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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023.10.13 BPMC.Exec utedMinutesBRADLEY LAKE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE (BPMC) REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Alaska Energy Authority Board Room Friday, October 13, 2023, 1:30 p.m. 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Janorschke called the meeting of the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Project Management Committee to order at 1:32 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS Brad Janorschke, Chair (Homer Electric Association (HEA)); John Burns, Vice -Chair (Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA); Tony Izzo (Matanuska Electric Association (MEA)); Arthur Miller (Chugach Electric Association (CEA)); Curtis Thayer (Alaska Energy Authority (AEA)); and Rob Montgomery (City of Seward). A quorum was established to conduct business. 3. PUBLIC ROLL CALL (for all others present) Bryan Carey, (AEA); Mark Ziesmer (AEA); Tony Zellers (MEA); Jon Sinclair (MEA); Pamela Ellis (AEA); Travis Million (GVEA); Ed Jenkin (MEA); Mike Miller (CEA); Brian Hickey, (BPMC); Matt Clarkson, (CEA); Andrew Laughlin (CEA); Larry Jorgenson (HEA); Andy Patrick (HEA); Martin Law (HEA); Dan Bishop (GVEA); Sarah Villalon (GVEA); Sherri Highers (CEA); Matt Reisterer (MEA);, Joel Paisner (Counsel for BPMC); David Pease (Counsel for MEA); David Grossklaus (Counsel for AEA); Bonnie Paskan (Counsel AEA). 4. AGENDA APPROVAL MOTION: Vice -Chair Burns moved to approve the Agenda as presented. Mr. Thayer seconded the motion. The motion to approve the Agenda as presented passed without objection. S. PUBLIC COMMENTS - None 6. APPROVAL OF PRIOR MINUTES - 7/2823 MOTION: Mr. Miller moved to approve the Minutes of July 28, 2023. Mr. Thayer seconded the motion. The motion to approve the Minutes as presented passed without objection. BPMC Minutes 70173123 Page 7 of 5 7. NEW BUSINESS - None 8. OLD BUSINESS 8a. Sterling to Soldotna Budget Discussion Chair Janorschke stated that he doesn't have an updated budget to share, but he can send it to committee members when he receives it. While his staff met with Justin Down, the transmission contractor that Chugach is using, he hasn't been provided with any budget yet. His comment to Justin was when it's bid out to do the line, do the whole line from Quartz Creek to Soldotna. While Justin didn't disagree with that comment, he has to talk to his bosses about it. Chair Janorschke hasn't heard anything back yet. While he can provide committee members with some administrative numbers, he believes that proposed budgets don't mean anything. We've seen a huge escalation in a lot of our capital budgets. Give me your estimated costs after you get design work competed and have bids in hand. That's when we have a budget. b. Railbelt Reliability Coordination Update - Brian Hickey Mr. Hickey stated that his written report is in the committee's meeting packet. A quick summary is he has spent that last few weeks working to gather information from the utilities and bring together our thoughts to the Governor's Energy Task Force. That was completed last week. We're preparing for the second round of GRIP funding, which tentatively will occur after the first of the year. Mr. Izzo had a comment about railbelt reliability coordination and the acronym RRC. To avoid confusion with the RRC panel, he wondered if Brian could come up with a different name for it. Mr. Hickey responded that he would. Mr. Burns commented on the report the contract with Richard Lumb, we were expecting a report from Richard since the last facilitation. Mr. Hickey responded that this report went out several weeks ago, and committee members should have copies. However, if Mr. Burns was referring to the most recent one, it was coordinated through ACEP and Mr. Hickey was not involved in that. 9. OPERATOR'S REPORT Mr. Law stated that the Bradley Lake new residence is completely dried in now. We have that ready to go and are working on getting bids and quotes in to finish that residence up. The needle valve purchase is on schedule. Drawings are complete, they're acquiring materials now. No accidents through October. And we've had no forced outages. Everything else in is the written report. If you have any questions, he's available to answer them. Chair Janorschke asked if there were any questions. He noted lots of photos in the report, which they like. 10. COMMITTEE REPORTS BPMC Minutes 70113123 Page 2of5 10a. Budget to Actuals Report -Budget Subcommittee Mark Ziesmer went over the budget to actuals for the period of July 1 st to August 31 st, 2023. He directed committee members' attention to Schedule A, non-RNC capital expenses, $10,200 for a shipping container purchase. The next couple of pages are O&M expenses. No huge amounts to report. Currently, we are less than budget by $627,793. Schedule E is the renewable contingency, otherwise known as RNC. It shows a negative $68,313. This is the difference between expenses and our most recent renewable energy fund grant reimbursement. There is a breakdown of this number at the bottom of the page. Next page is Battle Creek non-RNC capital purchases, which had no activity for this period. The Battle Creek O&M is under budget by $57,180. A majority of the costs are from the 4% allocation that he does periodically from Bradley Lake. SSQ Line, non-RNC capital purchases and O&M expenses for the current period. The last page, Appendix A, is for items that are not part of the typical budget such as construction funds from Bond Series 10 and Bond Series 11. The only activity here is the interest earned of $4,370,169 since the beginning of November 2022. 10b. O&D REPORT - HEA Mr. Patrick directed committee members to his briefing in their packets. We are past peak lake levels and it's starting to trend down. So, that's good news. We're managing it well and we haven't reached spill. For the summer months, we ended up with 19% more inflows than what was forecasted. September was under forecast, so, in a way, it balanced out. Concerning the Bradley Ring Bus, we've been discussing relay settings out there, post -event diagnosis and clarification of best practices, things like that. It was determined that we don't have any engineering studies that fully substantiate the current relay settings. They may be good, but we may need to define best practices. We have been asked to gain approval from the BPMC for us to spend approximately $10-15,000 for a consultant to review our relays. From all appearances, we have adequate funds for this study. It's just not a line item identified in any current budget. So it would be moving funds from one bucket to another. We still need to put a project scope together and obtain a quote from a consultant to determine an amount. And lastly, our next meeting is at the end of October. Committee members discussed whether the next step for the study is to develop a scope of work, obtain a quote, then present proposals to the BPMC for them to review and approve or to simply proceed with the scope of work and then hire the consultant. After further discussion, committee members directed and approved O&D to develop a scope of work for the study. If the quotes obtained are between $5-15,000, they can proceed with the work. However, if the quotes come back significantly higher than that amount or impact us in a material way, then O&D should come back to the committee for clarification and direction. 11. EXECUTIVE SESSION: 1:54 p.m. (Bylaws Section 5.17.4) - To discuss confidential personnel and financial matters regarding BPMC Minutes 10113123 Page 3 of 5 Required Project Work, BESS, RIP funding and financing, the immediate knowledge of which may have an adverse effect on the Authority or Project. MOTION: Mr. Thayer moved that the Bradley Lake Project Management Committee enter into executive session to discuss confidential personnel matters and financial matters regarding required project work, BESS, RIP funding, and financing, the immediate knowledge of which may have an adverse effect to the Authority or Project. Mr. I= seconded the motion. A roll call vote was taken, and the motion to go into executive session passed unanimously. The committee reconvened its regular meeting at 3:41 p.m. Chair Janorschke stated that no official action was taken while in executive session. 12. MEMBER COMMENTS Mr. Izzo expressed his thanks to Curtis, the AEA team and all those involved. We have a lot of work ahead of us. In his 20 plus years of work, he's never seen this kind of potential investment in the rail belt. Mr. Burns stated that he's excited about the prospect for the future. He appreciates everyone's collective efforts and moving us forward in a unified direction. Mr. Thayer thanked committee members for their kind words. He is encouraged to share the FOIA with your staff and list of questions. At least we can go to Department of Energy and start our negotiations with robust questions on our part for the next steps. Mr. Thayer added that recently, on three different trips, we took about a dozen legislators to Bradley Lake, including Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom and Keith Kurber. All participants walked away not only champions of Bradley, but also of the Dixon Diversion after seeing what he calls the crown jewel of the railbelt. We even had both co-chairs of House Finance on the trips too. Hopefully, when we go to Juneau, we will reap rewards from these educational trips. Mr. Miller echoes the accolades to Curtis and his team. Outstanding. He appreciates the committee reports, especially hearing about no accidents. He was just at Bradley Lake. Safety is our number one priority, so those reports are great to hear. Mr. Montgomery agrees with what the others have said and appreciates Curtis and his team, and the work that Brian has been doing. ASSIGNMENTS Chair Janorschke provided this summary of assignments from today's meeting. BPMC Minutes 70/73/23 Page 4 of 5 • Chair Janorschke to forward a copy of the Soldotna to Sterling Project updates, as he receives them, to committee members. • O&D is assigned to hire an engineering consultant to look at the Bradley relay settings for $15,000 or less. • Required Project Work Engineering Subcommittee led by Mr. Bishop to work with AEA on kicking off an HBDC routing study. • BPMC legal counsel to provide a BESS update and a proposed final draft at our next meeting. • BPMC legal counsel provide a draft asset transfer agreement at the next meeting, if available. • O&D committed to work with BPMC legal counsel on a draft O&M agreement for review. 13. NEXT MEETING DATE - December 8, 2023 14. ADJOURNMENT Seeing no other items of business before the committee, Chair Janorschke adjourned the meeting at 3:45 p.m. Brad Janorschke, air N Curtis Thayer, Secretary BPMC Minutes 10113123 Page 5 of 5