 joining later as she sent an email to both myself, so live streaming yet or recording yet. I believe we are. They're on. Excellent. Thank you. I don't see the record sign. Oh, that's me. So I'll do that right now. Thank you, everybody. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Board of Electric Commission for the Burlington Electric Department in Vermont. This is Wednesday, January 13th. First up on the agenda is the agenda itself. If there are modifications or edits to the agenda structure or changed agenda items, now is a good time to raise them. Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to the minutes from our December meeting and Bob appreciate you following up on some of the editorial changes. That's exactly what what we've been asking for, and I really appreciate it. There were just a few edit issues and typos and wondering if everybody else has had a chance to and for the three other commissioners, whether or not there are two other commissioners, since Bethany is not with us, whether or not there are any suggested changes regarding content. Could someone please, I am also, which is why I'm not mentioning any changes, could someone please make a motion to approve? And a second. Muted. You're muted, Bob. Second. And roll call, all in favor. Commissioner Sagman. Aye. Commissioner Herndon. Aye. Commissioner Moody. Aye. Commissioner Stevens. Aye. Thank you. Next on the agenda is a public forum and welcome. It is wonderful to see some public members from Burlington. It's always great to hear your feedback. The commission was shared via Lori. Some photos that you had forwarded via email with regards in particular to an EV charging station or one post but two stations. And with that welcome, perhaps you could introduce yourselves by your name and then I'll hand it to you in terms of why you've chosen to spend your lovely January 13th evening with us. Hi, I'm Cheryl Green and I'm going to speak to the chargers. So hello and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Cheryl Green and I'm a resident of Burlington Co housing on East Avenue. So we are a 32 unit housing development development that owns 5,000 square feet of interior space in common as well as the four acres we live on. And about a year ago, we installed these two level two juice box pro 32 car chargers that you saw and see in the photos. And after 15 months of research and deliberating, we chose the commercial ones because of the software package that tracks our use and allows us to do our analysis looking at our own use patterns. So the four electric car owners and one plug-in hybrid owner all have access to the full software and we each activate the charging of our own car via a phone app or the software itself. So here comes the point of my report to you tonight. So the chargers run off our common meter. I think it's sometimes known as a house meter and that covers all the electric use on our site except for the use within the apartments and townhouses which are owned and metered as individual residential units. So we work out our car charging billing ourselves charging 17 cents a kilowatt hour. So I've been working and learning with Brian Riley at BED and he's been a great help in this car charging adventure and we very much appreciate the electric car incentives that BED has offered. Peter and I were the first ones to receive a $1,200 check when we leased our 2017 leaf and we now own the car. And we have watched as residential owners and work sites have benefited in terms of BED electric rate reduction incentives. Currently there are no incentives for electric car charging using common meters. For example a significant amount of our car charging happens in off peak hours sometimes overnight and it is all tracked on our software. And we are actually in another tricky predicament as well. Our common meter rate at co-housing is this small general service plan. So the criteria being that energy consumption does not exceed 3,000 kilowatt hours per month or greater than or equal to an average of 100 kilowatt per hours per day for any three consecutive months out of the previous 12 months. So as you well know we have three big winter months here and last year we only missed being tossed into a higher electric rate by three measly kilowatt hours. So the first winter month last year we used 2,997 kilowatt hours and then the next two months we were over 3,000 kilowatt hours for each of those months. Yikes. So it is good for us to be vigilant and conservative in our electricity use in general and Burlington is making a big effort to incentivize the owning and running of electric cars here and there are lots of options in this city for plugging in an electric car and that's very much appreciated. Thank you for your part. So our intention in buying two level two car chargers for Burlington co-housing was to encourage other residents to trade in their gas-run cars for electric ones and now we find ourselves in this crazy position of encouraging the five of us to charge off-site for the next week because we have now logged on 2,484 kilowatt hours on our common meter and we still have eight days to go in this billing cycle. So the last 24-hour cycle 8 a.m. to 8 a.m. we used 169 kilowatt hours that's another yikes. So our car charging currently comprises 10 to 15 percent of the common meter use and again we can track all that on our software. So all of this while producing thousands of kilowatt hours on our Burlington co-housing common solar panels which help offset our common consumption. We are doing many things right and trying to live sustainably and we all have a very long way to go. So our dilemma will take some thinking out of the box and we appreciate your honoring our efforts with some work on how to incentivize common meter housing groups to lease and purchase EVs and PHEVs by considering our electric rate dilemmas. So thank you very much for listening. Thank you. I should have started at the outset that exactly a week ago I was sworn in as a state rep and I now serve also as a transportation committee. So my head is spinning just a wee bit with these issues. I'm going to ask General Manager Darren Springer and also James Gibbons if they have some feedback and thought with regards to this. Just as a broad overview statement much of what we're trying to do as we move forward into a new approach to electric utility regulatory design and that includes rate structure much of what we're trying to do is going to be you know learning as we go and so having you all come to us is very helpful. Thank you and we do appreciate what you're working on and if you've been speaking with Brian Riley do I see his initials here? I don't happen to see his initials here but I wonder if someone else on the BED team has any sort of update in terms of at least an initial response to you with a longer caveat from me that we're going to have a lot of these lessons to learn moving forward. Hello this is Bob. I wondered if you could just give the elevator speech on what the problem is. I'm still not sure I understand it. Yes I can do that. So the situation is that we our common meter electric plan that we've from BED allows us to have no more than 3,000 kilowatt hours of use per month for any three consecutive months so the big deal is of course over the three winter months. So our hope is to encourage more of our neighbors here at Co-Housing to buy and lease electric cars or hybrids plug-in hybrids but we find ourselves now in this situation of thinking oh my goodness for this week we better charge off-site because if we go over the 3,000 kilowatt hours in the month our electric rates will go up. So we're doing our part in terms of you know working sustainably or trying to live more sustainably with these. We also have a ton of solar panels here that are we own some individually and a lot of them are with the common meter so that production from the solar panels is helping to offset you know our overall consumption rate on the common meter. So we've watched these other incentives come for individual residents and for some work sites but there aren't any for common meter car charging use. Okay got it thank you. James did you want to chime in or Darren? Well let Darren go first if he wants to but I certainly have some feedback on this I hope there's promising news to you but Darren first so. Now James why don't you go ahead I think you've got the details here. Okay so good evening folks thank you very much for coming. I would not want to say that what you're describing is a surprise to us it is not a surprise to us we've been looking at a couple of challenging things around sending the message about electrification but not also then sending disincentive messages at the same time and we're cognizant of the problem in the SG rate. So one of the reasons that we didn't offer the EV charging incentive for the SG rate was we were afraid people would take advantage of it and then get pushed into the LG rate where they no longer could have an incentive. So we're having to look at something else to resolve this issue we have looked at two different possibilities. One possibility is to change the cutoffs where the SG and LG rate change over either change them all across the board or to change them such that charging at night isn't included for deciding whether you move back and forth. The other option we've looked at is to offer the EV charging credit to the SG accounts and ignore that usage for the purpose of determining the SG, LG change over and the demand charge. One has an implementation problem from our point of view changing the cutover affects everybody you know that's the problem is that affects people whether they're on the rate or not. So we have been looking at a way to a couple of different ways to resolve this the ignoring the usage is a billing software our billing software is not very advanced we're replacing it but you know it would probably be a manual process and you know at the end of the day that'll be sort of a management decision as to whether that it's okay to accept the manual billing process we offer it we have to offer it to everybody. So again we have looked at two to three different ways of solving this we're aware of it and with that I would say to Darren I mean one of the other things too is we have a rigorous approval process for rate changes of that type rate changes of that particular type which affect customers differently can only be put into effect after the Public Utility Commissioner of Vermont approves the changes those are not local decisions unfortunately. So one of the other things that I think we've been trying to avoid rate changes during COVID you know because of people having you know other things going on. So again with all of that your your message is very clear to me what you need is very clear to me why you need it is very clear to me and I have some ideas about how we could fix it. Okay yeah it sounds good could you talk just a little bit more about the ignoring piece. So one option that I that I discussed internally was if you didn't use the kilowatt hours from an electric vehicle charger that was served under our you so let's say you offer the discounted EV rate to the small commercial customers which include the house meters like you have okay and then you said we will not include the kilowatt hours served under that rate for EV charging in deciding if you used over 3,000 because they were all used at night. So that would be but that's a manual billing process because our automated billing process cannot handle something that's sophisticated right now so we would need to go in there and when we did the the check to see who needs to move back and forth we would have to make adjustments to it okay it can be done but it would be a manual process okay can you but again we're very concerned about if we add the EV charging option to the SG rate which is the is the house meter rate right and it all that happens is you take advantage of it and then you move to the LG rate where it's not offered not only if you move to the LG rate but you've lost the credit to boot yeah and in the LG rate where there's demand charges it gets very difficult to do the same thing we did for the residential so that's that's again it's just a couple of mathematical problems with the rate designs but there are a couple of possible ways to resolve it okay thank you so much great to hear that I mean I know through Brian that you all have been thinking about it and you know hadn't heard anything specifically that was coming through so I really appreciate this audience and appreciate update thank you James I have a question okay would all of this just be handleable if we had true try time of use rates well we do have time of use rates if you're referring to say real-time rates I that wouldn't resolve this issue in any good way meaning rates that were granular to the to the actual wholesale market prices every one of the Burlington Electric rate classes there is an SG time of use rate which has a discounted rate for nighttime charging which would allow a discount rate for nighttime charging very close to what we have for the residential rate but they'd still move on to the LG rate based on using more than 3000 in the month regardless of when it occurred that's written into the tariff that's the problem there okay but we have residential time of use small commercial time of use in the large commercial time of use is mandatory but the change between the small commercial and large commercial is based on 3000 kilowatt hours per month for three months as described by Cheryl and I believe that that is a structure that that goes back to the older style meters all of our meters now are capable of time of use metering every single meter but the tariff doesn't say anything about that the tariff says 3000 per month for three months and then if you change that say we made it 5000 or change say we changed it to be a demand rate you know say it's not on kilowatt hours that's on peak demand or say we you know we did it on the night or the day separately all of those things will affect different groups of customers differently good or bad it is as a rate design change that has pros for some customers and cons for others and that's what we've been trying to avoid is doing things that hurt some customers too during a challenging time well James correct me if I'm wrong but there's an added complexity to this given the beautiful and wonderful nature of co-housing that there's a percentage of your solar array that is you know sourced to address this and then you know a portion again correct me if I'm wrong but a portion of the charging kilowatt hours is shared and divvied up and so when you start to add that all in that the current rate structures and the current tariff doesn't necessarily really fantastically address all of those additional layers of complexity Don are you net metering the solar generation against this house meter or not yes I'm going to add to what Cheryl said so what's happening is the solar we have about well we have about 117 panels that go through the common meter so that whatever we produce in solar energy is subtracted from that so the 3000 is a net amount and one of the things we could do if we could find a way of pushing more put more panels on and drive them through the column meter that also would help us but I've got to be conversely careful Don to make sure that I don't do a kilowatt hour cutoff that's nighttime based when you're not producing the solar or suddenly the numbers are going to change a different way so again like I say it's you have one of the most interesting and forward looking electrical systems that I'm aware of in the Burlington area which means that you run afoul of every antiquated rate design we've got perhaps yeah we are well aware that we are challenging bring to electric in every possible way we can you know folks here lay awake at night kind of think about what next complexity we can introduce to you guys so far you're handling it pretty well I mean you've done so much for us and you've helped us we've converted pretty much entirely over to LED lights we replaced our our pumps with variable speed pumps and all this has been you know bringing down our our electric use um individuals have gotten a lot of heat pumps from you and we're thinking about using them to reduce the amount of gas that we're using with our boilers so we'll cut down our carbon footprint of course that's going to mean more we'll be using individually be using more electricity but that that's not going to affect our common meter rate at all and we've also been participating in the district 2030 I think we were the first condo association to come into that so in addition to 117 panels we have going through the common meter we have another over 200 meters 200 panels that are being net metered among our residents in two different groups so I think there's about 25 of our 32 families that are now participating in that meter and we have another five or six families outside co-out so we're challenging in that way as well I did send the picture of of an interesting installation that we recently did almost basically all our panels were on our roof we have some on our the roofs of our garage and the others are all on the roofs of the of the residents but we have nine panels are on the side of one of the residents and that's the picture and those panels are not only generating solar energy but they are also providing sunshades in the summer and the residents that were there last summer said it made a big difference so it's an idea that you may want to make available to other people to let them know about I noticed that those had gone up and we had spoken about those I think that's really cool well we had talked about doing it on the common building but there were a number of issues one of them was that of course when you put them in they cut off the view of the sky and and they also made it hard to look down and see what's just below you um Barbara and I have we don't have solar panels over our we're in the main house we don't have solar panels over our windows but we do have sunshades and that does cut off our view to the sky but it also allows us to have our our shades open our drapes open and we get in the summer so we can look out we don't have to pull that down to um to protect us from the heat um thank you so I want to thank pretty tall electric for what you've been helping us in so many ways and I hope you don't mind all the challenges we're bringing to you no that's how we learn I mean I'm not actually dealing with any of it but that's how they all learn well we're we're um very willing and interested in helping bring in other especially condo associations that are having they're thinking about solar thinking about car charging Cheryl's got a lot of expertise on this and she can really help help people get started and I think I can help people with that solar than that metering in them and just getting the panels so thank you for listening and hopefully this is going to help you some way thank you both so much really appreciate having you join in terms of next steps I mean James you said you were working on many different areas I suppose let's just keep in communication and please know that we're fully aware of what the specific challenge is um and uh fully aware also of sort of um what we can control here within Burlington and what we then would have to go to the public utility commission for for uh you know a potential rate design change I will say that um there is a lot of interest by some of the uh higher staff at the Department of Public Service in terms of how to better design rate rates so I'll keep you guys in mind and James Darren do you have anything more you want to add no I just want to thank Don and Cheryl for joining us and appreciate all the work you're doing to move towards a sustainable energy model with co-housing we really appreciate it and you know James did a great job of laying out our understanding of the challenges so we'll look forward to working with you and try to resolve these items but appreciate your engagement on all of these important energy and climate issues yeah with Darren's permission I think what I'll do is I would recommend we touch base internally and then send you guys a communication and follow up beautiful thank you so much thank you very much you are welcome to join us for the rest of the evening but there is no obligation to do so okay thank you Don Cheryl thank you thank you for joining us I appreciate it was good to see you the other day Don and from what I've heard tonight um your your your community your group sounds like the very model for what the department in the city is trying to do going forward it's really neat good news of January 2021 uh thanks again both moving forward uh next on the agenda item we do have the commissioners corner uh if any commissioners have something to mention at this time now now is a good time to tee up in advance of the uh remainder of the evening we also have the commissioners checking at the tail and go as well uh hi this is Bob I have a few comments uh I asked for dotted lines and certain graphs in our uh output of our miniski one and McNeil and all that the dotted lines are in they're I think they're super helpful and thank you very much I like it um just an aside I like keeping track of solar since we have a solar farm near here and I guess this is no surprise to you folks but I just realized that in December our local solar put out about one tenth or maybe an eighth let's say an eighth to a tenth of what to put out at the height of the summer I I just didn't I knew that of course it was the difference but I didn't realize it was so extreme um that is all those panels are fixed but anyway factor of eight or so in terms of kilowatt hours per month in December versus June um the third question now a question uh the hula uh geothermal has satisfied all of our tier's free requirements I just wanted to ask they're doing geothermal they're right on the lake shore is that uh making it really easy because basically they're tapping into lake water by going into the ground I wasn't uh I'm not aware that they're tapping into the lake water for that system uh James I don't know if you if you've heard I have not heard that specifically I mean we've talked with a couple of other firms about the possibility of of using the lake for a heating cooling source and it hasn't been sawed as far as I know that is a fairly standard drilled ground heat ground source heat pump but I would have to be checked to be sure that's just the best of my knowledge well I thought this is a sort of a geological question even if they're not sticking pipes out in the lake I wonder if it just turns out to be a primo source because in fact there are only a few feet from the lake it is again not not a not a not a geologist or an engineer wouldn't surprise me I mean that said we've got successful geoprojects elsewhere in the city too so it's not it's not limited by that type of need to be located near the lake but we can follow up that I'm going to mention that project in the GM report a little bit but we can follow up on that specific question of whether the proximity to the lake had any benefit for the project and James can follow up directly with you Commissioner Herndon to to share that if we learn more and also Darren I would mention too that our proposed Act 151 programs include some additional work behind ground source heat pumps in Burlington okay and then I had one more comment sort of bring me one last time we mentioned this one Emily was speaking and Gabrielle also asked this kind of question we have a dashboard that shows all kinds of progress and EVs and heat pumps and all that if you look into the total picture for the city I wonder about overall growth as sort of a backdrop to all of that specifically I wonder since we're now cooperating with Vermont Gas in a very serious way at the same time we're asking how many more heat pumps we have are we also able to list how many more gas hookups have happened instead of a net question behind all of this I'm not asking for this immediately but it's just interest me we know the good news what about the not so good news is still happening as well so I can I can respond to that a little bit I think in that you know certainly if we wanted to coordinate between Vermont Gas and the permitting and inspections department we could get more granular information if that's of interest on on the actual hookups based on new development but I think the bigger question that may be kind of relevant is you know where our fossil fuel use and emissions are when we present our our incentive numbers you're getting a picture kind of a bottom-up picture of the growth in certain technologies but you're not getting the the broader picture of where fossil fuel use and emissions are in the city I think I've mentioned this previously but I want to highlight again that we have contracted with Synapse to update the 2019 and 2020 fossil fuel and emissions data for the city and so we'll have a very good picture of where where things have gone since the initial 2018 road map project and we're going to hope to have that published as part of the performance measures report this coming March so in the not very distant future we should have some more information that would be relevant in the overall fossil fuel use and of course that'll be broken down by natural gas use residential and commercial as it was last time as well as looking at gasoline and diesel and other fuel use as well. Great look forward to that. Thanks. Well and I wanted to mention just in response one of your other items Bob I know from the solar on my roof that they're just covered in snow right now and so it's not only the limited maybe number of hours where the sun is shining but if you get a good storm and the snow kind of freezes over on them it can take a few days or sometimes a week or more to kind of melt that snow off and get them producing again but when they're clear in the winter they actually do fairly well in the colder temperatures. Well I've noted that on not only the big installation here but also in a couple of panels in the neighborhood but I think in December we had almost no snow right it was a dry warm time. December I mean have we ever had a month with less sun I think the sun forgot Vermont existed that's my own personal experience I think for the two minutes it came out on three different days I was like hello Bob your points taken I think the reality is that's what it means to shift over to a more diversified renewable and variable portfolio of energy resources. Other questions from the commissioners? I just want to say sorry for my absence last month we were gleefully trimming the tree and I completely spaced the meeting out and the chair told him at 9 p.m. that that was the best reason ever to miss a BEC meeting. Yeah and I'm sorry but I'm sorry I joined late. One question I did have and I don't know that Darren if you're going to speak to this or if you know anything about it but several states in the northeast are signing on to this transportation and climate initiative TCI and I know Vermont has not advanced it and if you have any updates or insights into what our position is. Yeah all I'm aware of is what I've seen in the media reports which is that the governor's administration has been at the table with developing the TCI agreement they are going to be taking some type of observer status so they're going to continue to engage in the conversation but they're not recommending Vermont join as a binding participant at this point. My understanding from what I've reviewed is that that does not preclude us from joining later on and certainly with the Reggie model for power plants similar compact for emissions reduction from power plants I know states have joined subsequent to the initial agreement and in some cases states have left and then come back based on changes in in in the state policy you know viewpoint so I don't think it precludes us from participating in the future but I don't believe we are in a position now where we would be in a binding commitment as part of TCI. Okay do you know what the do you have any insights into why because I my understanding was Vermont does quite well with Reggie. Yes I think um I think just uh Darin can you just say for all the viewers who will watch us at 3 a.m uh what Reggie is. Sure so Reggie is an acronym for the regional greenhouse gas initiative and Commissioner Whitaker is correct that Vermont does reasonably well with Reggie because we have very few fossil fuel generators that are subject to the requirements of Reggie but as a participating state we do receive a portion of revenue from the auctions that result from Reggie and in fact as an efficiency utility Burlington Electric receives a portion of our thermal energy process funds through Reggie auction revenues as well as the bidding in of energy efficiency to ISO forward capacity markets and efficiency Vermont receives similar funds for the for the rest of the state. So Reggie has been a positive I believe not only for Vermont but in the region is it's attributed with reducing emissions significantly over the course of time that it's been in operation and at a very reasonable cost there's been very little complaint about the Reggie program in that respect so I think one open question that I've heard discussed but I'm not clear enough on what the actual result would be is that if this program is put in place and enough larger states participate it's possible that the upstream fuel providers are going to impose the fee on that fuel regardless and that Vermont may see that increase in fuel price and if we don't participate there's some risk that we would lose out on some of the revenues associated with that so I know policymakers and the media that's an item for discussion I imagine we'll hear more about it but I have not personally engaged on that analysis as of yet. Thank you. Any other comments from commissioners? I just want to flag I'd be very interested at a future meeting to hear an update from you all as to whether or not there's any discussion regarding reassessing our current use of buildings within the Burlington area. I look at your report and see how many great projects are moving forward to have multifamily units and I wonder given COVID if there is a rule to play in terms of reassessing some of our larger scale commercial sites to perhaps more of a mixed use approach with more housing given how much housing challenges there are in in the city and then you know sort of a mixed use approach that's not BED's world but perhaps for a future meeting you guys could just let us know if you hear anything given that you do attend other sort of monthly check-ins with the mayor and other staff. No reason to answer that right now. I'd suggest if we do want to dig in on that at some point we could certainly ask our colleagues with the office of planning to join us for a future meeting if that's of interest because they are have a much better kind of finger on the pulse of that question and David White is the director. Megan Tuttle is one of the planners there. I know either of them would likely be very happy to join and engage in that discussion if it's of interest. My particular I recognize it's scope creep. My particular area of interest is related to energy and if there is an opportunity to save energy when these buildings are reassessed for their current use and how they shift I'll ask the other commissioners if this seems like a worthwhile agenda item for whenever we have a very skinny agenda. I see a nod from Bob. Well of course. Yes. Okay so if we ever have a very skinny agenda that would be great. Thank you. And connecting sort of to what that means to our you know net zero city goal by 2030 but really only when we have a very skinny agenda. So moving on 617 because I don't think I heard any other commissioners have a comment. Okay next item on the agenda is the general manager's update to which many of us were just referring. Thank you Darren Springer for picking this up and after that we'll have financials. Great thanks everybody. First just on a personal note I want to express appreciation for the commission for sending us a thoughtful gift card following my father passing away in December. I was away for a few weeks in Florida with my family and really appreciate the support of the commission and really the entire BD family during that tough time. So just wanted to say that and thank you all for that and just a kind of a process note before I jump into the substance of the report. We were reminded by the city attorney to make sure that all of the substantive emails that were exchanging related to commission business really should be going to your Burlington Electric emails and I know we've had a habit of trying to you know add other emails to that list as well to make sure that those items are flagged but I did want to mention that going forward I'd be asking Lori to restrict those emails just to your Burlington Electric address and of course if you're having any trouble whatsoever logging in please let me or Lori know and we can make sure that the IT department can assist with that at any point in time just from a record keeping standpoint that's the more appropriate way for us to manage. So going into the substance we were very pleased with the unanimous approval from the board of finance and city council of the IT forward contracts that you all recommended to them at your last meeting and that happened on the fourth meeting of the city council and the board of finance on the fourth. I want to just again express appreciation to the many many BEDers who have worked on IT forward over the course of several years starting with an IT technology roadmap back in the 2017 time frame and RFI to seek vendor information and seek presentations followed by an RFP that was incredibly rigorous and objective in its criteria. There's a great kind of example of collaborative cross divisions management and non-management union and non-union everybody working together to get this right and special appreciation to Munir and Emily for their work with the scoping of this project and managing discussions with the selected vendor and Sufritz who really has presented this vision and leadership over the course of a number of years on IT forward and not only on technology improvement but process improvement as well and so deep appreciation for everybody who's been engaged in that will be advancing to implementation in the coming months and we'll keep the commission updated on how that's going and you know make sure that we keep you updated on which systems are moving and how our team is doing relative to the implementation. Other items we were successful with getting the more than half a million in LGER grant funding as part of the city's application to the state and that results from the CARES Act passed by Congress previously in 2020 helps to reimburse us for COVID expenses and supports you know mitigating some of the challenges that we've had financially during the COVID-19 you know impacts that we've seen. We also ended the year with the VCAP program the Arirage Assistance Program having brought in close to or approximately 350,000 in Arirage Assistance for Burlington Electric customers who were eligible and who applied for that program and many thanks to the customer care team in particular and the finance team for helping to manage that program successfully. That said we still have financial challenges present in continuing with COVID. We still are seeing lower sales than would be typical due to COVID. We still have capital project disruptions and delays due to supply chain issues related to COVID and customer contribution capital projects that are delayed due to COVID and we continue to see arirages that are approximately I believe 150% or so above what we would typically see at this time of year. The utilities are all engaged collectively in sharing updated information with the Department of Public Service with the legislature and we will be supporting efforts to secure additional arirage assistance you know if at all possible as a result of any available state or federal funding that may come through. But we appreciate the LGER program and the VCAP program for the assistance they've provided to our customers and to BED. In terms of news I'm very excited about we in 2020 for the first time since the program requirements started in 2017 met the entirety of our tier three obligation under Vermont's renewable energy standard and tier three is the part where we're supposed to work with customers on reducing fossil fuel use and emissions in sectors other than electric generation for which we're already 100% renewable. We met that requirement for the first time entirely with customer programs in 2020 and that was in part thanks to the addition of the geothermal heat pump program incentive that was provided at Hula as well as continued significant uptake on heat pumps and electric vehicles and electric mowers and other customer programs during the course of 2020. So a major kudos to the energy services team and the policy and planning team for their work to continue to grow and engage customers. For reference I think in 2019 we met only about a third of the obligation with programs and we had to meet the remainder with renewable energy certificates which is also permissible but clearly for our net zero efforts and our electrification efforts meeting that requirement with programs as opposed to with REX is the preferred approach and I'm proud that our team has reached that milestone in 2020. And then just two more items one related to that which is we are working very hard to engage with the regulators on Act 151 programs that we have proposed James referenced those earlier and with potential continuation of a number of green stimulus programs that were active in 2020 into 2021. We expect to have an announcement on that in the next couple of weeks. So be on the lookout late January we expect to make some announcements around the green stimulus programs and around some of our progress related to those programs and hopefully continuing a number of them in 2021 and perhaps several of them even beyond that if we are successful with bringing them forward in the Act 151 process. And then last but not least at all we are going to have the second annual Burlington Electric Department Jim Reardon Public Service Award selection coming up. Nominations are currently open in January and last year we had the executive team which is not eligible for the program as well as Chair Gabrielle Stebbins help select from the potential nominees. So we'll look forward to doing that again once we've received any and all nominations in the month of January. For the BEDers on the call I encourage you to nominate somebody who's deserving of the award. Send me an email with a short write-up and as a reminder for the commission the award includes three things we worked on this with Jim's family and they participated in the ceremony last year. There's a name on the plaque that goes in the lobby at 585 Pine Street. There is a gift card to City Market paid for by me and not the rate payers of Burlington Electric as Jim would want it and most significantly the opportunity to help select the first non-profit or charity partner in our Defeat the Peak program for the summer which assuming we make our target which we've had a good track record of doing helps ensure that that organization is able to receive a $1,000 contribution for participating with us and motivating energy savings with Defeat the Peak. Last year Andy Higby was our deserving award winner and he had selected the Ronald McDonald House Charities in Burlington and we heard on our virtual holiday party which happened in December that from Christine Bickford with Ronald McDonald House who was very very appreciative of the partnership with Burlington Electric and not only through the Defeat the Peak program but we also ran a successful gift card drive to support families during the holiday season at the Ronald McDonald House. So great outcome there for year one and we're looking forward to a similar outcome for year two of the Jim Rudin Public Service Award. So with that I will pause and glad to answer any questions. Darren I didn't mention your father because I wasn't sure if your comfort level but please know that we're all quite a bit thinking of you. I appreciate it. Commissioner's are there any questions for Darren? Okay hearing none let's move onward to the financial update. Andrea welcome. Hello just going to share my screen. Okay so I will walk you through the November financial results. Everyone can see my screen here right? Yes. Perfect so November actual net income was 530k compared to budgeted net income of 947k. Andrea can I interrupt? Can you make it bigger for these old man eyes? Yes. Old people eyes. Just older eyes. Older eyes. Is this better? That is better thank you. Perfect. So unfavorable for the month of November in net income by 417k driven by less sales to customers. Commercial sales were down 216k and that is slightly offset by residential being up about 40k. Other revenues is unfavorable. This is largely related to EEU and you'll see an offset down in operating expenses. And power supply revenues is down 113k. This is our rec revenues and if you remember back I think it was in August we were favorable for rec revenues and this and we said we called it out as timing and this is that kind of starting to reverse. Power supply expenses is unfavorable 94k. Fuel expense was up 59k. McNeil production was 6% over budget. That was then offset by less purchase power by 42k and then transmission costs were up and unfavorable 77k primarily related to Velco. Operating expenses were favorable by 90k largely related to EEU which I think here's the offset to the reduced revenue but in addition we have a favorable variance for outside services largely timing and then that's offset by timing of tier 3 expenses which year to date those are pretty close to budget so it was just timing there. Moving down other income is unfavorable largely related to customer contributions less customer contributions. So year to date net income of 1.266 compared to budget of 1.397 so we are now in an unfavorable position versus budget. We've experienced favorable variances the first you know five months of the year or four months of the year and we're now starting to see that flip largely due to COVID. Any questions on the income statement? Andrea will you perhaps in coordination with the rest of the team touch upon thoughts as we move into the rest of fiscal year 21? Yeah we've been working on forecasting to figure out where we would land the year and there are several risks coming at us Darren touched on them in his report which would be sales to customers depending on what happens with COVID that's certainly a large risk along with less customer contributions which would show up down here. Darren anything you want to add there? I would just I would say that you know we had I think in FY 20 through February we were actually doing quite well. I think we had a $350,000 positive variance compared to budget in net income and then when March hit and COVID hit we saw the most severe impacts I think between March and May of 2020 but we have we've those have stabilized to some extent that they're still very much present and obviously the impact that our FY 20 financials we went into FY 21 worked very hard to try to go another year without a rate case which we were able to do we're now in our 12th year without having a rate case and I think the big the big risk factors as Andrea just laid out is as I discussed we're aware of but there is a lot of uncertainty and our our posture is essentially we're trying to reduce any unnecessary expenditures that we possibly can control while making sure we invest in appropriate areas in the company like IT Forward. We don't want to give short shrift to those necessary projects because of the budget constraints that we may be seeing but we'll monitor very closely for the remainder of the year and it is entirely possible that COVID may be the approximate cause for a need for a rate case in FY 22 and we will monitor that and obviously engage with the Commission on that question as we enter April and May and putting our budget together. We haven't reached any conclusions on that at this point but we're preparing for any and all possibilities for how the year ends in FY 21. Thanks. One question from me hello other income you said customer contributions I may have asked this question before what does that mean? That is when we are when I would I explain this when we're doing a project for a customer and we incur the capital costs but then the customer pays us for it so the customer is basically paying for us to do the work and when the customer is paying for us it paying us to do the work it shows up in other income on our income statement when when the work when the payment comes and when the work is being done. Okay thanks and I apologize because I think I asked you that once before. No problem just going to scroll down and look at capital spending so year to date versus budget we're down about a million dollars and that's kind of where we've been for the last several months production is higher than budget and that's by 336k primarily timing we did two projects that are budgeted later in the year and then we didn't do a project that was budgeted but planned to do so just a lot of timing there. Winooski one controls upgrade and the GTA jet overhaul came in slightly above budget so that also is contributing to that. Distribution is primarily timing and then the variance in general plant is primarily driven by IT forward. Any questions on capital? Okay and looking at cash so total cash at November 30th was 10.5 million which is 2.6 million higher than budgeted cash and that is due entirely to the receiving the ban in July versus the geo bond that was budgeted in December so when you see December cash and compare that to budget so while I have that it's 1231 cash was 7.8 million which is going to be 1.3 million dollars lower than budget and that is really due to where we started the year so where we where we were planning to start the year versus where FY20 wrapped up we just started in a lower place and then it pushed us above budget because of receiving that ban ahead of schedule. And then looking at our metrics they're pretty consistent with where they've been the last few months and where we're expecting them to be. Any questions on cash or metrics? Okay. No I think I think you can keep going. All set unless anyone has any questions on the financial results. Okay thank you. So next up we have as long as there are no questions which appears to be none. Next up we have district energy this is both a discussion and also a presumed executive summary and let's start off with the discussion. So actually I think the discussion we would like to provide is is going to primarily need to be an executive session because we will be discussing sensitive commercial terms and negotiations that are ongoing for the commission's benefit. I don't know James if you feel like you have anything to add that we can add in public session at this point. I don't know that I do. I can't think of anything I would add in public session right now. Okay. To be clear though this is not a vote. This is more of a discussion update. Okay great. Correct. I'm just pulling up whether or not Laurie sent a fantastic I think could someone take a swing at I'm pulling out my oh there we are last page could someone go to the last page of the agenda and materials to help us move into executive session. It's page 49. Alrighty here I go. This is Bob. I moved to find a premature general public knowledge of BED's district energy system would clearly place the Burlington Electric Department at a substantial disadvantage per Title I sections 3-1-3-A-1 of the Vermont statutes. And a second. And roll call. Sorry I was reading along. Commissioner Shagman? Aye. Commissioner Herringdeen? Aye. Commissioner Modi? Aye. Commissioner Stebbins? Aye. Commissioner Whitaker? Sorry. Aye. Thank you. I moved to enter into executive session with Burlington Electric Department staff to discuss BED's district energy system under the provisions of Title I section 3-1-3-A-1-A of the Vermont statutes. Commissioner Shagman? Aye. Commissioner Herringdeen? Aye. Commissioner Modi? Aye. Commissioner Stebbins? Aye. Commissioner Whitaker? Aye. We are entering into executive session at 6.39. May I have to stop? Let me stop recording. Okay. We're all set. And have we removed our CCTV? He's there, but you see him? I don't see him. I see him. I see him here. Okay. Okay. Tell me the TV. Okay. Executive session. Next on the agenda is Commissioner's check-in. Is there anything we want to check in on? I'm just setting the tone. That's not true. Hearing nothing. Next on the agenda is adjournment. Move to adjourn. Second. Commissioner Shagman? Aye. Commissioner Herringdeen? Aye. Commissioner Modi? Aye. Commissioner Stebbins? Aye. Commissioner Whitaker? Aye. We have officially adjourned. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody.