Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes REFAC Meeting Jan 8 2013Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee Meeting January 8, 2013 Alaska Energy Authority Board Room, Anchorage, Alaska MINUTES 1. Call to Order The Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee (REFAC) convened at 10:08 a.m., with Vice Chair Chris Rose presiding. 2. Roll Call Committee Members Vice Chair Chris Rose Brad Reeve (phone) Jim Posey Jodi Mitchell AEA Staff Sean Skaling Shawn Calfa Sandra Moller Alan Baldivieso Doug Ott Josh Craft Emily Binnian Yolanda Inga Sara Fisher-Goad Chris Gobah Jed Drolet Nick Szymoniak Devany Plentovich Rich Stromberg (phone) Other Participants Representative Paul Seaton (phone) Pat Walker, Senator Hoffman's Office (phone) Darwin Peterson, Senator Stedman's Office (phone) Donovan Walker, Accu- Type Depositions Brian Bjorkquist, Department of Law Teri Webster 3. Public Comments No public comments were made. 4. Agenda Comments No comments on the agenda were made. 5. Approval of meeting minutes - November 15, 2012 MOTION: Ms. Mitchell moved to approve the meeting minutes from November 15, 2012, Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee meeting. Seconded by Mr. Posey. The minutes were unanimously approved. Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 5 January 8, 2013 6. Review AEA Round 6 Recommendations Mr. Skaling explained the methodology AEA used in determining the list of recommended projects for Round 6. He provided members a prepared methodology document titled "Alaska Renewable Energy Fund Round 6, Method for Proposal Evaluation and Grant Recommendation." Mr. Skaling recommended the Committee respond by Thursday with comments and he is also available to answer questions at this point. Vice Chair Rose asked Mr. Skaling how public support is measured for a project. Mr. Posey asked Vice Chair Rose to clarify his question regarding public support for what REFAC does or local support for the individual project. Vice Chair Rose stated his question is about local support for the project. Mr. Skaling directed the Committee to page 13 of the report. He stated there are different points given for numbers of letters of support or a resolution from the city or village council. Mr. Skaling said letters of opposition do not count toward the measurement. He believes there could be a better way to do this, but doesn't have a recommendation now as to what that would be. Vice Chair Rose requested to see if there are any examples of where there was both opposition and support of a project. Ms. Mitchell asked Mr. Skaling if the term "local entity" included individuals. Mr. Skaling read from the document, "support demonstrated by a local entity, other than applicant, or support by two local entities or three local entities." He read the footnote, "letters of support from legislators do not count toward the criterion." Mr. Posey asked Mr. Skaling if there has been a problem of local opposition with any of the projects funded so far. Mr. Skaling could not think of any. Mr. Skaling stated with the regional spreading, sometimes projects are taken from down deep on the list and ranking them up high and he wonders if that is displacing good projects or if they are going to be projects that succeed. Mr. Skaling said it is better for a project to have a high benefit/cost ratio. Mr. Posey asked why the solar project has a low benefit/cost ratio. Mr. Skaling stated this was different add on because it is a solar thermal connecting to a biomass and boiler system. Vice Chair Rose asked for clarification from Mr. Skaling whether he is asking the Committee to approve a project list that has 25 million dollars or a project list that has 50 million dollars of more. Mr. Skaling agreed the Committee needs to approve either a project list of 25 million dollars or a project list of 50 million dollars or more. Mr. Posey asked Vice Chair Rose what the legislation asks the Committee to do. Vice Chair Rose stated the legislation doesn't require the Committee to approve any amount. Mr. Posey suggested approving the project list of 50 million dollars. Mr. Reeve agreed with Mr. Posey and stated if we are still seeing good projects that area surfacing during every round, then we should ask for the higher amount. Ms. Mitchell stated she agreed, as long as these are all good projects. Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 5 January 8, 2013 Vice Chair Rose agreed and will now focus on the pages that have the raw rankings and the rankings in regional order. Mr. Posey asked Vice Chair Rose how often the Legislature has selected something on the list different from what the Committee recommended. Vice Chair Rose stated he doesn't know of any time that has happened. Vice Chair Rose asked the Committee if the recommendation should be limited to 50 million dollars or to the 57 million dollars of recommend projects. Mr. Posey suggested giving the entire list of recommended projects of 57 million dollars. Vice Chair Rose asked Mr. Skaling if a project is really viable if it doesn't receive the full funding they ask for. Mr. Skaling gave an example of giving partial funding for a project in order to break the project up in steps. The request from the project would be to see the final design first in order to gain confidence before providing them with the entire amount for the project. Vice Chair Rose asked Mr. Skaling to give the explanation for the partial funding recommendations for the Shishmaref project and the Allison Creek project. Mr. Skaling said regarding the Shishmaref project, the state does not have a policy on investing infrastructure in communities that are likely to move, but he believes that Shishmaref is building a transportable bulk fuel facility. He stated this funding would be for a feasibility study and not infrastructure. Mr. Reeve commented Shishmaref is trying to design a moveable tank farm system, but leaves many open questions. Vice Chair Rose asked Ms. Moller whether or not Shishmaref has actually chosen another location for the community. Ms. Moller state they are working on a relocation plan now and believes they have narrowed it to three different locations inland, but the funding for the infrastructure has not been identified. Mr. Skaling asked Mr. Craft whether the projected Shishmaref feasibility study where they are located now would work for where they would be located later. Mr. Craft stated it depends on where the new location of the community is and there is not enough information to determine whether the feasibility study would work for the relocation. Vice Chair Rose recommended the Committee discuss the issues regarding funding projects in communities that are actively looking to move. Mr. Posey commented sustainability is part of the selection process and includes viability of the community. Mr. Ott responded to Vice Chair Rose's question regarding the Allison Creek hyrdro-electric project. He stated the project has been at FERC for 10 months and the issuance of the license to construct should be issued within a few months. Mr. Ott believes it is a solid project. Vice Chair Rose requested Mr. Skaling to explain one of the concerns raised with the West Creek Hydroelectric Project. Vice Chair Rose asked what process is AEA going to use to determine when they stop funding reconnaissance and feasibility projects that compete for the same load. Mr. Skaling said it is a challenging question they have struggled with and the focus Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 5 January 8, 2013 of the analysis is on technical economic feasibility, clear power sales agreements and community support versus opposition. Vice Chair Rose asked for an explanation why there is a recommendation for full funding for the West Creek Hydroelectric Project, but there is a list of four different concerns. Mr. Ott said that as a project manager and working with the scoring, the merits of each project is looked at according to the guidelines. Mr. Ott stated in this particular case, it is near the bottom of the recommended list and not within the 50 million-dollar list. Vice Chair Rose stated he wasn't trying to pick on this project in particular, but raising it as an example where there are competing projects and how does AEA reconcile competition. He noted at some point there has got to be a process for reconciling that competition. Mr. Ott stated they try to be consistent in the scoring with the previous rounds and see if there is any new information in the application that is helpful. Ms. Mitchell asked for an explanation regarding the Walker Lake Hydro Feasibility Project's recommendation. Mr. Ott stated there were four reasons concerning the scoring and overall perspective on Walker Lake. He said the most significant reason was the amount of diesel to be displaced by this project was actually quite low and that is why it scored low. Vice Chair Rose asked Mr. Skaling to explain how the B/C analysis might be different with transmission and feasibility studies. Mr. Skaling stated the B/C analysis gets more accurate the farther along in the stages of the project. He said they take into consideration the best information they have from the applicant and statewide modeling. Mr. Szymoniak wanted to get guidance on one of the projects which requested funds to build out a distribution system to connect a load and wanted to know if this is the intent of the program. Mr. Bjorkquist stated the statute includes both transmission and distribution. He believes the intent is transmission or distribution to connect a renewable energy project with the transmission or distribution system. Mr. Bjorkquist stated there has to be that link to the renewable energy project, but there's no distinction between transmission and distribution in the statutory language. Vice Chair Rose stated he was concerned this project, which would connect load to distribution, does not meet the requirements of the program and said this would open the flood gates to other potential applications that would also not conform to the statute. He asked for a clarification regarding if tidal energy is now considered commercial technology, but river technology is still under the EETF. Mr. Skaling stated that is a fair assessment. Ms. Fisher-Goad stated the goal is to make sure that one fund or the other covers these issues so there is no gap. Ms. Mitchell asked for clarification regarding methodology and any changes that have been made. Mr. Skaling stated the funding becomes available on July 1st. He stated that this year they have delayed when the applications are due by a month. Vice Chair Rose requested setting up another meeting in early March to discuss some of the recommendations that were made by the VEIC reports. Renewable Energy Fund Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 5 January 8, 2013 MOTION: Mr. Posey moved to approve the recommended list of projects of 57 million dollars. Seconded by Ms. Mitchell. The recommended list was unanimously approved. 7. NEXT MEETING DATE Mr. Reeve requested to discuss issues regarding communities who may have good ideas, but may not have the resources to put together projects in the right form to get them to the next stage. Vice Chair Rose stated he will ask for that topic to be placed on the agenda for the next meeting. The next meeting will be scheduled for a date in March 2013, possibly held in Juneau, and then a follow-up meeting in May 2013. 9. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 12:41 p.m.