre-existing condition. This would be a fully-balanced and the other interesting thing about this is it's gonna be ballasted. It's not gonna be anchored to the roof. The airport does not like things anchored to the parking garage roof. So we're experimenting with a ballasted wind turbine. So. So let me try it one more time. That's helpful. But so my question is basically what we get per kilowatt hour from this turbine in terms of how much money we would get is based off of whatever the value, the market, that instant market value is for an hour. And how much it actually produces. This is the first unit. There's none of these installed anywhere. So it's not like, we have their estimated wind production, but we don't know. So again, it truly is a pilot of a prototype technology that would be first occurring in Burlington. R&D project. R&D project. Maybe the first new wind project in Vermont in how many years? Maybe the only new wind project in Vermont how many years up? Just saying. So again, we certainly think it has merit alongside roof mounted solar. Plus F-35s might spin it too. No comment. Okay, I was, I guess, a critical previously and I still am. This was sold or pitched as something that would not necessarily go on a big windswept roof such as the airport, but would go on my roof. Commercial property roof was the original intent. Okay, well, you said three kilowatts, which means it works like big windmills, that's like one kilowatt average continuous. Anyway, I guess my objection is I wonder where it's going to go if it works at the airport, if there are that many places where it will go. And also it seems a little shancy to assume that three kilowatts were translated into one kilowatt average. I know they haven't said that, but I guess we have to make some assumptions about that. It's going to be close to the ground and so on and so on. So what are the odds it could work and you're going to be replaced with people in Montana if they do work? Well, that's kind of the intent of a pilot project is to answer those questions in my mind. I mean, again, we're not proposing a broad-based program, we're not proposing to incentivize these, we're proposing to deploy one of them and see if the claims are accurate and if it has viability. I mean, I think I like research, but is there a way to sort of back in the envelope calculation and some of the thoughts that might say, already we have a sense of what can you can do? I'm particularly interested in the citing question. Well, there's a big question about the citing because right now the Vermont permitting rules for rooftop arrays are all revolving around solar. So we're going to have to ask for a waiver, among other things we're going to have to ask for a waiver of the normal permitting conditions. We've been in communication with the PUC about that and we hope to file as soon as we can to actually seek a waiver of those conditions. The PUC was amenable to that discussion, but part of it's going to be what is the permitting involved in one of these things too? Well, I wonder what the spot used then for the spot on Shelburne Road, the restaurant, because they have a... I don't know anything about that turbine, directly. I mean, presumably they went through a permit process. I don't know that. Is that still operating? I don't know that. I don't ever see it spin, but... Because we didn't find it in the book on our own turbine. No, we have not given up on our turbine, by the way. We have a contract to repower that. A while ago, but I know that the... Acos. The steps to actually get the equipment has been delayed in the end, but that was maybe like a year and a half ago or two years ago. But yes, we did vote to support that. And I'll just say for this, personally, as someone who headed up a Renewable Energy Technology Trade Association, because R&D is important, I support this, but I generally, I mean, every single roof-mounted turbine has not, or close to the ground or near bunches of buildings has not really been a great producer of energy in terms of the return on investment. But let's see how it goes. It's $10,000. Let's see how it goes. Right, and it is, again, it was a pilot selected by the Burlington Electric Department, management, after talking to all of the people that went through the Delta Climb Project program in 2021. So. Okay, just let me do another one back at it and we'll look at it. Is it 6K or 10K total, we're talking about $10,000? $10,000. Okay, and if the thing really will produce one kilowatt continuous, that's something like nine megawatt hours, $10,000. I think it's a pretty good deal. Depends upon your markets these days. But again, the buyout is an unknown. The duration is an unknown. That's a one-year analysis, again, I'm not disputing it, but again, it's a pilot project. Part of our mission here is to push some of these envelopes and test new things. So yeah, so I mean, again, I feel very much like, in a pilot project, I don't look for it to pencil out on the bottom line to greater than zero or you don't do it. If you're doing that, it's a program. You already know it's going to be economical or have a strong belief it's going to be economical. This is a pilot to see if it has merit. I just also mentioned that under our Act 151 filing with the PUC, we've specifically, I think put aside funds to support the Delta Climb pilots, which are every year we do typically two pilots. Sometimes we've done three and we support the companies with a $10,000 demonstration grant essentially to do something with us or with our customers that would have some value. So if that's approved, we will have a different sorts of funding for this than operating funds. But we do have an R&D budget in operating funds as well. In addition, yeah. There's funds that were intended for this purpose. And so just to sum up $10,000 for potentially the five year or is this just for one year? If it's extended, there's no cost during the extension. So if we decide that there's merit to extending it and they're willing to extend it, then it would just be extended operationally. But it can't go past five years because there's only the approval under a power purchase agreement for a five year type of arrangement. If we went, tried to go past five years, we'd need to get a different structure. But so we are investing $10,000 assuming this moves forward. And the assumption would be that we would get the power, any other valuable ancillary benefits for up to five years with that initial. One year is what we can count on. It's extendable to five years with both parties acceptance. And we will negotiate a buyout at the end. But obviously, again, they could put a buyout number there, but without knowing the production, it would do much worse. Okay. Well, I mean, commissioners, how do you feel? Like I, we supported this in the past. I think I appreciate you coming back with it. They are changes. So it's appreciated that you're coming back to us personally. As I said, I'll see, I'll be psyched if it actually comes back with some good generating numbers, but it is $10,000. And we do need other solutions in the toolbox besides rooftop solar. I'm going to vote no. So I should kind of actually write my argument. They're not talking about making this and to scale us up in size. So it's a small rooftop again. And I just can't imagine lots of these around in a congested area. Okay, I'll make a motion. Okay. I motion to authorize the general manager to enter into a contract with ARC containing the commercial terms described here and to install and receive power from one ARC wind turbine at the airport and to seek supporting modifications of the MOU with the airport as needed to accomplish this. Second. All in favor. Aye. And not in favor. And I didn't say aye, but I'm in favor. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Now. The next two agenda items, agenda item number 10, IT forward project update. This is a discussion which relates to an expected executive session and then also agenda item number 11, a cyber security update. Both of these are updates on contractual items and vendor negotiations. And so it does make sense to shift into executive session. We're assuming that cybersecurity update should also be held in executive session due to proprietary information. So ideally we would make a motion to enter into executive session for both of these items instead of separately. And if you have the language for that. Just before you do that, I am prepared to give some of the IT forward updated public session. Let's do that then. Yeah. Let's do that. Okay. Thank you. I want to introduce a person, Erica Furland or director of IT to join us in January. Yay. Yay indeed. So it's been some time since we have given you the commission a more detailed update on IT forward. My team I think has been providing updates every month in the monthly report as the project has gone on. But with Erica joining and having been here for six months, we felt it was a good time. And also just in the progression of the projects was a good time to give the commission an update on how those projects were going and where we stand. So just a reminder for everyone about what IT forward means that's been the sort of internal label that BED has used for really what's a collection of projects to replace our core business systems, five of them and one, two, three, four of them. First the meter data management system. This is the sort of database that stores our smart meter AMI data after it's collected and does the math, so to speak, to determine what the bills, what should be billed. So that's the first one. And all of the, as you recall, all of the vendors are part of the Harris Utilities Corporation. So these are different subsidiary units of Harris Utilities. So the meter data management system we've selected is called meter sense by smart works. Next is our customer web portal. That's being replaced with a product called Silver Blaze, also part of the Harris family. Next the customer information system which we've selected CIS Infinity and then the FIS along with payroll and work and asset management system where we've selected Cogsdale, financials and WMS. So I just wanted to, at a very high level, let you know that since the commission approved us moving forward to execute a contract with Harris in December 2020, the overall timeline for the sequencing of those major implementations has changed a little bit, sort of through mutual agreement between ourselves and Harris as we talked through what made sense in terms of how to sequence these. So unchanged is that the MDM and the portal have remained the first priority and where we started. The reason being is that both of those systems are sort of running on the original MDM and original portal that we stalled coincident with the AMI system which went live in 2013 or 14 and proved difficult and expensive to upgrade which really was the impetus for this whole IT forward initiative. Initially we were thinking that we were gonna do the FIS next, a second phase of the portal and then the CIS and then wrap up the MDM and the portal. Those MDM and the portal have multiple phases because they connect to multiple systems. So the MDM connects to the CIS in order to generate bills. So you have to implement it now, connect it to the existing CIS and then if you replace the CIS you have to do another phase to connect it to the new CIS and make sure that it works, right? And then finally the staking. So that was the original plan, MDM portal, FIS, CIS. After sort of thinking about it more and talking with Harris we've changed that plan so that instead of doing the FIS next after the MDM and portal it really makes more sense to do the CIS. That allows us to wrap up and complete the MDM and portal like in a shorter period of times you're not going back years later you're going back months later. And the CIS is really where a lot of the sort of value proposition for the project for the whole IT forward initiative falls into place in terms of being able to support innovative rate designs with a more flexible and robust billing system. And so the longer we wait to replace that CIS the harder it becomes or the longer we have to wait in order to build those kinds of rates efficiently which is what we want to be able to do. How does the CIS relate or not relate to the wrap proposal of on-bill? It's not a, yeah, the limitations of our current software are not really a limitation in terms of being able to do wrap. So that's the current project timeline in terms of sequencing. So then I'm going to talk now just a little bit more in detail about the status of the MDM project the status of the portal project and the status of the CIS project which is the one we sort of have queued up on deck so to speak. So the meter sense MDM implementation is in progress. It kicked off in March, 2021 just a few months after we last came to the commission for the contract approval. We have a go live target of October, 2022. So this fall it's basically, I would say if I remember the original timeline, it's about a year behind schedule. So I think it was originally a projected go live in October, 2021. We're now looking at October, 2022. Why is that? Few reasons. Primarily, I would say two. One is, you know, we had a substantial IT staff turnover last summer and fall, which was a major slowdown. We were able to maintain forward progress but it definitely slowed things down. And then the second major sort of challenge was the risk to the project that I'll mention. It was the third party vendor integration. So the MDM has to connect to the AMI to be able to bring in the smart meter data, has to connect to the CIS to feed the billing data. And in both of those cases, you know, we're not in charge and smart works isn't in charge. Our AMI and CIS vendors are in charge, right? And so making sure that those vendors made resources available, were committed to the project, had a timeline that met our timeline. Those were identified very early on as likely sources of risk. And sure enough, they have been sources of risk to the project. And then thirdly, we have not backfilled any positions to make this project happen. Everyone that's involved in the project is doing this work, you know, in addition to their regular job as a billing analyst or IT person or energy services engineer or what have you, right? So having staff resources being able to do a project on top of their regular jobs is a challenge. All of that said, smart works has been great to work with. They've been flexible. We've been flexible as the project has experienced surprises, delays, risks. Both teams have been working together very well, communicating well, and kind of figuring out, okay, well, if that part is stuck, can we can't move that? Then what else can we do in the meantime to keep forward progress going? Whoops, I advanced the slides. There we are. Welcome back, Commissioner Herndy. So that partnership has been good and that's been, you know, really critical to being able to keep going despite the challenges that we've been facing. And then the third thing I'll mention is that we spent a good amount of time with smart works establishing the statement of work from the very beginning and that's been, that was proved to be time well spent because the scope that we've arrived at, you know, prior to March, 2021 is really where the scope is today. There hasn't been surprises. There haven't been things that have been uncovered where they went, oh, you didn't say that or oh, that's not what we thought. So that's been a good aspect of the project. Silverblaze portal. This kicked off in April, 2021. So just a month after the MDM has a same go live target. Reason being is that the customer portal is where folks can pay their bill but also where they can see their smart meter data. They're interested in what my usage looked like last week. So the portal receives data from the MDM. So when we replace the MDM, we really wanna replace the portal as close to the same time as possible so that it's sort of seamless for the customers and there's not a data drop, so to speak, in terms of the interval data that customers can access online. The Silverblaze portal is a bit of a different story. The payments integration, kind of getting accounts set up. We're gonna work so that everyone who has an existing account in the current portal will get moved over as seamlessly as possible to the new portal and then just create a new password. So all of that work has gone great. Where we've run into some challenges with this project is in the presentation of that smart meter data and the build data and how to make things like time of use rates, demand charges, net metering, kind of some of the more complicated customer and meter situations, how to make that appear in a graphical user friendly way that's understandable. And as it happens, you know, the customers with the most sort of complicated electricity situation are the ones most likely to want to see their data on the portal, right? If you're kind of a routine customer has kind of regular usage that doesn't vary much, it's not less exciting to log in to see what happened last week. So we went to Silverblaze with some concerns about that. They have been very responsive, I'm pleased to say. So we have sort of re-engaged with them in terms of restating requirements and they've come forward with solutions which has been well received by our team. And then finally the CIS. So we are really in the scoping and planning stages here. We have not executed a notice to proceed. We have not committed to a kickoff. We are finalizing the statement of work. We just started conversations with Harris last week on kind of revisiting the statement of work. We did probably 80% of it, you know, prior to March, 2021. And then we kind of left the rest until now. And in preparation for that, we've engaged the consultants that have been helping us with project management have worked with teams throughout BED to map all of the business processes that relate to the CIS. So we have a very clear understanding of what we need the system to do which will then translate into very clear requirements for the statement of work which then hopefully translates into very clear expectations for what we need the system to do which hopefully will then translate into a clear understanding from Harris about what they need to do to meet those expectations. And I believe that was my last slide in public session. And I think Lori has provided some potential motion text for you. Yes, and just as a reminder because the next two agenda items, IT Forward and cybersecurity update relates to contractual items, vendor negotiations and proprietary information, that's why we're shifting into executive session. Anyone wanna make a motion? I've been making a lot. No, okay. Go ahead, your turn. Okay, I move to find that premature general public knowledge regarding the contractual items and vendor negotiations related to BED's IT Forward project would clearly place the Bernalton Electric Department as a substantial percentage per Title I, section 313A, one of the VON statues. Okay. All in favor. Hi. Hi. And before you make the third one, the last thing we have on this agenda is commissioner's check-in. Does it make sense to have everybody here? I think that's the right time. I think that's the right time. Okay. Everybody in favor? I move to find disclosure of the priority information related to BED's cybersecurity plan could jeopardize public safety per Title I, section 313A, 10 of Vermont statutes. Does it make sense to have everybody wait and then come back or? Well, you're going to be here, so we have to leave. Right. So he can't fit. Okay. All right. Third motion. I make the motion to enter into the executive session with Bernalton Electric Department staff to discuss the contractual items in vendor negotiations related to BED's IT Forward project and to discuss BED's priority cybersecurity plan. Second. All in favor. Hi. So we just exited executive session at 802 and appreciate the hard work from our IT team very much. Erica and Emily, both of you as well as your folks that work with Erica. The last item on the agenda is agenda item number 12. It's the commissioner's check-in. The one thing I have on the list is to look back to whether or not we think we need an August meeting. For me, the one piece that I thought might have percolated was the lighting piece, but I think we've a game plan for that for September. And personally, I think it's all right if we do not meet in August. I don't know how others feel. No, I agree. I agree. Okay. I don't think we need to make a vote on that. We just will not meet. Is there anything else folks would like to weigh in for the commissioner's check-in? Just thanks for your accommodation tonight. Thank you for joining. All right, so just the one other piece if anything comes up, reach out to us since we won't be meeting in August. And otherwise, I think we can have a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody.