Called order the march sixteenth, twenty twenty six regular meeting of the Public Utilities Board at six PM.

Members of the public can attend in person or follow the meeting via web teleconference.

They can address the public utilities board during the meeting in person over web teleconference or by email.

May I have a roll call vote, please?

Or roll call, please.

Members of the public are invited to address the board on any subject related to the activities of Alameda Municipal Power, not otherwise appearing on the agenda.

Comments are limited to in-person.

Only remote public comment is not available for this section.

Do we have any members of the public who would like to speak?

Okay.

Welcome.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello, everyone.

All right, I gotta bring up my notes.

Good evening.

My name is Yung Chen.

I'm an Alameda resident.

And let's see, I am a solar and battery owner, and I'm speaking along with uh 10 other Alamedon who uh signed up uh for a survey and who support reviewing APM current policy that prevents residential battery from being charged from the grid.

I want to thank Nick and Alan for actually sharing their insights to sort of educate me before the um today's meeting.

Um so I understand that APM's concern with regard to rate equity and uh grid reliability.

These are really valid and important concerns as a you know alumeter resident.

So I'm not asking for an immediate policy change.

Uh what I'm asking for is the board to um look at evaluating a pilot program that would allow us limited grade charging with appropriate safeguard.

Um so just to sort of uh talk about um you know, Alameda's current policy allows solar to be exported to the grid, uh, but prevents battery from charging from the grid or discharging um into the grid.

Um that means APM AMP is not able to use customer owned battery as a flexible resources to help manage the peak low.

Um even though AMP provides clean energy, the cost of serving peak demand is still significantly higher than off peak.

Um so I understand, again, through education that you know um AMP participate in regional power procurement uh through organization like NCPA and peak demand drives capacity costs, resource adequacy requirement, and also long-term infrastructure planning.

So reducing the peak demand even modestly can reduce dose system cost over time.

Um so for example, um a typical home battery like my store 13.8 kilowatt hour, and assuming that customer reserve 20 to 40 percent of the stored power for backup purpose, that net out to be about eight to ten kilowatt hour per home that can be available for peak shaving.

Um so across a hundred home that's about 0.8 to one megawatt hour of uh peak reduction.

Um and this is meaningful as a distributed scalable resources that would grow as you know adoption increases.

Um in terms of equity, I totally understand that there's a concern about customer using that to essentially avoid paying for peak power and shift the cost on to others.

Um, but there are other utilities to address this through rate design and program rules.

Um so for example, utility can use fixed charges to recover infrastructure cost.

Well, lower compensation, should I be.

Sorry, Ms.

Chen.

Go ahead and finish your sentence.

It's fine.

It's automatic here.

Okay, okay.

So yeah, this allows utility to make cost of service equality while still enabling batteries to provide a system benefits.

So just to quickly summarize what I'm asking for is I know that the utility is already starting a program to look at rate design, so a pilot program that looks into to specifically provide a data that's needed to help evaluate the benefits and the customer behavior and you know how do you design a race structure.

Thank you very much.

As you know, we can't discuss this any further, but thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule to come speak with us.

We do appreciate that.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

You'd like to go check in here, please.

Thank you.

How many minutes do I got?

Uh you have three minutes.

Three minutes, perfect.

Okay, I'm Kevin Good.

Uh my company is Sun's Free Solar.

We are probably Alameda's only real solar photovoltaic contractor.

We uh established ourselves in 2008.

We've done maybe a third of the solar and battery installations on the island, sometimes more, sometimes less.

I emailed you guys, I think on February 18th, uh series of informations regarding meter callers that was sent to the pub at uh whatever address.

Do you guys receive that?

That's okay.

That's okay.

It's in your inbox.

You can't do anything about it right now, anyway.

I have a hard copy right here of one of the six documents I attached.

It's from Tesla.

Tesla's the big name in the in the game of meter callers.

Meter callers are a UL listed device that goes between the meter and the panel.

And it acts as an automatic transfer switch.

Almost every other utility in California allows this.

AMP does not.

I believe they reviewed this.

I talked to some of the people at AMP, we know each other very well.

And they're like, yeah, you know, we looked at it like in 2022.

But in solar technology 2022 is a lifetime ago.

So it doesn't matter what was looked at then.

This needs to go in since 2025 expired the federal tax credit of 30%.

Homeowners are no longer eligible for a 30% federal tax credit.

Adding a meter caller eliminates $3,000 of the cost of a solar with battery installation.

Okay, not just battery, but solar with battery installation.

A meter caller eliminates the need for an automatic transfer switch that wires from the main breaker to the transfer switch and back to the um feeders that were coming from the main breaker.

This is a lot of labor.

The part itself is almost $2,000.

The labor itself is minimum $1,500.

Okay.

So we're, yeah, we want to generate revenue as a business, but representing homeowners themselves, like me, who would like a meter caller at my house.

Uh it's it's really just really no reason not to do this.

If AMP is standing in the way of this, we can engage them.

We've provided lots of documentation to you guys.

Please check your email.

It's all there.

It's UL listed, it's totally safe.

And uh I'm happy to engage you more.

Do you have any questions for me while I'm up here?

Um thank you very much for the presentation.

Because this is an item not on the agenda, we are actually not able to talk about it.

But you have the appropriate people from within the utility here as well, as well as the commissioners, and so um they will follow up.

We will follow up.

Thanks.

I don't need this.

Uh even though you can email this at the pub out address.

Can I hand this to you guys?

Yes, please.

Usually, usually anything that comes to us there will also be sent to us again.

So it's possible that it's there or got someplace, but we'll look.

But please feel free to leave it behind.

Very good.

Thanks for your question.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for taking time out of your evening.

Kim, is are there any other folks from the public who are here this evening that would like to speak?

Okay, alrighty.

Then we will move on.

Item three on the agenda special presentations, and we do not have any special presentations tonight.

So we'll move on to item four.

Uh the next item then is the consent calendar.

Consent calendar items are considered routine and will be enacted, approved, or adopted by one motion, unless a request for removal is for discussion or explanation from a board member, excuse me, or a member of the public.

Do we have any requests from the board or a member of the public to remove an item for discussion or explanation?

Commissioner Hunter.

Yes.

Uh could we please remove item 4E 4E1?

Okay.

So we're gonna remove item 4E.

Approve Alameda Municipal Powers Definition of Low Income for Programs Funded through low carbon fuel standard credit proceeds.

Any other items that for removal?

Okay.

All righty.

So then may I please have a motion on the balance of the approving the balance of the consent calendar?

So moved.

Okay.

And we have a second.

I'll second.

Okay, so we have a motion from interim city manager Paulitzer and a second from Commissioner Hunter.

May I have a roll call vote, please?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, mission passes.

Commissioner Hunter, may I ask you to please begin the discussion on item four five four, five?

Four E.

Yes, thank you.

Um first of all, thank you to staff for the thoughtful presentation and proposal about low income definitions for the purpose of uh AMP's equity programs and Alameda.

I think that this is a long time coming and has come up before the PUB before.

And overall, I agree strongly with having our own localized definition of um equity or eligibility for equity programs that is reflecting the unique demographics and potential challenges uh that Alamedans have.

So I want to applaud the staff for looking closely at the data and coming up with a really thoughtful definition.

I just mostly had uh clarifying questions.

Um I I believe from my read that this this new definition will apply to all of the equity um eligible programs that that AMP offers.

Is that the case?

Thank you, Jared.

Uh as of now, they're gonna so this is just gonna broaden the definition that we currently have, and we're gonna make some modifications to our current program offerings.

Um specifically we're gonna look at the residential EV review charger or EV charger rebate um and our multifamily technical assistance.

Jared, can you lift the microphone just a little bit towards you?

Thank you so much.

How's that?

Yeah, that's good.

Okay.

Um our multifamily technical assistance program and our commercial EV charger rebate program.

Um this definition will also frame how we're gonna do future programs.

Um I see okay.

So this is just so will it apply to the EAP program?

Um, it will not the EAP program will be implemented into our definition uh for the news EV rebate and the EBIG rebate.

Okay, so it it will not serve as the new def the new eligibility for EAP.

It's like if you're eligible for EAP, then you're eligible for this definition.

Okay.

Um I I am curious why that decision was made.

Why why not just have the same definition for all of the equity programs at AMP?

Uh instead of having a more narrow one for EAP, which qualifies you for this one, and then this one, this definition is broader.

Yeah, so this is for LCFS spending.

Um it's very legislative focused.

Uh, our EAP program specifically deals with uh public benefits funds, so we do have to monitor that one a little bit more closely in terms of who is eligible to design specifically aimed at individuals.

This LCFS definition um aims at individuals and communities.

So that's kind of where this is coming from.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um I did also have just I was out of curiosity, you know, there's one aspect of this new definition that's like community activity centers, or I may be getting that wrong.

Um is that meant to include just the business that meets the definition or the area surrounding the business?

Or I wasn't quite sure how to interpret that.

Oh, that's a great question.

It's the actual place of business.

So the community gathering places, I think that's like community gathering.

So it would be the actual establishment.

Um then there are census tracks built into this as well.

That will encompass a little more what we're trying to look at is public charging and how to be addressed.

So when you say shopping centers, it would be every business within that shopping center.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, that that does make sense, especially for public charging.

Um, the other the only other thing I wanted to bring up, um, and I'm not proposing a change to the definition, but um just for awareness.

There I wonder if you've looked at the disadvantaged communities advisory group that is appointed by the CPUC uh every year, and it's experts in equity and low-income programs all around the state.

And their purpose is to review and make dec recommendations for equity programs, low-income programs for utilities based on changing demographics and changing concerns.

Um they they're just a great sounding board.

Um so if there's ever a question, um, I'm sure that they would be able to look at it.

Um or you could also look at the materials that they've produced and recommendations that they produce if if there's ever a need to um refine this over time.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll definitely take a look.

Thank you.

That's all I had.

Okay, are there any other questions about item 4E?

Okay, I guess not.

Uh thank you very much for all of your work on this and taking the honestly the extra time looking at more Alameda specific fixes for our community.

Um of the nice things about public power.

So thank you very much.

We appreciate the time you guys put into this.

If I can, you'll Jared will be up again, but just to introduce Jared in no longer acting supervisor but is permanently hired into the customer resources supervisor position.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

It's excellent.

Thank you very much for that update.

Appreciate it.

All righty.

Um may I have a motion, please then to approve item 4E by motion, approve Alameda Municipal Powers definition of low income for programs funded through the low carbon fuel standard credit proceeds and find the action exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act.

I so move motion from Commissioner Hunter.

Well, second.

Second from Commissioner DeVries.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, motion passes.

The next item then is item 5A from information and feedback only.

Present Alameda Municipal Power Strategic Plan revisit, community outreach survey results.

General Manager Haynes, if I may pass this on to you.

Thank you, Chair and Board.

I'm gonna ask Assistant General Manager Finance to take us through the presentation that we have for the review of customers' uh priorities that we are gonna look to be able to fold into the strategic plan that you'll have in front of you in a couple of months, as well as then just the priority setting that we'll be doing over the following years.

So thank you.

Okay.

So when we began this effort, staff initially envisioned a fairly quick strategic plan revisit, but then the board encouraged us to broaden the process and reach out to our customers.

And after you see the results tonight, we're glad we did.

We partnered with Great Blue Research.

Catherine's just about ready to conduct a strategic planning survey to better understand what AMP customers see as priorities and how they rank those priorities relative to each other.

This perspective is especially helpful as we think about how customers weigh in on trade-offs that if priority trade-offs have to be made.

And then just to clarify, this survey is specific to our strategic planning effort and is separate from the biannual residential customer survey that Great Blue presented last month.

And this effort also included focus groups.

So Catherine will be presenting both qualitative and quantitative feedback.

These results, along with the remaining outreach and input from staff in the board, are helping shape the priorities and goals in our strategic plan.

We're sharing these results now to give the board visibility into this phase of the outreach and to invite any observations ahead of the strategic plan workshop next month.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Catherine from Great Blue.

Thank you so much.

And let me get my screen shared.

Alrighty.

Great.

So yeah, just to kind of take you through some of the results from our strategic planning survey effort and uh focus groups that we conducted recently.

So really the goal of this sort of multi-pronged effort was to really get a sense of what do customer priorities look like today, both on the residential side as well as on the commercial side.

Um in the quantitative survey, we looked at um AMP's overall performance and several key metrics.

We looked at customer priorities as a whole, um, and we looked at support and the importance of things like infrastructure, renewable energy, technology, communications, employee training, and um the utilities role in the community.

And then our second phase was some qualitative focus groups.

We conducted three focus groups among residential customers throughout January.

And it was really to dive a little bit deeper into our survey results to get an understanding of why customers feel certain priorities are really most important to them compared to others, um, what customer expectations look like, um, and just get a little bit more in-depth feedback on what we um collected through the survey effort.

So our methodology snapshot, um, again, we had our digital survey, we followed it up with focus groups conducted through Zoom in January.

Um in our survey effort, we spoke to almost 700 customers, um, most of those residential 678, 18 commercial customers, and then in our three focus groups, we talked with uh 22 different um residential customers.

Uh through our quantitative survey or margin of error was a plus or minus 3.7 percent, which essentially means that if we were going to go and speak with every single AMP customer and administer the same survey to them, the results of that kind of census approach would come back somewhere within plus or minus 3.7 percentage points of the results I'm going to be sharing with you today.

Um and so we started with the quantitative research phase in um October, fielded that survey through December, and then we conducted our qualitative focus groups um on a couple different evenings in um throughout mid-January.

And then really just want to touch very briefly on our our residential demographic profile from the survey, uh, and really focusing on these kind of three areas because these were um you know, income, tenure as a customer, and the neighborhood in Alameda that customers came from were areas where we really wanted to focus on in the focus groups on getting some more participants from areas that were a little bit underrepresented in the actual survey.

So when it came to income, we were looking to speak with some lower income customers in the focus groups because we had more customers who were higher income.

We also wanted to speak with some newer customers and customers in different areas of Alameda that were less represented in the survey.

We also wanted to speak with a lot more renters and those from you know not single family homeowners, those from you know apartments, condos, et cetera, because those were also two areas that were a little bit more underrepresented in the survey.

So we wanted to make sure we covered those folks in the focus groups as well.

So getting into our case study findings, and I'm just going to skip over this page with all of the text, but this is a really good page to view if you only have a couple minutes to look at the report.

But diving into our key metrics, and many of you, you know, I know it was just here virtually a month ago to share our CMUA residential survey findings, but a lot of these characteristics are very similar to that very survey and really similar ratings that we collected through this survey as we did in that survey.

Reliability continues to be the area that customers are providing the highest ratings for AMP.

About 95% of customers gave positive ratings.

That's followed by affordability.

So those are really the top two areas that are really performing well.

But as you kind of look across this entire grid, really no areas are underperforming.

You know, if anything, we have the lowest ratings when it comes to communication and modernizing technology, and we'll dive into those a little bit later.

Um, but still, those ratings are you know a 75% or higher.

So generally speaking, positive ratings all across the board for AMP's performance.

And you'll see we have some pages in here too.

This is where we have a little bit of our qualitative findings, so some actual quotes that came out of our focus, our three focus groups.

Um, and really here, just touching on AMP's strengths, we really saw that those resonated in the focus groups as well, where a lot of customers were pointing towards the affordability of AMP's rates as well as its reliability, especially in comparison with PGE in those focus groups.

And so these results are really in line with what we saw in our quantitative survey.

Um we had a lot of folks mentioning the you know rarity of having power outages.

Um, a lot of folks had been customers for years and years and had only experienced one or two minor power outages that they could recall.

Um, some custom some folks that we spoke with had previously been customers of PG ⁇ E and were commenting on how they had far more outages back then than they do now.

And then also speaking towards the rates and kind of understanding that you know a lot of customers recognize that the rates they're paying to AMPR are significantly lower than they could be if they were a PG ⁇ E customer.

And so that really stuck out as one of the big strengths of AMP too is it's just overall affordability in comparison with surrounding IOUs.

So looking at AMP's priorities from the quantitative survey.

Um so you'll see this kind of C green bar is when we ask customers, you know, with this you know, full comprehensive list of different priorities, um, which of these are really your top priorities of the utility, and we allowed respondents to select as many priorities as were important to them.

And so overall affordability did come out as the number one priority for customers, which you would expect to see.

And that was fire followed by upgrading aging infrastructure and maintaining and improving reliability and resiliency.

So what we really saw is that affordability and reliability are kind of paramount, infrastructure sort of going hand in hand with reliability as well.

Um, and then following that question, we asked customers, you know, of those priorities that they picked as being important to them, which of those are the most important to them.

And so that's that darker green bar is you know, the percentage who said this is the most important priority for me.

And 41.8% said that keeping rates affordable is their number one priority.

Um, 18.2% said it's upgrading aging infrastructure, and then 12.4% said maintaining and improving reliability and resiliency.

So we still saw those three coming out as the top three priorities when asked to just rate your number one.

But we really do see that gap where affordability is by far the top priority for customers, and that makes sense.

It's you know, kind of the bottom line for a lot of customers.

And we saw that in the focus groups as well, which I'll get to in a moment.

But first, we looked at these different priorities broken out by the age of customers.

And so, what was interesting is that we saw more customers who are 55 years of age and older were prioritizing strengthening cybersecurity and physical security, as well as improving the overall customer service experience.

Whereas we saw more of our younger customers, those under 55 were prioritizing enhancing digital infrastructure.

So that sort of makes sense where the digital enhancements are more desired by the younger customers, things like customer service overall and speaking with physical representatives as well as cybersecurity are more important to our older customer base.

So getting more into our focus group findings, we looked at different infrastructure upgrades, and we were asking customers how important infrastructure upgrades are, and knowing that a lot of infrastructure upgrades do require some kind of a you know financial aspect and contribution from customers, meaning rate increases, how strongly customers support or oppose those types of upgrades.

And the you know, vast majority of focus group participants really felt like these investments are very important just because they do result in that reliability that a lot of customers have come to kind of expect from AMP and experience over the years.

And so it's something where a lot of customers do recognize that that is sort of a cost that's you know, a necessary cost because they obviously want to be able to have that reliable service.

We had some quotes in here too that um came up regarding tree trimming.

Um, some folks mentioned things about um underground wiring to avoid some of the hazards of storms and trees getting in the way when it comes to the power lines.

And so those were a couple of the quotes that we also had about these kinds of infrastructure upgrades that are necessary.

So this next page is looking at some key priority areas that we really wanted to pull out, and and these really being some of the top priorities because they really do align with the different pillars that are already you know, kind of part of that strategic planning development.

Um, so some key areas like upgrading aging infrastructure, investing in technology for communications and cybersecurity, investing in employee staffing, training, employee knowledge transfer, and then enhancing the customer experience through high quality customer service programs and community engagement.

And across the board, most customers do find all of these different pillars to be very important to them.

Um, really, the the highest level of importance was with respect to upgrading aging infrastructures in line with what we just saw on that last page.

Um, this is a really, you know, customers really do the view.

This is a very key priority just in kind of ensuring reliable service for them moving forward.

And that's followed by investing in technology for communications and cyber security.

So then looking at priorities when it comes to the customer experience overall.

So we had a couple of different customer service aspects that we wanted to look at in the survey.

Um, and really, again, as you see, most customers do find all these different aspects to be very important to having that positive customer service and customer experience.

Um, really, the the greatest importance is in just being responsive to questions and concerns that are coming from customers, as well as having that proactive communication about projects and outages.

We have fewer respondents say it's important that they have easy access to staff in person or by phone.

And so you do obviously have a lot of customers who prefer to interact through more kind of self-service technology like the website, different apps, things like that.

But what we saw from the focus groups is that there's still a lot of customers that really do prioritize that in-person or over-the-phone customer service experience.

Um, we have some quotes on the side here where some participants are talking about you know, being able to talk to customer service, a real human being is really helpful, especially having that kind of smaller town feel in Alameda Alameda.

The idea of having human touch and customer service is really important to a lot of customers.

And then again, customers reported being you know frustrated with technology sometimes, and it's always helpful to have that phone number where you can just call and speak with a live representative instead of having to just figure it out on your own.

So then diving a little bit more into the customer experience, some strengths and opportunities.

Um, by and large, through the three focus groups we did, um, we had really positive feedback for customer service.

Um, you know, that first quote at the top I've been blown away with the customer service of AMP.

Everything that I need to be done is done efficiently, and right then when I'm on the phone.

Um, every time I hang up, I go, wow, that was amazing.

So that really that really speaks volumes to the level of customer service.

A lot of folks saying, you know, hey, every time I contact customer service, everything's taken care of really efficiently.

I don't have to call back multiple times to have my issue answered.

They take care of it right then and there when I'm on the phone.

Um, some other folks mentioned um going to the website, and then when they have a problem with something something on the website, um calling customer service and they get it you know taken care of right away.

Um, there was one customer we had who reported having a more negative experience, but it sounds like it was a little bit of a miscommunication about um you know what what can be accomplished where.

Um and so she said, you know, she went to the office and she was looking for something that was a little bit more in-depth than paying her bill, um, but was told that she couldn't um you know do that task at this particular location.

Um, and it sounds like it was something about you know, potentially this person should have made an appointment instead of just showing up at the office for you know whatever their need or concern was.

So you know, some areas of opportunity just in kind of making sure customers know exactly what the process looks like for customer service and you know whether they need to set up an appointment or not, but um all by and large, really positive ratings for customer service, you know, both in the quantitative and the qualitative survey.

Um then, you know, here we looked at kind of the importance of community engagement too as kind of part of that customer experience.

Um so we asked in the focus groups kind of the role that AMP is playing in the community and whether folks you know recall seeing the utility at different events and and a lot of folks do recall seeing AMP at various different events.

I know some folks mentioned um Fourth of July parade and some other events when it comes to EV user events for EV users and kind of informational census that folks have attended.

And a lot of folks were mentioning that they they feel like they've seen AMP at these events, but they're not sure the value that AMP is bringing to the table when it comes to those events overall.

And some folks mentioned wanting to see things like follow-up after these events to say, you know, hey, we were at this event, and this is what we learned from our conversations with customers to kind of you know show that value that AMP is providing to the community when they're actually engaging at these different events.

So looking at support for infrastructure investments, um, we asked in the quantitative survey how strongly customers support or oppose infrastructure investments if that does mean increased rates for customers.

Overall, three-quarters of customers do support these investments.

And then we also asked about support for increased rates that would support community initiatives or capital projects that AMP is working towards.

Um nearly three-fifths of customers have a level of support for these initiatives as well.

And so looking more at the qualitative focus group findings when it comes to infrastructure investments.

Um, so here, you know, we asked customer or participants about you know specific infrastructure investments and um how strongly they support or oppose these you know types of infrastructure investments if that does mean increased rates for customers.

And so a lot of um, you know, participants did recognize that you know, hey, if we want this reliable high quality electric system, um, there's going to have to be some investments in infrastructure, and that is going to mean you know, some rate increases occurring to make these investments possible.

Um, so a lot of a lot of participants were on that side.

We did have some participants who were questioning some of the infrastructure investments, just um recognizing that there have been rate increases in the past, and so some customers were questioning you know, why haven't those rate increases gone towards any you know improvements in in um in in infrastructure?

Um, and some participants said that they'd love to know more about you know when when rate increases are occurring, um, you know, giving customers a little bit more information about what those you know rate increases are going towards.

If they're going towards infrastructure investments, customers would love to know, hey, um, you know, we had to raise rates, but this is what it went to, and um and you know, potentially there'd be greater support if they just had some higher level of awareness of of um what their you know rates are going towards.

So we look at renewables and overall support for investing in renewable energy.

Um so we asked customers to kind of prioritize you know, if they had to choose between keeping customer costs low and expanding renewables and clean energy resources, which one would they prefer the utility pursue?

And overall, we did have more customers who said they'd rather the utility keep customers low, which is what you expect to see.

We had 48.6% of customers say they prefer that.

Um but what's important to note here though is that we had um almost two-fifths, 39.2% said they'd rather the utility expand its renewable and clean energy resources.

And we've asked this type of question at a lot of different utilities across the country, and usually there's a stronger divide between keeping customers' costs low and prioritizing renewables and clean energy.

Usually there's a lot more of that preference for keeping rates low.

Um, and so you know, this was a little bit more of an even split than what we typically see.

And then we also ask customers the importance of having uh local electricity that's generated locally within Alameda versus relying on clean energy coming from outside sources.

Overall, almost 80% find it very or somewhat important to have local electric generation happening through things like solar and microgrids and other local clean energy projects.

And so we talked about renewables in the focus groups as well, and we asked about this kind of you know, difference between keeping customer costs low versus expanding clean energy.

We had, you know, again, we had a lot of customers who said they'd rather the utility prioritize keeping customer costs low, um, but also understanding that with renewable energy, there's going to be some kind of upfront costs that come with it, but that a lot of customers would rather the utility invest in those just for the sake of you know negating some of the harmful effects of climate change in the long run, which are going to end up costing a lot more for the customer.

We also had some folks speak about the importance of local electric generation versus relying on clean energy from outside sources.

A lot of folks were speaking about kind of the added costs it takes to purchase power from outside Alameda versus generating locally.

A lot of folks were talking about how they'd rather the utility prioritize local electric generation where possible through things like things like you know, more solar generation and clean energy generation within within Alameda.

And so those were a couple of those quotes at the bottom, speaking about the added costs that it takes and the fact that there's you know, kind of loss loss that occur when you're buying power from outside Alameda versus generating on your own.

And so then we looked at electrification in the focus groups, and so we had kind of mixed opinions.

We had you know generally positive perceptions of electrification across the three different focus groups.

Um we had some folks who had already purchased electric vehicles or installed solar panels at their house that that spoke about the investments they've made and how much money they've been able to save with that you know electrification, um, talking about their electric vehicles, the savings they've experienced.

Um we also we did though have some folks that were a little bit more skeptical.

Um, you know, some folks saying that they're just not in support of electrification and they're not interested in any programs that will, you know, where their rates will help subsidize electrification programs if they're not ultimately going to be participating in those programs down the road.

But that was really only a handful of participants across the three different focus groups.

By and large, most folks, even if they hadn't invested in electrification or weren't planning to were interested in seeing the utility investment electrification moving forward, just knowing it's better for the overall reliability of the grid moving forward.

So then looking more at technology investments.

So overall, over nine out of ten respondents from the quantitative survey find it important that the utility continue to modernize its technology and communications and security systems to reduce costs moving forward.

And a similar frequency, about nine out of ten finds it important that the utility continue to invest in cybersecurity to help protect customer information.

Then looking more at technology from the focus groups, we asked focus group participants about AMP's current digital platforms and to just kind of give a general assessment about their experiences using the website for bill payment and other functionality.

And overall, um, we had some customers who were saying the website gets a little bit clunky when they're on it, um, you know, having to go to a separate website for paying their bill.

Um, some customers said that they'd like to see an app where they can just pay and see their electric usage in real time more easily versus going to a second website.

Um folks spoke about the rebate tool being clunky and having it taking a little bit longer than they'd like to to go through that process.

So there were definitely some folks who mentioned wanting to see some kind of general website and and kind of app improvements to just kind of improve that customer experience moving forward.

And then looking at workforce and uh investments, again, this is what was another kind of big tier or uh pillar that we wanted to look at in the survey.

Um, overall, over nine out of ten customers do find it important that the utility invest in training and retaining skilled employees.

Um, similar frequency, almost nine out of ten find it important that the utility offer competitive salaries and benefits to retain employees as well.

Um, and we spoke a little bit more in depth on these kinds of you know investments in the focus group, and we asked, you know, how important this is, and and you know, every single person we spoke with said that it's important to continue to invest in training and retaining skilled employees, um, especially when we talk kind of from a public safety perspective of understanding, you know, we have we need to have well-trained employees at the utility to make sure that they're maintaining safe operations for the sake of um you know safe safety for customers as well.

Um, so a lot of folks recognize that retaining workers if you keep them happy, allowing them to take classes that keeps them you know, retained at the company moving forward and doing doing a really good job.

So by and large, every everyone we spoke with really did find this to be very important as well.

So kind of wrapping up with our considerations here.

So we looked at two key areas, um, two kind of main pillars that are are being you know looked at in the strategic planning efforts, and one being you know, affordability and long-term investments.

And so, you know, as we you know spoke about earlier in the presentation, affordability is definitely seen as one of AMP's top strengths, but it's also one of the number one priorities that customers have of the utility moving forward.

Um it is also an area too where um you know there's a lot of customers that recognize and understand that um investments in infrastructure sometimes are going to mean increased rates for customers, um, but there are some customers that don't necessarily see the connection between the two and um don't understand why there's a need for more um rate increases to fund um investments moving forward.

And so this kind of this consideration really focuses on kind of educating and explaining to customers um you know why you know why the rate increases are needed, um, what investments they're making, um just to make sure that there's kind of improved transparency with customers and that kind of increased uh understanding of what their rates are going towards um will help kind of you know increase acceptance as well, um linking major capital projects to specific customer relevant outcomes, showing how you know, hey, these investments help to reduce outages, um wildfire risk mitigation, long-term cost stability, things that customers will understand and and can really quantify themselves.

Um, and then um, you know, the second consideration we had was kind of focused on clean energy and local generation.

As we saw, this is also you know important for a lot of customers.

It's not necessarily one of the big um top three priorities for customers, but clean energy really did resonate um with a lot of customers.

And and you know, as we saw, while keeping customer costs low is important, there's still a lot of customers that want the uh utility to um prioritize clean energy moving forward as well.

So our recommendation here was surrounding um that kind of um you know education to customers about clean energy investments moving forward, what um the utility's priorities are in the next couple of years, the next coming years, and then focus on framing clean energy investments through that cost conscious lens because um you know, cost is still a really you know top priority for a lot of customers, and there's a lot of customers that um want the utility to focus on that more so than clean energy.

So um kind of bridging that gap between the two will be really is a really effective approach to take.

Um, and then showing um, you know, using future uh planning communications to show how clean energy and local generation fit into that kind of broader strategy about um infrastructure and resiliency moving forward um really shows um customers the importance of making these clean clean energy investments as well.

Um so that takes us through to the end.

Um to open up things up to any questions that folks have at this time.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Um before we get to questions from the board, I'm gonna ask if there's any member of the public who would like to speak to this item.

Do we have any emails from members of the public?

If you're joining us via web conference, you may use the raise hand button on your screen to indicate that you would like to speak.

If you're joining us via telephone, you may use uh star five to indicate a raised hand.

Okay.

Um please note chat window and the web meeting is not monitored.

Okay, then seeing no other speakers, I will close public comment and I will now open discussion to the board.

Interim City Manager, yes.

Oh, I don't know what okay, sorry.

No, I am impressed with the uh presentation.

I don't have any questions, but impressed with that impressed with the uh material.

Yeah.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Um I had two questions.

Um the first was about the demographics of the respondents in the um these are they seem a little older and more wealthy than the average Alameda citizen.

So at what point do you say that you have good coverage of the demographics of Alameda versus one that's pretty close and that that's pretty good too?

Um versus it's too far off.

We need to get more respondents.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, and that's part of why we wanted to use the the two-pronged approach because um we do, you know, when we send our surveys out, we're um you know, we're emailing all customers, and so we're taking everything that we can get back.

Um, and then you know, sometimes you know, our surveys do tend to lean towards um, you know, those who have the technology to take the survey, but also um, you know, we tend to get a lot of older uh customers, and I know I spoke about this last time because we have the same exact thing happen with our other um CMUA residential survey as well.

And so um that was really part of what we wanted to do with the focus groups is get a little bit of those younger customers too, and um and and you know, consequently, what we ended up with in the focus groups is some of our um younger customers, lower household incomes, uh more renters, um, more um more customers from you know townhouses and and apartments and you know, not from single family homes.

And while obviously in the focus groups, you're only speaking to you know 20 or so participants instead of you know 700 customers, you know, you still get a lot more feedback from those 22 customers because they're you know able to, you know, you're we're talking with um you know eight to ten customers at a time, and so each customer is able to provide a lot more feedback than they would have in the survey.

And so um that was why we chose to do that.

Um, you know, take the the approach we did with the focus groups is that you know, we saw some pockets that were a little bit underrepresented in the survey, and we wanted to make sure we were really reaching those folks and getting their priorities.

Um was interesting to see is that we did have um, you know, even within the focus groups themselves, you know, we ended up with one focus group that had um, you know, entirely low income customers, and so for them affordability was was really at the top of you know priorities, and they were you know less so prioritizing things like clean energy.

Um whereas you know, in another focus group we had a little bit more of a mix, and so um you saw, yeah, affordability was important, but we had some folks in that group who already had EVs, for example, and so there were different um perspectives that folks had as well.

So um that's a great question, and and yeah, that's why we chose to take the approach we did because we didn't want to just settle with, you know, hey, we have this quantitative survey and we had some great data from it, but we recognized that there were some pockets that we were kind of missing um and were underrepresented, so we wanted to use the focus group to kind of hear from those um those you know groups as well.

Okay.

And um, my second question is um on the slides that talk about renewables, and that uh the it seems the question was posed uh do people favor keeping costs low or expanding clean energy?

Um this basically equates to that you think that clean energy is more expensive.

And is there a study that you can point to that says that clean energy is more expensive than fossil fuels federally or here in California?

Yeah, I think what we were really aiming for with that question was to get a sense of you know, if there is a trade-off between the two, you know, understanding that a lot of clean energy investments do require um, you know, increased customer rates um to fund these different initiatives, knowing that you know, do you prioritize you know not having these investments and just keeping customer rates the way they are, or would you be interested in, you know, hey, if we make this, you know, XYZ investment in clean energy whatever it is, hey, there might be this potential rate increase that needs to happen.

So um it was looking a little bit more at like if if there was a trade-off, um, which would you pick essentially?

I understand that if it's a theoretical trade-off, that's true.

Um, however, here in Alameda, we have 100% clean energy and some of the lowest costs and lowest rates.

So it's it's not been true for our island or for California.

Clean energy is generally a very good deal, and it's not something that we have to pay more for.

So I uh reject the premise and uh that it's a question that should be posed uh to our ratepayers.

Commissioner Hunter.

Yeah, thank you.

Um thanks again for the great presentation.

And it was heartening to see such positive responses from customers, especially around uh the key topics that people thought were most important affordability, reliability, and clean energy also gained by and large uh high marks from customers.

So that was really confidence building for me.

And I also appreciate Great Blues thoroughness and uh going out of your way to interview renters and lower income customers and and perhaps some of the harder to reach customers.

Uh Catherine, you partially answered one of the questions that I had, but uh since you did say that there was a focus group that was primarily low-income customers, uh you also mentioned not surprisingly that affordability was of key importance to that group or enhanced importance.

Um were there other issues that you saw or trends from that group that differed from the overall average or from the other focus groups?

Yeah, so what we really saw that came out of that one is that you know, again, affordability was the top priority.

We still saw that reliability and infrastructure were numbers two and three.

Um but what we did see is that there was less emphasis on things like electrification and clean energy in those groups, and there was a little bit less of the connection drawn between, you know, hey, affordability is the utmost priority, but kind of that recognition of you know, hey, there may need to be increased rates to fund infrastructure investments, and that was less of a um priority for for that group, um, where it was more so you know, the focus was just on affordability overall.

And and a lot of folks in that group kind of saw the clean energy or electrification and um investments as being more of um a nice to have versus a need to have, um, and something that you know a lot of folks said, you know, hey, I recognize that this is something a lot of other customers want to pursue, but for me in my household, this isn't you know something that's really in the cards.

And so that's where you saw some differences whereas the other two groups that we focused on again we did have folks that were already investing in EVs and solar and things like that.

There was more of a kind of positive sentiment towards clean energy overall and more of that kind of recognition too of you know a lot of folks in those groups actually put um reliability and infrastructure as the top two priorities and then affordability afterwards even though again affordability was always one of the top three priorities it was just um you know recognize that you know reliability is really the most important thing because we need to have our lights on all the time.

So that's where we saw some differences in there but we were really focused on we we really wanted to see you know if um there was any kind of variation in those top five priorities and that's where you saw a little bit was um just in you know those numbers one through three um based on whether folks were kind of lower lower versus kind of medium to higher household income.

Okay.

Thank you thank you for outlining that I I appreciate it.

I also had some questions about the way that the survey was designed and I I agree with Commissioner DeVries that we should not be creating a trade-off or implying a trade-off when there may not be one between clean energy and affordability necessarily I also wonder did we ask the focus groups just any open-ended feedback about programs.

I know they give us a lot of feedback about digital platforms but I'm curious if anyone said something about you know hey here's a a gap in the programming or I'd really like a program that focuses on XY or Z anything like that.

Yeah um one that came to mind actually was a customer who already has solar panels and he was speaking about kind of his experience having um solar panels with AMP and and I believe he said that he's actually had the panels for about 12 years.

And he was talking about um he had some concerns about like is he actually saving money in the long run and he felt like he personally he he he wasn't really sure if he was save saving money in the long run and one of his kind of um I guess complaints if you will was wanting to see a little bit of like a price comparison for him in particular of you know hey this is what you would be paying if you didn't have solar and this is what you're paying because you have solar so that he could really clearly see oh yeah this is exactly how much money I'm saving because to him it wasn't clear if he was saving money or not or how much money he was saving.

So not specific to a program necessary with necessarily but that was sort of like a user experience type of um of thing that we saw in kind of that clean energy space.

When it came to the website overall yeah we had some folks who were mentioning like challenges with um applying for rebates um through the website um but we didn't have anyone who brought up in the focus groups any particular programs or you know other specific kind of user experience things but that um one one gentleman with the um solar did stand out as kind of um not not so much of a critique but just wanting a little bit more in the way of like resources and um information on his bill when it comes to solar.

Okay.

Yeah that's that's good you bring that up that was actually another I thought that I had when I was looking at all of these results is the feedback that we're getting from customers highlights some potential areas and opportunities for education that I think AMP has.

So one of those could be something like a solar payback tool or calculator or maybe even linking to some of the public tools and calculators that are out there already.

Another one is about local generation I know people are very interested in local generation.

It may be interesting to tell them you know why do we buy geothermal power from Northern California and solar from the Central Valley and hydro from the way northern parts of the state um you know and sort of education educating them about what is possible what is actually possible here locally.

Right.

Absolutely so that that could be interesting for the website or maybe future community meetings.

Definitely sorry I have so many questions but I'm reaching the end of questioning.

Yeah yeah so our you know unfortunately we we only had 18 um commercial respondents so um you know only only so much you can say with that batch and and you know one of our kind of recommendations moving forward might be to kind of look at that commercial audience a little bit more but what we did see is their prioritize priorities were really in line with um with residential customers where you saw that you know affordability and reliability were still really paramount.

And so um things like power outages are going to have much more of an impact.

Um, whereas affordability is going to be less of a um, you know, not not like it's not a priority for commercial customers, but a little bit less so because they're really thinking about kind of their own bottom line as well.

So um that was you know where we saw a little bit of that delineation, but um by and large, the kind of the trend was very similar, but again, we're speaking to you know to 18 commercial customers, and so um we'd love to be able to have kind of a more robust um sampling to really fully understand um you know what that what those commercial customers think and feel.

Yes, and I I may have missed it in your slides, but uh did you get a range of business sizes and business industries in your survey?

Yeah, both.

So yeah, so so for business, and we didn't actually have that slide in here, um, but you know, in in the full report, we we have a little bit of insight into that.

So we had a pretty good range of having some kind of um larger sized um businesses, but also some smaller, and then um, you know, pretty pretty good range of of different industries too that were were represented, um, even though as much as you can have in 18 respondents.

Um so yeah.

Yeah, uh definitely something to look at for future surveys.

I wonder if we could get kind of a maybe even by rate class, but uh a larger group for a focus group, a larger uh commercial customer group and a smaller commercial customer group.

Absolutely.

Um we've um and and you know, we'd recommend that approach too of looking at some of the qualitative and and breaking them out by size.

And and one thing we've also done in the commercial space because with other utilities is you know, sometimes it's hard to get a lot of commercial customers in the same room at the same time for a focus group.

So we've done some like one-on-one interviews with a lot of businesses um before as well, and you can use kind of a similar script too.

Um you're just speaking one-on-one, and maybe it's like a half hour interview that you're doing with someone, um, but that can be a good way, and we can even set up quotas too where, you know, hey, we want to make sure we're talking to a certain number of businesses within this rate class or this size, or or you know, these industries that are really key.

And so um that's definitely uh an approach we can take.

Yeah.

Thanks.

And just last comment uh the digital platforms questions.

Um I'm I'm glad that people took the time to give AMP some feedback there.

And I think that this is definitely something to dig into a little bit more for our strategic planning and future investments because increasingly, and I think rapidly, um, at least in my lifetime and my my working lifetime, um, it's become the standard that customers expect to do everything on a digital platform and do it easily and even do complicated things, whether it's banking or insurance or utilities, that's just become the standard.

So it's it's not a trend anymore.

Um so that's something that we should really listen to and especially dig into the areas where people specifically say that they have had trouble.

Um and I'm really grateful to our customer team who I think have have been shepherding people along and and maybe smoothing out some of the bumpy parts, but uh we should look into those bumpy parts and see maybe where we need to to upgrade digitally.

So I'll I'll end there.

Um but thank you again, Catherine.

Absolutely, my pleasure.

Okay, thank you.

Um Catherine, uh a few questions here as well.

Um first off, kudos to our customer services team and to everybody at AMP who um is customer facing because clearly we got a lot of wonderful feedback that um you know you guys do good work and you're respected and people have good interactions.

And I think I I uh particularly the comment that even if things don't go your way, there's a real person there.

And I would also put myself in the camp of I like talking to real people.

With that said, even though I am in the the older demographic as we call ourselves apparently, or other people call us, um I too am like waiting for an app that I can use, because like everybody I am chained to my phone and um and have used gotten used to that.

With all that said, I also recognize there is a risk of being an earlier adopter and as a municipal utility, we aren't usually the first off the cliff.

We kind of watch and make sure that everybody has landed safely before we invest our citizens' money and computer systems, it seems like they are constantly and forever changing.

So I do think we're trying to find a balance with that.

But um, but kudos to the team.

Let's just stay with that.

Um I think we also got good feedback that we need to sharpen our messages, and um, and that's good for us to hear back.

You know, make sure that we really do have a reason while we're there.

And I think most of the time we do.

Uh uh when we've heard from staff who goes out to different community events, usually it's we're talking about rebates, we're talking about EVs, we're talking about electrification, and um but it's always good feedback, right?

And but it's always good feedback, right?

It's what their customer perceives versus what we think.

So it feedback is is a good thing.

Affordability versus clean energy, this is another thing that may I just interject.

Yes, please.

These are not for today's issues.

These are for anticipated future issues.

So that that question makes more sense when you put it in that context of some of the legislative changes that are coming and the way we have to report our power portfolio.

And we'll of course touch on all this during the workshop if we next.

Well, and then that's the you know, that is actually one of the harder things to explain to folks is like rates change, for instance.

Rates, but that's one thing that we know rates will change and legislation will change, and things that we have to follow will change.

And we're a smaller utility, and so generally speaking, stuff that happens to the bigger utilities eventually will trickle down to us.

And so for instance, the the whole question about your solar investment.

I believe the responsibility for that really lies on the person who pitched sold, however you want to say, you know, that solar investment to that person.

I I don't necessarily expect that my um my local utility is going to tell me that.

But with that said, over 18 years, utility rates are going to change.

And with that said, if this is something and we can point people to the right tools because we know where to find them, then by all means, again, that's the difference between us being a muni utility and working with our citizens.

If this is something that is needed, and if this is something that the tools exist, then let's point them that way.

Right?

What we can't control is overall policies at the state level.

We can't control necessarily our overall rate trends.

But um, but again, this is another one of these things where um the perception of something is the reality in people's minds.

We knowing more intimately what goes on here, know that we can provide 100% clean power and have high uh reliability and affordability.

But this is how it's perceived, then this is a a message that we need to get out in the future and as we look as we look forward.

Um I guess I was curious when customers were talking, Catherine, about rebates and not wanting to fund electric, whether it's rebate programs through rates or um electrification, were they did they understand or was that clarified that those are two different buckets and that's actually not part of our rates?

Yeah, I I think you know, to be honest, I think we had you know one or two customers who were a little bit on the you know, I'm never going to invest in electrification, so why should I be paying for someone else too?

And I'm not sure if they're necessarily you know aware that that's not what they're doing.

Okay.

Um but we did it, we did explain that to them afterwards.

But you know, we very much like our approach with focus groups is to kind of ask the general questions, see what the initial feedback is, and then um, you know, we can use it as an educational opportunity too to kind of guide people in the right direction.

But you're always going to have a couple people in the focus group who are very you know made up on what their opinion is and they're like, you know, no electrification, but I I really think it was you know, probably about two people that we had um who were more against it, and it was mostly because you know they themselves didn't see themselves ever investing in electrification, whereas we had some other folks who were who said they were interested in electrification, but um they just didn't see it as being something in the cards for them just based on the you know expense that it would mean for their household.

So there was kind of a difference between the two that were like opposed where some were not opposed to electrification, they just didn't see themselves doing it.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Was there any discussion of other types of clean of sorry, was there any discussion of types of clean energy?

Like Commissioner Hunter was talking about some of the different types of clean energy, like you know, the geothermal power, which has to come from Northern California, hydro that we get, um, which again, you know, has to come from places where there's hydro facilities, things like that.

Was there an understanding that that AMP doesn't just buy solar that we have a diverse portfolio?

Yeah, so again, we we kind of left those questions to be a little bit more open-ended.

We wanted to see, you know, hey, when we say clean energy, what do you think of?

And and by and large, and sort of what you would expect is that most people do just think solar.

Um, and so yeah, we didn't really get too much into in-depth into you know what AMP's portfolio looks like today.

Um, but that is something I'll say that you know, most customers that you know we've talked to from from all different utilities don't necessarily have a lot of awareness of what their utilities portfolio looks like right now when it comes to renewables, and a lot of customers just assume you're talking about solar when you talk about renewables.

Um some think that you're talking about wind as well.

Um but you know, we've done a lot of these surveys before where you know terms like hydroelectric and um and um geothermal are still not um you know a lot of customers aren't as familiar with those terms.

They may have heard of them, but they don't really know um too much in depth about them.

Um, same as when you venture into like the area of nuclear, a lot of customers um aren't sure, um aren't sure about that as well for for other reasons, but um, but yeah, we didn't we didn't have um you know uh in the focus groups at least an explanation of um you know what what the power supply looks like right now and kind of assessing that we wanted to keep the clean energy to more general when you think of general clean energy investments, what's your level of support for those?

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Um I'm gonna stop there because my colleagues have asked many, many good questions.

And I also want to say um AGM Alderson, thank you very much for hearing us when we asked you guys to go out and talk to customers about the strategic plan and get their input.

Um this is very useful and very helpful, and I really appreciate the fact that you guys took these extra steps.

And Catherine, thank you very much for joining us and spending your time with us this evening and um helping us out.

You're very welcome.

My pleasure.

Thanks, Catherine.

Chair, I I I think that um the um we owe you thanks for recommending that we um reach out to the to the customers and take their pulse.

And I think that as a result, what we're gonna have is uh a much richer um strategic plan that we're gonna be able to present and discuss uh with you in these coming months.

So thank you.

Thanks for on behalf of myself and my colleagues.

Appreciate that.

Appreciate that.

Um is there anything else on this item that we have?

Just as stated in the AR, there is one more outreach element forthcoming between now and the workshop, and that will hopefully will address the commercial, the gap in commercial customers and other stakeholders.

So there's still a little bit more outreach going on, and you know, and all the feedback today has been extremely benefit beneficial for putting together a solid presentation next month.

So I appreciate all of that.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, well, this item is information only, so there's no action that we need to take.

Okay, so then we'll move on to item 5B.

Also, for information only, it's a summary of the 10-year financial pro forma analysis.

General Manager Haynes, gonna pass this to you again, please.

Thank you, Chair and Board.

I'm gonna turn this over to acting AGM Harbottle.

Um, what it'll provide is the forecast for our revenues, our expenses, as well as then the capital outlay, and give you insight into the uh financial uh uh stability of the organization.

And um this is gonna be useful as we're you know moving forward further into the strategic planning work as well as in the budget that is gonna um shortly follow.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, President McKenna, members of the board uh tonight here to present on AMP's 10-year pro forma.

Just a little overview.

Uh, we'll get into the background, uh, we'll go uh in the methodology, go over some of the results and drivers and drive right into recommendations and next steps.

Uh so just background the pro forma is you know really just a projection of AMP's financial balance sheet over the next 10 years and provides information to help drive decisions in the short and long term to cover increasing costs and meet financial guidelines.

Um, some of those decisions may be around uh budget adjustments or rate increases or you know, identifying future needs for debt financing.

So the first step to develop the revenue requirements, uh and this is from really preliminary budgets uh and by revenue requirement uh just costs.

Uh really the first step for this the first step was uh in this process with the load forecast back in January.

So the load forecast is used here as an input to the power costs.

Uh we work with NCPA in the power costs.

There's both NCPA plant costs, there's our contract costs, uh, and then there are projections that you know we've layered in that represent some of the contracts that we will have to get in the future to you know round out the portfolio.

And we try to uh you know, we've we've updated those costs with sort of the latest we've seen in the market.

Uh you know, moving on from there, labor services and materials, another healthy chunk of our budget.

Uh debt service, we still have uh some um you know low amounts of existing debt service uh transfers to the city, and then our capital projects, which you know refer to as SIP for uh the rest of the presentation.

All right, step two.

So we've identified the costs, and now uh it's identifying the revenue side.

And so again, uh the load forecast identified the sales for the next 10 years.

That that provides a baseline for what our revenues will be.

Um then you know, in terms of other uh sources of funding, again debt, uh the ProFormat does consider additional debt offerings in the outer years uh for capital improvement, and then operating, finally we have operating reserves and designated reserves, both of which uh the Proforma considers uh and utilizes for funding.

And just to call out what our designated reserves are that is renewable energy credit, cap and trade, now cap and invest, our underground utility funding, and low carbon fuel standard.

Uh these designated reserves are uh restricted to funding specific projects.

And finally, step three uh determine the rate increases to cover increasing costs and maintain consistency with AMP's financial guidelines and rate making policy.

So, you know, making sure those uh costs and revenues are converging.

All right, so key drivers and assumptions.

Let me just catch up here.

Um so we have this uh we show you know this whole presentation each time at this table, and I just want to be clear what we're all looking at.

So, you know, last year we presented projections, and so what we're looking at is last year's projections for fiscal year 27 versus our you know now current projections for fiscal year 27.

So we're looking at the same year, fiscal year 27, just sort of this is kind of an early check of how things might have changed uh since the last time uh we provided projections.

Uh then we we've broken down you know the by key categories here.

So across the bottom four uh labor material services, non-operating expenses, debt services, and transfer to the city, you know, we're we're relatively in line with last year.

Uh just calling out non-operating expenses is the funding of our UUD reserves.

Um, where things have changed, power costs, uh, you know, a couple drivers here were you know, we've essentially dropped off uh all resource adequacy sales um you know, just between the prices and amounts.

It's just uh a very small figure.

We had we had projected a step down, and you know, so this is sort of the last year where you know now it's moving forward, you know, it's it can't go lower.

Um and then capital costs, you know, this is a big number here for difference.

Uh you know, I'll step into this next slide here.

You know, a number of those projects are continuations of projects that were previously budgeted for fiscal year 26.

And so you're seeing them again.

We have taken them out of the expected spending in fiscal year 26 uh within the Proforma, and they're shown here as budgeted.

So uh continuing the PGE fiber upgrade project, uh, this is a big one.

Um assistant general manager knee is still working on conversations with PGE about this project.

Uh we've continued work on undergrounding and you know, some of our again more work on outage management system as well as important substitution upgrades and distribution work.

Uh labor materials and services with labor.

Uh we have you know made it through uh the MOUs for the bargaining units, uh, but there was a salary equity study that was identified as part of employee retention efforts, and so that study is underway and with impacts to labor costs yet to be determined.

Uh services, um this is covering everything from our uh customer programs largely funded by designated reserves, uh substation transformer maintenance, customer bill assistance, as well as fiber network maintenance that we do for the city.

And uh like I alluded to earlier, uh similar to last year, we do have a placeholder in 2032, sort of far out in the budget, where we expect um large expenses towards upgrades, either upgrades or additional substation uh for AMP system.

Jumping into the more detailed results and analysis.

Uh here we have a uh 10-year revenue requirement projection.

So the dotted line represents the net uh net revenue requirement.

So this is after designated reserve spending.

And the top of the bar chart is just in includes designated reserve spending.

Uh if you compare with last year, uh this is a little bit higher than last year.

Uh and this includes some of those of the items we we talked about earlier.

Uh, but I do want to call your attention to a couple parts of the chart.

You know, I think so.

The you know the if everyone can see color here, uh the uh capital spending in the first two years, um, you know, these are these are big numbers.

Um, you know, we do show that trailing off over time.

Um but again, these are kind of preliminary budgets where we you know have more information available about the earlier years than we do the later years.

Uh and then uh you know, the bottom two bars are power cost and transmission.

And we have been seeing increasing estimates for transmission costs, and we also have increasing estimates for power costs over last year.

Um balanced a little bit by some uh slightly higher uh sales and revenues that uh we're expecting.

All right, so this is this is what I consider to be the kind of main takeaway of the Proforma.

Um, you know, last year we heard your feedback around uh you know some of the projected rate increases and the state of our metrics versus the metric targets.

Uh in particular the more binding metric, uh the days of operating reserves.

And you know, so as a result, uh in this pro forma, we've we've proposed a flat rate create increase schedule uh and larger draws from reserves uh in the early years, uh drawing down operating reserves closer to uh the financial target.

Uh so you know, as you can see, this is uh we're we're showing a 3% rate increase target across the period.

Um you know, this keeps our brings our days of operating reserves down closer to 145 days, which is the target.

Um but we'd still like to be slightly above, and there will be more uh work on that in the strategic plan and later initiatives.

Uh and then just to you know call out again operating reserves does not include uh designated reserves.

Um from there uh just highlighting sort of long existing AMP policies, uh financial guidelines and rate making policy, uh really designed to avoid rate spikes in any typical year and maintain good financial standing um, you know, both in response to potential debt offerings, but also you know, more resilient in when you're encountering unexpected expenses or events.

Uh so you know the the main targets uh keeping rate increases below 5% a year, below or equal to 5% a year, uh maintaining a 1.75 debt coverage ratio minimum.

This at this point, you know, with the limited uh debt that AMP carries is not a significant you know metric for us.

Uh and then the the more binding metric, as I uh said earlier, 145 days of operating reserves.

Uh so highlighting some of the next steps, uh April 20th board meeting, uh you'll see the strategic plan workshop, uh budget workshop, as well as when we uh uh propose our rate adoption for fiscal year 27.

Then June 15th, there is the uh adoption of the fiscal year 27 final budget as well as the adoption of the strategic plan, and July 20th is the proposed adoption of the strategic implementation plan.

And with that, happy to take questions.

Alrighty, thank you very much.

Um acting AGM Harbottle.

Um may I ask first, are there any members of the public who are here who would like to speak to this item?

Javier Gonzalez.

Okay.

And also if there's anybody else, if you can go ahead and fill out whatever the form is first or register in the interest of time, that would be great.

Thank you.

Mr.

Gonzalez, again, welcome.

Yeah, thank you, everyone.

This is my first meeting here.

I just retired.

I you know, just kind of figuring out what our government is doing.

And then and thank you so much.

I'm uh support the the results.

I'm happy with electrical service and you know uh basically concur with everything, not everything, but most of it.

A question on the capital outlay um cost.

What is driving the capital outlay?

Is it the need for infrastructure uh maintenance, or is it our need for future energy?

How much energy does Alameda use?

And what are the projections for energy use over the next 10 years?

Looks like it's mostly in your bailiw.

Congratulations on your retirement.

Thank you.

Um that's a great question.

So on the capital side for this upcoming fiscal year, what's being proposed and as a budget, about half of it has to do with system reliability and asset replacement.

So you know, AMP is not getting any younger, and we want to continue to provide affordable, reliable, clean energy to our customers.

And in order to do that, we have to responsibly invest in our infrastructure.

So a good chunk of the 22.7 million dollars, about half of it is exactly that.

So some examples include substation transformer replacement, uh distribution system re reconductoring, overhead switch replacement, capacitor upgrades.

Uh we also have our uh we are due for our 10-year poll inspection.

So we are going to go around uh and inspect a repo.

And what we do is we rank them, whether it's a high priority replacement or maybe we can't wait.

So that's the about half of the capital in FY27.

A little bit of that is the undergrounding program, so we're gonna continue.

Um with UUD or Underground Utility District Program 38, that's currently in progress.

After the substructure is completed by our contractor, that's currently ongoing.

Uh, there's the cable installation that will be done by AMP staff.

I have staff who are very excited to continue that work.

Uh we also have uh service conversion that we have to do before we can energize.

And of course, we have to work with our partners, ATT and Comcast, uh, for the eventual retiring of those polls.

So that's about four million dollars.

System protection and grid modernization, about 7.5 million dollars is going to that.

What is that?

That well, that is the line current differential protection between Jenny and Station J that we uh discussed and or presented to you in January.

So we have two substations here, and those are Cartwright and Jenny.

And so if you would have been here a couple months ago, we put a very interesting, not at all dry, interesting discussion, but about the engineering side of this.

And by the way, just for perspective, that was my first day of work that I was privileged to receive my first assignment from my board members.

Um so that's about 7.5 was originally budgeted for this current fiscal year, but the board has some very good questions.

We are uh engaging, we have been engaging with FERC tariff uh experts, including our on-call consultant as well as very helpful and my new best friend in NCPA uh for their opinion.

We are we have as per board direction in January engaged uh senior leadership at PGNE.

Um just recently sent a follow-up.

They went a little bit quiet after the first email.

It's don't worry, I'm very persistent.

They will probably receive weekly follow-up until someone responds to me.

Um so that one kind of was budgeted for this year, but is now moved uh to the to the next fiscal year.

But we're hoping that amount will be reduced.

7.5 million dollars is I don't want to throw PGNE under the bus.

It's for PGE.

And we're hoping that they will return with a cost that's a little bit more that I can fully defend with my board that yes, this is the final cost from PGE.

So that's a good chunk of our capital budget, FY27.

And of course, um customer growth and new development, it's about 1.5 million dollars, and that's to support, as you mentioned, what is the what is the demand, right?

This is to support new low growth and development project.

Um we can continue to provide timely service to the expending load in our city.

And last but not least, 2.4 million dollar is for long lee items.

We like to begin procurement for those.

Some of them do take a very long time.

So even though they might not be a project that's going to be executed in FY27, because of long lead time, we want to make sure that we begin the procurement process.

So that's about 2.4 million dollar.

So if you're doing the math, it should add up.

Thank you.

Do we have any other public comment?

Um I'm curious of the capital investment.

I'm not quite sure how to who to direct this question to, but of the capital investment that's planned.

Um have we looked at the investment in those, for example, substation expansion to to meet the peak peak low growth.

Have we looked at sort of alternative of meeting those goals that are about like investing in resilience like you know, local battery deployments?

So just have we looked at alternatives for those capital investments.

I'll I'll answer this first only because assistant general manager Lee, as she said, only got here in January.

The answer to your question is this will these will be things we will look at.

This these are the kinds of questions that we've also asked her predecessor and the person who is sitting in in that position.

So the way that you know, as you know, with like basic things with electricity, the further you are from the substation.

It's like I say, like if you have a water hose and you turn it on and then you drive 10 miles away, it's maybe not as effective as if you live right next door to where the the tap is.

At some point, we may just have to build another substation because we have two, one on the west end, one that is between here and like on the way.

I'm sorry, we're not at AMP right now, we're at City Hall.

It's still behind me, but um on the other side of Park Street still, right?

So it's still um there's nothing on the east side, there's nothing on Bay Farm.

So if you're on Bay Farm, you are getting towards the end of the water hose.

And at some point, at some point, maybe we need to make a change.

However, our first question, my colleagues, I cannot take any credit for this, was also what about other types of technologies?

So as we get closer to the time frame where we seriously have to look at are we going to build another substation or other technologies?

We will ask those questions.

We're considering those questions.

As you know, the technology is also kind of going rapidly right now when it comes to battery energy storage.

So I'm hopeful, just as I'm hopeful that somebody will come up with like fake cartilage that will help my knees in the future, that maybe the technology will be there, right?

Um but we'll know.

But we are that's an excellent question.

And um on your behalf, we will continue to ask these questions of our staff as well.

And assistant general manager um Neele is our is in charge of engineering and operations who spoke a moment ago.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

All righty, thank you very much for the public comments.

This is nice.

We don't get this very often.

This is a treat for us as well.

Um may I open then the oh nope, wait, wait, wait.

Um, is there um do we have any emails from anyone uh members of the public?

Okay.

Um if you're joining us at the web teleconference, use raise hand button on your screen to indicate you'd like to speak.

If you're joining us by telephone, you just hit star five to indicate a raised hand.

Uh remote uh public speakers, uh chat window is not monitored.

Okay, then seeing no other speakers, I'd like to open up comments to the board, please.

Uh Commissioner Hunter.

Um thank you.

Uh so my my comments on the financial pro forma are fairly brief.

Thank you for the thorough presentation.

Um I was pleased to see the um that with a three percent rate increase per year that right now we're predicting that we can uh meet successfully meet our metrics or more than meet our metrics, and also tackle some of these big projects that we know are coming.

Of course, as we get closer to some of those future years, we're going to have to refine.

But I like that we are uh trying and working out ways to stick by our commitment to not raise rates more than five percent a year.

Um I know that that's something that's very important to customers and that they've grown to expect.

Of course, there have been exceptions in the past, but um overall it looks good.

Um I I also appreciate just the calling out of those metrics that we are currently using, the 145 days of reserves and the 1.75x uh debt service ratio.

It so and I've commented on this in the past, and I know that my colleagues have.

And the nature of my comment is not necessarily that we should be using more reserves, although I don't think that that's a bad thing.

It's more that we need to look at the appropriateness of those metrics and and determine whether they're really appropriate.

Because it seems like we have been overshooting them deliberately uh for a very long time.

So you know, I'm wondering is you know, is it is it really the right direction to go to use more reserves and get closer to 145 days, or is it just that 145 days wasn't enough?

Um and I don't know the answer to that question, but I I think that that's that's really kind of the questions that we should be asking ourselves as we get into the strategic plan.

And it also seems that in years past and in this projection, we are way higher than 1.75 uh debt service ratio.

That it it doesn't seem to land comfortably to with anyone to to get near that 1.75 debt service ratio.

So that's the one that I'm really looking at where I think we may need to take a look at that and and and update our metrics.

Um overall, you know, no no other specific uh issues with with the report.

And um I was actually happy to hear the the PG and E update too um as a response to the public comment.

So uh thanks for that.

That's all I had.

Anyone else?

Commissioner DeVries?

Um thank you, Mr.

Hardabottle, for uh uh addressing us and creating this report uh for the members of the public.

Um this is uh uh uh uh being able to look out 10 years is very important.

Um and uh this annual ritual um is something that informed me as a uh energy executive, how to act um and and telegraph out many years what's going on so we don't have to make emergency decisions.

Um and that is of the utmost uh importance, and that's what I see here in this report.

A thoughtful lookout for many years as to what we see is coming.

What are things that we need to do, what are our priorities.

Um as a member of public, this is how I used to learn about how uh our utility uh works.

Um things that I really like are your telegraphing uh what's out there, and that um you're now showing a 3% uh rates per year going forward, which is more in line with um what I think is appropriate.

I uh can understand that rates are more than inflation sometimes, but want to see that we are steering towards inflation and not letting the winds uh take the ship to wherever it goes, but we lean into the rudder and we we carve our own course.

Um I do like seeing that there's a capital reserve in here.

I think it's something I asked for last year, and then that's way how we can spend for the emergencies or for the big ticket items.

Um so I like seeing that.

And um simply to telegraph some more of my thoughts on uh the capital spend.

Uh we currently have a 63 megawatt peak um load.

Um average load is around 30 megawatts.

Um we have four transformers that uh give us 220 megawatts peak.

So we're um usually at a 30 percent peak load is at 30 percent of our substations.

That is a super good uh loading uh to have, um, particularly that we have 40-year-old transformers.

Um in their replacement, which is uh will be needed in the future.

I'd advise looking at buying one spare, one brand new transformer for as much as they cost for uh however long it takes, one to two years to get one, and then um sequentially replacing each transformer and perhaps reforming the old transformer so that we can uh one, you're not doing five, four at once.

That's a big lift on the budget and for the workers out in the field, but that you can do one learn from it and repeat on down through the transformers, and um should uh allow for um you know subsequent outages of each transformer and do it economically.

Um so those are my thoughts on that.

Thanks.

No, I I no other comments other than uh thank you for the presentation.

Um and I would echo what I've heard uh healthy tenure forecasts and predictable, um, which I think is is also very helpful.

Okay, thank you.

Um I just have a a couple of questions to add to that.

Um Snowpack is not doing great, sadly.

Um we had another big storm, but the snowpack, last thing I saw was like at 48%.

And I'm kind of wondering do we have any you know, spider census tingling about what we might be facing as far as you know, maybe increases if we don't get as much hydro as we forecasted.

Um it's a great question.

You're absolutely right about where we stand.

You know, we've seen that NCPA hydro uh is a little bit resilient.

You know, it takes a year or two to sort of where you really start to feel more of the pinch in megawatt hours, but yeah, expect a little bit of reduction in this year, and then it's typically Western where you'll see kind of more immediate impacts in some in terms of yeah, reduced output.

Um so yeah, some slight um, yeah, probably short-term purchases to to make up for those shortfalls.

Okay, and then really just dependent upon what usage looks like as far as what the weather um we are again for the members of the public, we're a very different utility.

I I always joke with everybody that's 63 degrees all year round.

Clearly it wasn't today.

But um we don't have a lot of air conditioning load, mostly because you walk into a lot of old residential buildings, there is no air conditioning.

So we will peak in the winter.

We will use winter heating.

Um we have more people putting air conditioning into their homes now, interestingly enough.

Um so we will see this kind of you know level out.

But if we end up with a super cold year, even for Alameda, together with a sparser hydro year, those are the kinds of things that as we look at you know, best case, worst case scenarios, things that we plan for.

So that's why we asked Mr.

Harbottle the hard questions about things like this.

But um, hopefully uh the weather won't be any different than it should you know normally would be for us.

Um the other question I have kind of follows what commissioner um Hunter mentioned about the days of reserves and all of that.

Um I don't know what our the outside influences on us are gonna look like within the next six months, but I would imagine again that we're also planning for best case and worst case.

Um, you know, when when the pandemic happened to us, um the lead times for the basic building blocks of our system, transformers, wires, all those things, not only did they get much more expensive, but it took forever to get them.

The lead times went a lot longer and costs.

This was not in anyone's forecast any more than any of us forecasted that we'd have a global pandemic that would last as long as it did.

So I guess my only thing that I would entreat is that everybody on you know on staff keep keep a you know scenario planning going forward just because things seem to be um there's a lot of uncertainty outside of Alameda that could have impacts on our energy costs.

So and other than that, um that's it.

Thank you very much.

This is as always very well done, and thank you for answering all of our questions.

Um this is also um from information only, so yes, I'm sorry.

Thank you again for bringing up the the days of cash because I wanted to point out that you know we talked about it last year, and you will see it in the strategic plan that we will be employing the new financial advisor to revisit those metrics, and just to your point, I'm more comfortable with 180 days of cash.

And so we're gonna those are the type of things we're gonna be looking at and prevent.

You'll see it in the you know, the goals of the strategic plan, you'll see it in the action items of the implementation plan, and then of course, you know, when we get there, you'll see the results and how the metrics may or may not.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um if we have no other comments, uh, then this item is for information only, so no action is needed.

And we're gonna switch gears a bit.

Um and the next item is 5C by motion approve the administration of commercial heat pump pool heater rebate program.

And General Manager Hayes, again, may I turn this over to you, please?

Okay, thank you very much.

Um I'm gonna turn this over to customer resources supervisor Winitas in order to be able to take us through the staff's recommendation.

Uh good evening.

Uh this will be a short presentation on the commercial heat pump pool heater rebate program that AMP staff is proposing as a pilot program.

So the um the primary objective of this program is to incentivize commercial customers to install electric heat pump pool heaters, either in replacement of existing natural gas pool heaters or in lieu of installing natural gas systems in new construction projects.

The program provides financial assistance in the form of a rebate to eligible customers that complete these electrification projects.

Um the program is expected to be open for a minimum of three fiscal years, with 400,000 being budgeted for each year, totaling 1.2 million dollars for the entire duration of the program.

The expected start date will be July 1st, 2026, and this program will run until June 30th, 2029.

There is a possibility of extending the program beyond the initial three years if deemed appropriate to do so.

Since this program targets the commercial sector, uh eligible customers include multifamily properties with more than four units, businesses and nonprofit organizations, as well as government and municipal agencies to qualify.

The customer must be located within the city of Alameda and have an AMP rate code of A1, A2, A3, or M1.

This program allows for both existing buildings and new construction projects to participate.

Including new construction is particularly important because it represents a significant opportunity to avoid future greenhouse gas emissions if electric pool heating is installed at the time of development rather than retrofitting later.

AMP staff conducted a preliminary analysis using geospatial data and publicly available information, and we were able to identify approximately 48 existing pools in the city of Alameda that could potentially participate in this program.

The first is the estimated annual greenhouse gas reduction associated with the project valued at 15 cents per pound of carbon dioxide equivalent displaced.

The second is the total pool size, which is valued at 10 cents per gallon of water.

The third component is the incremental cost to electrify, which is calculated as 20% of the incremental measure cost of installing the electric heat pump system instead of a comparably sized natural gas pool heater.

Using all three of these metrics helps ensure that no single factor disproportionately determines the rebate amount and help maintains fairness and integrity within the program.

The maximum rebate a project can receive is 400,000 or 30% of the total project cost to install the heat pump pool heater system, whichever value is lower.

There is no minimum rebate under this program.

And then for the application process, before beginning installation, applicants must receive pre-approval from AMP staff.

During this stage, applicants will need to submit cost to estimates for both the proposed electric heat pump system and a comparable natural gas pool heating system that would represent the baseline installation.

AMP staff will review these estimates to ensure they are commercially reasonable and may coordinate a site inspection if necessary.

If the project is approved, AMP will issue a pre-approval letter that provides an estimated rebate value.

Once this letter is issued, installation of the heat pump pool heater system may begin.

Projects must be clipped completed within two years of receiving receiving pre-approval, although a one-year extension may be granted if sufficient progress toward completion can be demonstrated.

And then once installation is complete, the applicant will need to submit final documentation, which includes signed building permits, paid invoices, detailing material and labor costs, updated manufacturer specification sheets if there were any design changes, and photos of the install equipment and cap gas lines if an existing gas system was removed.

And then and staff and AMP staff will review the final documentation and conduct a post-installation inspection to confirm the project was completed as described.

Once pre-approved, the final rebate payment will be issued to the applicant.

It's the end of the presentation.

Any questions?

Okay, thank you very much.

Um first off, do we have any public comments on this item?

Okay, do we have any emails from members of the public?

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Or if you're on the telephone, you can use star five to indicate a raise indicate a raise hand.

The chat window in the meeting is not monitored.

Okay.

Seeing no other comments, then I will close uh public comment period and open this up to questions from the board.

Yeah.

Commissioner DeVries.

Thank you, Jared.

Um I like how you indicated how many uh pools are out there.

Um it's good to have a feel for um whether it can be adopted and how many people can adopt it.

Um at the sort of current structure, if someone was to use this rebate um and then they become a very good electric customer of ours because they're spending electricity on their pools, like how long would it take to pay back the rebate?

Yeah, uh that's a very good question.

I think for what we're seeing, if it's a 400,000 dollar rebate assigned to a pool that's around 500,000 gallons, we can expect to payment between 10 to 12 years.

Uh okay.

All right, because ultimately we get to sell more electricity.

And I think it helps when pe pe people cut question our rebates.

Why are you giving rebates out to people is because we're gonna be able to sell more electricity?

And um that goes to the city fund.

So thanks.

Commissioner Hunter.

Thank you.

Again, this is a really exciting program and uh very exciting that there's a project coming up that gets to use this rebate.

Um I had a couple clarifying questions just about how we're structuring the rebate.

Um when we say project, is in 30% of project costs.

What is the project?

Is it the whole facility that's being built?

Is it the whole pool that's being built, or is it just the cost of the pool heating?

Just the cost of the pool heating.

That is the project.

Yes, that is the measure.

Yes, that's good.

I was when you're sorry, I guess just the we are including some of the infrastructure though.

Yes, yeah.

So including like up through their uh, you know, uh even uh yeah, up through their uh service entrance section.

Okay.

To implement the measure itself if their infrastructure uh do you feel like that that puts helps put new construction versus existing retrofits on equal footing as far as how much incentive they can get?

Uh so if the existing building does need infrastructure upgrades, they will also be able to take advantage of that as well.

Yeah.

Well, I was I guess I was asking that question because I was initially concerned that new construction would be able to claim that their project was a very large cost, so they would max out that 400k every time, but then it would be harder for a an existing retrofit to get a handsome incentive.

But if you're if you're just talking about the only the pool heating and the infrastructure associated, do you feel like that that kind of helps those two types of projects compete and both have an attractive rebate?

You you bring up a very good point.

That's kind of where this these the three elements, the components um that have kind of brought into this uh the incentive calculation bring in so yeah, is how do you make sure that these incremental costs are the true incremental costs or the total project cost is only assigned to that versus just having an online item and an invoice?

Um where a gallon size, you know, we see it a lot with our HVAC programs where they base the rebate on tonnage.

So that how do you assign that heating element um to a rebate value?

We've kind of incorporated that as well as ultimately what are we trying to do?

GHG reduction.

So we are trying to uh address the barriers of incremental cost and project costs that are assigned.

Um that may be easier to play around with with new construction projects, but hopefully these three elements kind of stop that from being from occurring.

There would be no need to because you're being incentivized on other elements that hopefully that these three can balance each other basically components.

Okay.

But I do understand your your concern.

Um than that.

Uh my other question was about rebate stacking.

So there was a line in the report that said cannot be stacked with other AMP rebates.

So does that mean that if there's a new facility that's being built that includes a pool, they want to clean the heat pump rebate, but they also would like to you know get um EV, EV charger, e-bike rebates or or some some technology that has nothing to do with the pool.

Could they still get that?

Yes, yes.

The the stacking is only implied to the measure itself.

So they cannot they cannot double dip even to two programs for heap on pool heating.

Um but yes, EV charging, they can totally participate in other points.

And then do we know if uh state funding could also be tacked onto this?

So if if they were eligible for tech?

We we uh always assume that yes.

Stacking is okay from our point of view.

I would definitely look at the other program.

From our point of view, yes, you can stack with other programs.

Okay.

But we would not advocate that we are the the focal points for those other programs.

Um we can try coordinating.

It's a lot of the time those programs change.

I do know federal funding.

Sometimes they say you can't use other funding, but we also don't know, like maybe there's ways to do that.

Is that 30% of project costs um applied against the net project costs if other rebates are applied?

It's usually it just can't exceed.

So it's the 30 percent of the total project cost not really considering the rebate, but it just cannot exceed um the total project cost, I guess, is what we're looking for.

Yeah.

Right.

Um we may want to take a I'm not gonna hold my vote hostage, but we may want to take a look at what the stipulations of the other grants are for rebates, you know, from a statewide perspective.

It could be that the tech program, that's that's the the only one I'm really thinking of, um, has a requirement that their grant has to be applied net of any other grants because generally it's it's not a good thing if you can stack your grants to actually exceed your project costs.

At that point.

Um so we we just want to make sure that we're not we're not inadvertently doing that.

So if if that's not the case with tech or any of the other um grants that could apply here, we may want to add in another line item to this grant that says that 30 percent of project cost cap needs to be net of any other you know statewide or federal grants that the project gets.

Yeah.

And and tech has a really good job of because we do, you know, we do stack with tack review tech rebates on our residential programs, and they have a really nice job of actually putting it in their their invoices when they have their trade ally network.

Um that's always nice to see.

So that we make sure that it's not even exceeding the actual product costs.

I've never seen that.

Yeah, I'll just weigh in.

I don't remember the exact line, but we have something in the report that you know the exact application forms and project details have not been, you know, completely finalized, and the general manager will you know approve at the end, you know, not intended to address any major funding, you know, items we're bringing before you tonight, but something like that, you know.

I think we definitely have you know general manager discretion to adjust as we roll up the project.

Okay, that sounds good.

Just one potential loophole to tighten if if we need to.

Um I think that's it.

I'm excited about this program.

Um yeah, thank you.

Just uh a couple couple of quick questions and and maybe I just too new to know the answer.

But is there do we have a uh single family dwelling rebate program for pools, or are we starting at a higher level?

We're we're so we're looking strictly at commercial non-residential because we want to maximize how much of this rebate is actually touching ratepayers.

Um I did a quick look at how many residential pools we have in the city of Alamina, it's about 20 along the lagoon.

Um so that's more affluent neighborhood.

Uh we may revisit it, but it definitely will be very different from this program.

So there's 48 uh private and how many did you say residents?

20.

Wow.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

63 degrees.

Thank you very much to my colleagues.

You made my job really easy.

They they answered all the questions.

So let me just say thank you very much for the excellent presentation.

Thank you, Alan, to your whole group for putting this together.

Um I think then um may I please have a motion to adopt uh approve the um administration of commercial heat pump pool heater rebate program.

I move to approve it.

So we have a motion from Commissioner DeVries.

We have a second from Commissioner Hunter, may have a roll call vote, please.

President McKinnon?

Yes.

Commissioner Hunter?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, motion passes.

And thank you again, Supervisor, for the excellent presentation.

All righty.

Um again, shifting gears.

We're moving on now to the general manager's report.

General Manager Haynes, please.

Thank you, Chair McKenna.

Um I want to point out that um uh Commissioner Hunter's keen eye made note that um what I had omitted from uh the report that you'd received was the vacancy report for this past year.

And so I don't know if we have are we able to project that uh thank you.

And so um when we began this program back in or this reporting back in November or December, we were at a um much different place than where we are today.

If you'll recall, I think that we had about 12 or more open positions at the time.

And what we see here is that we're down to four open positions that we have within the organization in the intervening period, and we filled five positions in this reporting month.

In addition to this reporting month, we've filled seven other positions.

And so the attention that we've placed on this in these last three months has been pretty remarkable, I think.

And so, you know, we have AGM Lee uh uh uh an example of uh the work that we've done, supervisor uh uh uh Wanitas, uh another example, and um and so we're obviously trending in the right direction.

Um so it's um you know it's a good catch that it hadn't been included in the report, and I think that it um is good news.

Um I do want to say that this is a pretty labor-intensive report, and as simple as it looks, um it does demand um a bit of time, and so um we'll see whether or not we can um continue to uh produce it.

Um it's been very useful for me.

I think that it's insightful for you all.

Um but as I said, it's uh it's pretty labor intensive in order to be able to pull us together.

Um if I'll let you know whether or not we um decide that we need to um uh discontinue, but um but one of the things that I will commit to is if we find that um we get ourselves into a recurring situation where we're having difficulty with retention, we'll you know, come back to a report like this or something similar in order to be able to keep you informed about what the situation is.

Um but other other than that, um I really have nothing to um add to the uh general manager's report.

Yeah, sir.

Anybody who had yes go ahead, GM.

I'm sorry, I'm not f probably not following protocol.

Um but it is labor intensive, but um interim city manager, I want you to know how wonderful HR has been with the city.

It's it's not just labor-intensive for us as hiring manager, but they um they've been very, very helpful with the uh three fill position in ENO specifically since since I got here.

So thank you.

Please relay that.

I'll share that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Well, I'm gonna pile on to that because we were actually in the parking lot out here and had a a conversation with the head of HR.

And um, there's two things that I can say are very different.

Number one, um, and um General Manager Haynes, I I put the gratitude to you here.

Um you have really built strong relationships to the other city departments, and we've all benefited from that.

And the other thing is even people even know who you know I am who who who we are.

We have now had so much FaceTime when people come to talk with us, there's so much dialogue, there's so much better communication.

And that um when AG um Lee and I were in the parking lot happened to talk to the head of HR.

And we can have a wonderful quick conversation about what's going on.

And it is um it is a very nice change, and it is such a lovely change, particularly I know we all suffered the uh the the absence of of in-person communications during the COVID years and had to kind of rebuild some relationships, new people came into positions, but where we are right now just want all of you guys to know the city side, AMP side um and the AGMs as well.

We really do appreciate this.

And really do appreciate the time that all of you guys put into these relationships.

It makes things easier for us.

I think it makes things better for our residents.

So just thank you from all of us for that.

Thank you.

Were there was there anything else that you wanted to add to the GM report?

Were there any other questions about the GM report?

Okay, then we'd move on, please.

Um, interim city manager to council communications.

Yeah, and I'll just add one comment to uh the chair's comment there about uh our team.

Yeah, and I'll just just add one comment to uh the chair's comment there about uh our team and I think that your general manager and the staff that work with AMP, that team recognize that at the end of the day we're all one team, and we're here to provide services for our community, those that live here and those that visit here, those that work here.

Um I agree that um council's leadership, the department heads collabor collaborative nature uh is putting uh the person that sits in my seat here in a few months, the next uh city manager, um the permanent city manager, um, in a really healthy position, and and I've noticed it as well, but a lot of that credit uh goes uh to your uh to our general manager.

Um I uh I was very pleased going uh talking about team.

We saw it at the state of the city uh event that the chamber hosted to see all of us there celebrating uh the year's accomplishments.

I felt the mayor, may uh Mayor Edzi Ashcraft did a great job of going through every department and recognizing the accomplishments of each of those departments in her state of the city uh presentation.

Uh like to share with you tomorrow night uh the mayor will give an abbreviate version of that presentation and welcome you all uh to watch from from home or uh and and or here in person.

Um but you're also if you uh would like you have an opportunity to make comments tomorrow night.

Um versus at a special event, uh it's this a presentation.

So tomorrow night uh the presentation um will be shared by the mayor and opportunity for public comment.

Um that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh the next item then is board communications.

Uh do we have any communications from the board?

I'll make one brief one, which is just as everyone in uh in Alameda gets to interact with AMP customer service.

Uh the AMP line crews happen to be along my favorite bike route.

And so for two weeks now I've been able to see them doing work.

And what's uh has struck me is that they're working hazardous work, they're working at heights and with live electricity in the public.

And thought that was commendable.

The people are always knowledgeable, and um I've learned uh a lot from watching what they do.

So I thought I'd pass that along.

Thanks.

Okay.

Um I've got nothing else to add here.

Um so then uh one last time regarding um oral communications on non-agendized items.

The next item and the agenda is oral communications, members of the public are invited to address the board on any subject related to the activities of Alameda Municipal Power, not otherwise appearing on the agenda.

Comments are limited in person only, remote public comment is not available for the section.

Do we have any members of the public who would like to speak?

Thank you.

I'd like to welcome um Ms.

Young Chen.

Thank you.

This is the first time I attend, and it's been very educational, and it's good to see everyone works very well together.

So I'm proud to be an Alameda citizen.

Um the other thing is I don't know if this is of the protocol, um, but the survey, I really appreciate the QA.

Um, and I I you know this is the first time I had so I didn't know the history of this, but it seemed like if um great uh the the organization that runs the survey, if they had shared the survey question ahead of time with the board, uh with with this sort of panel, um we we win in the survey include a language that seemed to imply the trade-off between costs and and uh renewable energy.

So I I didn't know if that was part of the process already, but I thought that could be something for the future.

Okay, yeah, thank you very much.

Okay.

Um then I will uh this concludes the March 16th, 2026 meeting of the public utilities board at 806 p.m.

Thank you very much, everybody.