Okay.

We are all here.

So we're going to get started.

We have to have Ashley start up the meeting.

She's using two systems, so we just need to let her have a few minutes to make sure both of the systems are going up, and then give me the thumbs up and we'll get started.

And we have to be quiet while she's doing that, so we don't overlap.

Good to go.

Okay, great.

All right.

Well, welcome everybody here today to um our really important roundtable discussion.

Thank you all for coming.

We're really glad you could make it to our beautiful public works building that we um love having our meetings in these days.

What we're gonna do to start is just I just want to go around the table and just say who we are and our association as we go around so we know who everyone is here, and then we will get into sort of the objectives for the meeting and into some presentations.

So Ian, will you start us off on your end and we'll go around the table?

Yeah, I never get to be first.

Uh I'm Ian Whiteheiser, the city attorney for the city of Ben.

Scott Jones, uh, human rights and equity commission chair.

Sarah Odendahl, then Chamber of Commerce.

Uh David Berger, local two ninety summer sustained and also the state building trades.

Steve Pop, Ben City Council, Brandon Breen, Campaign Coordinator of Energy Band.

Megan Perkins, Ben City Councillor.

Melanie Keeper, mayor of Bend.

John Evans, chair of the Ben Economic Development Advisory Board.

Alan Spector, Cascade Natural Gas.

Brent Tempest with Central Electric Cooper.

Thanks, everyone again for being here.

So how this is going to work, that's if you want to show the next slide.

So this is a round table discussion, and this is really to bring different stakeholders to the table to uh not only listen to some presentations, but also get a lot of your feedback and ideas.

But we really want to hear from you all and draw out the information from our folks who are at the table today.

So they will have some presentations.

They will also have some input on some of the question on the two questions that we're talking about today.

And those are input on exemptions to this fee and implementation timeline and approach.

So we're going to have the presentations first.

And then take questions that are mostly focusing on just information and clarity from our utility providers.

And then we'll get into each individual stakeholder, you know, whatever your ideas or thoughts are on these two fee exemptions and implementation timeline and approach topics.

We will get into that discussion after the presentations are done.

Since there's a lot of us at the table, just to help me out, if you want to respond or ask a question or give an input, please send up your little card like this so I can see you.

And I'll try to make sure that we're getting to everybody.

Or I will call on folks if we need to, also to just kind of draw that information out.

And this is not a time that council is going to deliberate or decide anything today.

We're really gathering information that's all going to be fed into a work session on April 22nd, where council is going to have more of that time to deliberate amongst each other, make some decisions about the future of this policy, a lot of it based on the information that we're getting today.

So that is what we're doing here today.

I'm going to throw it back to Cassie.

She's going to give some very brief background just to ground us how we got here, and then we'll get into our presentations from our utilities.

Okay, thank you.

So the information I'm going to share is just background information about the climate pollution fee.

It is essentially the information that I shared in the memo last week.

So I'm going to try to be brief so that we can move on to the discussion.

So just for some background, the city has been working on a broader program to encourage electrification of buildings and then is a key part of achieving our climate action goals over the last year and a half.

The climate pollution fee that we're just discussing today, and we have been focused on at the council level for the last few months is the part of the disincentive and incentive component of the overall work plan.

So in addition to establishing the fee, we will be looking to create incentives using to encourage electrification buildings, both using the proceeds of the fee and also exploring additional non-monetary incentives.

In addition to the incentive and disincentive policy, the city has been developing and expanding a more robust outreach and education program to help just share increase awareness and share information about electrifying buildings.

Our upcoming work in this area includes the launch of an energy efficiency and electrification workshop series.

The first one is scheduled for April 29th.

And we have subsequent ones planned for the next three months.

And then the last part of our work plan is to continue monitoring the regulatory landscape for additional policy levers that the city may have in the future for reducing gas use as well.

Following council direction to pursue a fee and incentive program in April of last year, we held work sessions with the council in August, October, and December, focused on a potential fee, talking through analysis we've uh completed on the costs and impacts of electrifying homes, the fee design and public engagement options to develop the fee and the incentives.

In December and February, we shared with the council the fee calculation and the approach to the fee design.

In February, council gave staff direction that they would like to pursue the fee as proposed, but they also set the fee at a reduced uh the fee level at a reduced rate, which we'll talk about in a minute.

At that meeting, they also directed staff to convene this round table, focused on fee exemptions and the implementation timeline to get input on some of what are the sort of final major policy decisions that we need council to give direction on to get this fee policy complete.

So I will share a quick overview of the proposed climate pollution fee structure.

The calculation for the fee is the social cost of carbon multiplied by the net lifetime carbon produced by a gas appliance, multiplied by a tier factor that is correlated to the size of the house.

The social cost of carbon is a monetary value of climate change damages that occur from each metric ton of carbon dioxide that is emitted.

The total amount of carbon produced by the appliance takes into account the amount of carbon that the gas appliance produces over the lifetime of that appliance, minus the amount of carbon that the alternative electric appliance and alternative electric appliance would emit over the lifecycle of that appliance, and that's how we get to the net carbon impact of the gas appliance.

And then the tier factor is a multiplier that scales the fee to account for lower or higher anticipated energy use and carbon emissions that we expect from smaller or larger houses.

And we've established three tiers for the home size.

So the tier sizes and their adjustments are shown on this slide.

The lowest tier is homes that are 1,600 square feet or less.

For those homes, the tier factor is 65%.

The middle tier is homes that are 1600 or 3,000 square feet.

So this is the tier that the average size home would fall into.

This just has a tier factor of 100%.

So this one doesn't get adjusted.

And then the larger tier is homes that are greater than 3,000 square feet.

Those homes get scaled by 150%.

And then we have one additional adjustment that we have made to the baseline fee, which is what council directed in February to adjust the fee level to 20% of the calculated fee value.

Council directed this additional adjustment in order to minimize the additional cost impact of a fee on new construction, recognizing that we want to continue supporting our housing goals while maintaining a fee policy that helps to meet the city's climate goals as well.

And then this final slide is a table of what would become the fee schedule.

So the fee is established on a per appliance basis.

Each piece of equipment in a home has a dollar value that varies over the three tiers based on that tier factor.

So for a new home being built, these are the amounts that would that would have to be paid for each of these pieces of equipment.

And then for a single house, the different pieces of equipment add together to get the total fee amount based on what's present in the house.

So you can see from this table that if an average size home installed all equipment as gas equipment, the total fee amount would be a little over $2,000.

The amounts are correlated to the relative energy use of the equipment, which is why the gas furnaces are the majority of the fee by quite a bit.

So that's the summary of the fee overview.

And I will now pass it over to our utility presenters.

We're going to hear from Pacific Power first and then CEC and then Cascade Mapperal Gas.

Thanks, Cathy.

And as mentioned, I'm Alisa Dunlap with Pacific Power.

Cassie's going to run my slides for me.

So I would wait until she pulls those up.

I had an opportunity to speak with council a couple months ago.

So my presentation will probably be briefer than my two utility counterparts.

But that doesn't mean that the rest of you shouldn't ask me questions.

So feel free to ask detailed questions as we get into the roundtable discussion.

So next slide, Ken.

Just an overview of Pacific Power.

We serve a little over 600,000 customers across Oregon.

We are primarily a very rural utility.

We have service territory in southern Oregon, a very, very small portion of Portland, and then here in central Oregon, as well as out on the coast.

Next slide.

So breaking it down into infrastructure that serves the city of Bend.

We have seven existing substations.

So just a level set, a substation is where a high voltage power comes in to be stepped down to voltages that can then serve homes and businesses.

There are seven existing substations.

Of those seven, five substations are planned or have been upgraded in the last two to three years, and we have two more planned in the next two years to be upgraded.

We also have just submitted plans for an additional substation to be built in Southeast Bend within the next five years.

Why am I telling you about infrastructure?

To give you a sense of here's what is existing and what is existing is tapped out.

We are actively trying to keep up with the growth and vitality of the region.

Much like the city is building roads and sewer to expand to serve growing needs of the community.

We are also trying to expand the grid to support the growth.

Next slide.

So this growth chart council saw before, but this represents a 3% growth rate expansion year over year.

Is because the baseline of where we sit for electrical capacity and load has grown year over year.

So it's just getting higher and higher.

Bend is our second highest growth area.

You're a little bit behind Redmond to the north.

So Bend sits at 3%, Redmond's at 4.3%.

Everywhere else in our service territory, including Portland is far behind the growth of Central Oregon.

Next slide.

So HB 2021, I'll just give a little overview.

I'm sure my colleagues will also speak to this regulation, but this is a state law passed in 2021 that requires investor-owned utilities to meet certain emissions reductions targets.

It's 80% of baseline by the year 2030.

This is our current projection of emissions reductions.

We, as I mentioned to council before, we're in an active RFP for renewable resources for Oregon.

I thought I wouldn't be able to provide updates until the end of the year.

Sounds like we'll have preliminary results available this summer.

So this is something I've committed to city staff and council to provide updates because this is sort of a key piece of how you're going about making these policy decisions.

So as soon as I have preliminary results available, I will share those with council.

This will be the first RFP for renewable resources that we've had since the changes to federal production tax credits.

And I would be remiss if I didn't say that there's infrastructure that's needed to bring those renewable resources to the region.

And what I mean by infrastructure isn't substations, I mean transmission lines.

And those take years to build.

So we are kind of working in all of these spaces concurrently and trying to meet the targets that are currently set in Oregon law.

Next slide.

And then lastly, again, just things to consider.

Infrastructure as the community continues to grow.

I mean, I will say that electrical infrastructure is not the most exciting of things and sometimes comes with controversy.

So as we do build things out to support the community, we'll need support of the city.

Bend is just behind Redmond as our second highest community.

We've got a large interconnection queue for new users, meaning there are a lot of projects in the pipeline.

So all of that infrastructure is going to continue to be strained as we move forward.

And that pushes the need for additional infrastructure to be built and support for that.

Lastly, on compliance.

So HB 2021, the reason that RFP is so important is because that will give us some market costs on what renewable energy is going to cost customers.

Within HB 2021, there is an affordability cost off-ramp, meaning if the costs are determined to be too high for customers, utilities are able to push out compliance dates to preserve affordability for customers.

So that is something that I think is a little bit of an unknown at the moment.

And then just I think I'd be remiss if I didn't say that there's been discussion about the Oregon legislature in 2027, potentially pivoting to different emissions reductions models or regulations.

And if that does change, we will certainly continue to engage with city staff on what compliance with whatever the new thing is, or if we're on certain current path, we'll continue to engage with the community.

But with that, I am finished with my presentation.

Great.

Thank you.

Is there anyone that has a question for Elisa at this point about that information that she presented?

Yeah, I have a question.

Of course, I'm gonna have a question.

I mean, it's pretty widely publicized that renewable energy, solar and wind is far less expensive than gas or coal or nuclear, much more much less expensive than nuclear.

So if how is that how do you judge that?

Like that affordability, how will that actually be judged?

Because what will the alternative be to emission-free energy if that is what is most affordable?

So if we don't hit the affordability, you just shrug your shoulders, but then still buy the least expensive power or buy more expensive power, I guess.

I guess I'm a little bit unclear on your question.

I mean, I think right now the current RFP that is open for renewable resources.

I'm aware that we have solicited bids for wind, solar, and battery.

Um, and all three of those would go toward meeting HB 2021 compliance.

What I don't know about is the pricing of any of that.

None of that is public.

I think we're still soliciting bids.

So at that point, once we see what the pricing is against the market and whatever else is available in our resource portfolio, we will make cost affordability calculations at that point.

And all of these things have to be approved by the Oregon Public Utility Commission.

So when we go in to present the RFP results, at that point, we can point to market conditions that say, yes, these are affordable.

And here is the compliance pathway that we are currently on.

We expect everything to move forward as shown in that slide.

Or no, we need to make some adjustments based on what's coming back from the market.

We can't um tax our customers in a way that makes power unaffordable.

Yeah.

I guess I was referring, and maybe I should have said, I mean, demand is also rising.

You talked about how bend is in a growth phase and our demand is increasing here.

And so yeah, just okay.

Anyone else with a question?

I have a question.

Sure.

Um go ahead.

According to your slide from 29 to 30.

Yep.

You go from 30% to 80%.

That's a 50% increase in renewables.

And I understand you have an RFP out.

What projects are out there?

What is currently available that in that one year period is going to make your portfolio 50% more green.

Yeah.

We had a question about this uh last time too.

Um, so I anticipate when this RFP results um comes to fruition and we have more information, that compliance chart will look different.

We will have more um renewable energy resources available in years prior to 2029.

I don't think it is um going to stay the way that it is right now with the significant cliff going from 29 to 30.

I think this is just our best guess based on what we know of markets, absent the results of the current RFP.

And a second follow-up to that.

Um you were talking about the growth.

I didn't maybe I missed it or didn't understand, but the the growth doesn't show um what you're gonna have to make up for not having in gas and utilities, which is gonna be more than 3% growth.

Is that accounted for?

What do you I gas will remain natural gas will remain a part of the electric um the electric mix?

Um, it's coal that Oregon has said that can no longer serve Oregon customers in 2030.

Um what I'm saying is the growth you were and and demand you were going to have to provide again.

Um from a potential uh move.

Correct.

Um Bend is a very high growth rate.

I think to do that type of calculation, that's very much getting into the weeds, and I tried to keep this as high level as possible.

I'm happy to run certain run some of those numbers.

I did run a few of those numbers based on the fee that was presented to from staff at the last discussion.

Um so we can we can talk about that if if we need to get into the details.

Yeah, is it fair to say just what was on the slide was just showing right now without the policy in place?

This would growth looks like, right?

So there would be something different if if potentially if the policy was in place.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

All right, we have two other presentations to go, and I don't want to spend more than 40 to 15 minutes on it just so we can have good discussion.

So just giving a time check.

I think we're okay, but just giving a time check to us.

Lisa, can you tell me um how much of the growth is being driven by residential and how much of it has been driven by outside of residential?

Great question.

Um there is I thought I thought so.

Yeah, uh electrical usage of commercial industrial is quite a bit higher than residential, but most of the growth in residential is coming from multifamily housing, which is already electrified, and those are significant loads.

Um, I mean, they they are on par with a small manufacturer.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Mike, I was gonna ask the same question.

Oh, great, perfect.

That worked out well, Garrett.

Does the timeline for the expansion of infrastructure?

Does that include the land use process, or is that just how long it takes to build the substation?

Um, I don't think I laid out a timeline for a substation.

Five years three to five acres is how much land we need for um for a substation.

I used to say you could build a substation in three years, but that's like rocket speed.

Um, I mean, it it does take the land use process along with uh ordering of long lead materials.

You could probably still do it in three years, but it's more like four to five years for a substation.

Okay, any other questions?

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, just curious if you can speak to any strat and also thank you for the presentation, but any strategies the Pacific Corps has that can meet new demand without transmission in particular.

I'm thinking about large load flexibility for my understanding.

That is like the huge opportunity we have to, especially when we have cold snaps and heat waves.

That's how we can keep the lights on and things like virtual power plans.

But these, you know, the immediate solutions we can deploy that don't need you know the multi-year infrastructure upgrades.

Yeah.

We we do have a robust demand response program.

Um that is rolled out to commercial and industrial first.

It just came to bank last summer as a res residential program.

Um and we are heavily um encouraging of energy efficiency.

So those are two major ways that we can we can curb the need for transmission infrastructure, but it is still necessary to get the power from renewable energy resources that aren't located here or right next next to a load to serve load.

Cool.

Thank you.

All right.

I think we can move on to um CC next with your presentation.

Thank you, Elisa.

Thank you.

Brent Tempas with Central Electric Cooperative.

I just want to first say we appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

We uh I also just want to publicate and acknowledge Cassie and her accessibility and her reaching out and the good conversations that we've had with her.

It's been very good, productive, transparent conversation.

So thank you, Cassie.

Um if Pacific Power is a rural uh a rural uh utility, let's just say Central Electric is a very, very rural cooperative uh utility.

Uh I I do want to give you just a brief background on who we are, because you know, in my day-to-day, when I do come across, there's just uh sometimes a lack of awareness of who CEC is and what who we are and our mission uh to serve uh the greater area.

So um, you know, the the co-op came into existence in the early 1940s due to lack of electrification of rural Central Oregon.

So through the rural electric electrification administration uh in the FDR uh administration, uh some ranchers and some farmers got together, borrowed 240,000 and started to build the system themselves.

And that has grown, obviously, uh over the years.

Uh we have a 5300 square mile service territory that uh crosses five counties, primarily the tri counties, is where the majority of our members are.

Uh 24 substations, we are currently grading to uh construct uh a new substation for the Stevens Ranch uh development, which I'll get into a little air.

Uh we have uh so 24 substations and we have about 4,000 miles of energized power lines.

Next slide, Cassie.

So there's a snapshot of our service territory.

So basically, if you go west, you're looking at the Hoodoo Ski Resort, and we go all the way east to IZ, which is about 40 miles um east of Polina, and then we're gateway north of Madras, as far south as uh you will see there uh with brothers.

Um I always forget that little town out there, but uh we go pretty far south and to Hampton.

Uh the yellow that you see is uh unincorporated or unallocated territory, meaning if you are in that yellow area, you can you do have a choice whether you want to connect with CEC or with Pacific Power.

And then everything that you see there uh in pink is Pacific Power.

Next slide, Cassie.

Uh that's a snapshot uh as of the end of uh 2025.

We are primarily uh residential uh irrigation, frankly, has slowly been declining over the years for obvious reasons, uh, whether it be drought, uh farming, ranching not being as productive, and second, third generations are tapping out and they don't want to do it.

So you're seeing a change there in our makeup.

And then we do have some commercial and um also our largest number would be the St.

Charles Hospital, because at the time that it was constructed, it was so far out.

Uh it was in our service territory.

Uh that kind of gives you an idea of growth over the decades.

Next slide, Cassie.

So uh to zero in on the city of Bend.

Uh the red line is the border.

Uh, the pink is again uh Pacific Power, yellow would be unallocated, but all that growth on the east side of Bend is within this uh CEC service territory.

We currently have approximately 7500 members uh within the city of Bend.

And uh if you want to go to the next slide, Cassie.

Uh we'll touch on it later, but with the growth, we're going to be nearly doubling the number of members uh within the city of Bend.

So we purchase our power through the Bonneville Power Administration, which manages the Federal Columbia River Power System.

We do purchase our power through a uh generation uh cooperative, PNG C.

Uh and the fuel mix, as you'll see, is pretty clean.

And it is uh depending on the water year, uh, it could be anywhere from 89 to 93, 94% uh emission free.

We have 13% nuclear.

And then within that 13% of non-specified market purchases, you will see some small winds, some solar, but most of those market purchases are not only more expensive, but more carbon intensive.

Next slide, please.

So this is really important to highlight.

So BPA uses a tier rate system to balance the low cost federal power with growing regional demand.

Public power utilities, whether they be public utility districts, municipal utilities, or co-ops, they sign, we are in coming to the end of a 20-year 20-year contract.

That tier one power that you see for 40 a megawatt comes off the hydro system, as well as BPA's Columbia generating station in the state of Washington nuclear, and it's stable and it's predictable.

The tier two power, which you see as uh 70 uh megawatts uh or 70 dollars a megawatt, um, all the growth that we are experiencing falls under that tier two.

So not only is the power more expensive, but also it's more carbon intensive, uh, which has an impact on the overall resource.

And then you'll see there too that the power costs are approximately 52% of our operating budget.

And frankly, BPA's power is rising in cost too.

Uh, just last year, uh they started implementing a nearly 19% uh increase uh for their customers over over three years.

CEC had to go out and raise its rates uh nine per nine per just over nine percent.

And we are just starting a cost of service analysis to look at what we're gonna have to do for this year and uh the following year to match that.

Uh next slide, please.

So all that uh organic growth, which I just touched on, uh we've seen an increase nearly 10% membership.

Um, and we expect uh that again over the next five years.

And this is not just uh Bend, but as Alyssa pointed out, it's also for us Northwest Redmond, and it's also sisters, which is entirely in uh our service territory.

But obviously, the the greatest growth is in that Stephen Road development, and uh also the multi-unit housing is really driving up load as well.

Uh, and then you also have the library there, and then just the the other residential that's growing there.

So we understand there's nearly 7500 homes in the queue.

That's gonna pretty much double our uh our uh service meters just within the city of Bend uh over the next few years.

Uh one of the things I really wanted to touch on is that the resource adequate adequacy is becoming an increasing challenge.

Uh, over the last two years, you'll see multiple headlines uh about potential blackouts, uh, about a nine gigawatt shortfall, and that uh generation coming online is not keeping pace uh with that shortfall.

So just put it into perspective nine gigawatts would be like uh uh nine, one thousand megawatt uh power plants, or another way to look at it would be uh the state of Oregon uses about uh last time I checked almost uh seven gigawatts.

You throw in peak load, and that's that's almost nine gigawatts right there, just to kind of uh put an example to that.

So uh it it's it's growing, and uh the uh in resource adequacy is becoming a ever increasing uh issue, and as well as uh the cost for power is is soaring.

Um is explaining that you can go back to the previous slide for a second there.

Uh the data centers receive much of the attention and blame uh for soaring energy demand, and they do they are playing a role in it.

Uh, but the Pacific Northwest is also experiencing uh great growth, as we also see here in central Oregon.

There's greater electrification of homes, including heating, air conditioning, water heating, uh, the adoption of electric vehicles.

The other thing that's contributing to it is the retirement of uh generation resources like coal and less efficient natural gas.

And these plants are not being replaced.

And so uh like I said, uh a demand is outgrowing uh what is coming online, and then you have the thorny knot of transmission constraints.

How are you going to import uh these renewables, these firm renewables or these firm resources into the state of Oregon?

Uh the permitting uh and every construction, everything that goes into transmission, the NIMBEs, all those are issues uh, as my colleague Elisa knows has to work through uh just to bring have the transmission available to bring in and import that kind of power.

Uh and then we took a uh serious hit just uh last month.

Many of you may be following what's happening with the um uh the federal um river system and the lawsuits that have been going on for over a decade.

Uh but a judge, a federal judge recent injunction injunction uh issued to alter the operations of uh BPA system.

The bottom line is is that from April into uh summer, uh, they are now going to be bypassing generation.

So we're talking about losing uh several hundred of average megawatt uh that that's going to be lost, and for public power, that's pretty much overnight, a six percent uh increase in cost of power on top of what we're just now having to deal with with the three or 19% uh increase in power.

So how are we meeting this future demand Cassian now?

Thank you.

Um first and foremost, obviously, we're going to promote uh efficient electricity uh use to reduce our tier two power purchases uh to help keep those uh rates low for all members.

Uh and historically, frankly, we have never uh as a co-op engaged in promoting fuel switching.

Uh, we have always believed that our members uh know what's best as far as how they want to meet their energy needs.

Uh what we have done over the decades is have we have a very robust energy efficiency program uh as well as rebates uh and inspections to help guide our members through their energy choices and to really, and if they choose to electrify uh and go with the high uh to encourage them to go with the high end uh high efficiency appliances to help maintain affordability and uh responsible energy use.

Um, but you know, we cannot afford to stand idly by uh and basically have BPA dictate to us what's going to happen on the tier two.

So through our um through PNGC, our co-op, we are looking at a battery solar array up in the culver area uh spread amongst 25 members, whoever wants to opt in to help reduce that tier two reliance uh on BPA.

And then we've also um have signed uh two different power purchasing agreements, wind and solar, uh, to help uh diversify our portfolio.

Uh, but you know, you we're not seeing a lot of cost uh savings in doing that uh from the tier two power costs.

There's it's a marginal difference, a little bit less than what we would be paying uh at tier two.

So I would just say at the end, and wrapping this up, you know, as a not-for-profit member-owned utility, our mission is to uh provide electricity to our members at the lowest cost.

And uh fulfilling that mission is becoming ever creasingly uh more difficult as we look at growth and how the whole uh energy industry is evolving.

And um when it comes to the natural gas fee, uh I think we can can leave say we don't have a full appreciation uh for what the our understanding of what those potential financial impacts would be for our members, but we do know more load coming on uh does increase our tier two costs, we'll also increase our infrastructure costs and having to size things appropriately, and we're already looking at uh that substation and Stevens Ranch that we're grading for, with hopefully a construction time of three years, it's gonna cost us about 13 million dollars, and we're already thinking about uh a second substation down there to help uh meet the energy needs in Southeast Bend.

Stop questions.

Okay, well, questions.

So, Councilor Mendez.

Yeah, thank you.

I think you you said uh over 90 percent of the current mix is carbon emission free.

Could you describe what the future expansion looks like in terms of the carbon emission profile?

Or CEC or for BPA?

For CEC.

For CEC, so all that growth that falls under the tier two, uh, that's gonna be more carbon intensive.

I can't put a number on it, but because they're making market purchases, it is more carbon intensive.

We're trying to be proactive with the wind and solar contracts to help try and shave some of that off.

Uh, and then as well, like I said, through uh uh energy efficiency.

So I mean, we we we have a challenge, and then potentially that solar array with the battery storage up in culverte could help as well.

Thank you.

Well, Steve?

Brent, thanks very much.

Both you and Alicia have talked about uh challenges you have with transmission uh in the area, both locally and coming into the area.

You've you've got the city council city staff here listening.

How can we best help?

We have two different uh challenges.

Our challenge is BPA.

EPA is the transmission provider for almost all of the Pacific Northwest.

So to give you an example of the transmission constraints that we've been experiencing out in the prime bowl area, is there has been a lack of uh transmission uh surface capacity.

Well, we have spent over 10 years lobbying BPA to increase the size of the Ponderosa substation out in the Primeville area, and then as well construct the bonanza substation uh just to be able to step down that that high voltage power.

We have finally gotten to the a tipping point where they are moving forward with funding, but uh councilman, I can already tell you that that that uh timeline has already been pushed out a couple more years.

We've gone from looking at potentially uh them having that come online in 2029 to now maybe 2032.

And as uh those who are involved in EDCO will know, you know, we've had to frankly turn people and industry away due to those constraints.

Uh uh I like in BPA to a uh a naval aircraft carrier trying to turn that thing around, right?

Uh and so that's the challenge uh that we have when it comes to transmission.

Thank you.

All right, final question, and we want to focus on making sure we get to Cascade next.

Go ahead.

Um, thanks.

I it Brent, I mean, if you could answer this, that would be great.

I think you guys have similar problems with um distribution, the distribution system.

So, how how is the distribution system impacted when people choose to put solar on their roof as well as you know, plug in their electric vehicle and and all of that stuff?

Like I like I have solar on my roof and my bill is minimal.

Um, so how does that help or harm you know the distribution?

What is the status of the distribution network?

Uh I have two different answers.

You know what's interesting because our uh residential rates are so low from a solar perspective.

We do not have a lot of solar because when they do the math and they're looking at making a 45,000, 50,000 investment and looking at how low our rates are, it doesn't pencil out for them.

So uh there are those who choose to pay that premium for solar.

Uh, but when it comes to uh increasing load, whether it be electric vehicles, the charging at home, uh fully electrifying their homes, at times what we have to do, and especially with the new developments is resize the infrastructure.

I mean, one of our biggest concerns was if the city was looking at putting in uh natural gas requirements in legacy neighborhoods, that would be very problematic for like uh CEC because the uh original infrastructure wasn't built to handle that kind of increased load.

And also as a co-op, our members pay for those infrastructure upgrades.

So, like line extension, anything that's done, the member has to pay out of pocket uh uh to do that.

Um and so it it just comes down to knowing where and when that load is increasing and making sure we have the the right infrastructure in place.

So I can't give you a like a specific answer to that question.

I don't know if that helps.

Yeah, it does.

Yeah.

All right.

So we'll move next to Cascade Natural Gas, um, who has more slides than the previous two presentations.

So we we do want to just make sure we have enough time for discussion.

And there are some slides here from CNG that are gonna lead into that discussion.

So let's start with um sort of the background slides, and we might pause for questions there and then get into some of the advocacy that you all wanted to do today, too.

That works.

Sounds good.

So I'll invite my uh colleague uh Don Moore to start our presentation.

Good afternoon.

My name's Don Moore.

I'm the region director for Cascade Natural Gas.

I support operations teams across Oregon and Washington.

I grew up in central Oregon and I live here in Bend.

Um, this is my first round table.

I saw round table on the invite, I saw a round table on all the city of Bend information, and yet I was surprised when I walked in the room to see the table in this configuration.

Um we appreciate the uh dialogue that we've had with the city of Bend.

Uh and we want to continue discussions with the city on what a well-designed ordinance may look like.

Uh, specifically, we want to ensure that there are guardrails on housing affordability and energy reliability and pathways that recognize cascades investment in energy efficiency and low carbon solutions like renewable natural gas and dual fuel systems.

If the proposal that we're talking about today doesn't take that into consideration, we need to be realistic about the demand that puts on an already constrained system and the environmental impact of generating that electricity.

If the city's policy doesn't account for that reality, it may cause more problems than it solves.

It is our hope we can continue working with rather than against City of Bend on the issue.

We have a legal obligation to serve customers in Bend, and we think we have insight and can make a compelling case for keeping natural gas as part of Bend's energy mix.

We have 62,000 customers here in Central Oregon, 11 communities to the far north Madras, to the far south Chamalt.

We add about 500 new services annually, and we have uh 35 local employees, 25 of which are bargaining unit employees.

Next slide.

Our partners at Pacific Power and Central Central Oregon Electric have mentioned resource adequacy.

And you know, Cascade is not at odds with either of those utilities.

In fact, the interdependence between natural gas and the electric utilities is only increasing.

We've uh sourced a uh study.

This is a Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee.

It's a regional forecast from 2025 going out to 2035.

Um it you know lays out in pretty stark terms that the Pacific Northwest energy system is constrained.

Um now Pacific uh in the Pacific Northwest, winter peak exceeds summer peak.

So when it gets really cold, you need those additional BTUs.

That's what Cascade provides.

Um evidence of that is the extreme cold weather event in January 14th, 2024.

It affected the entire Pacific Northwest, including here in Bend.

Um during that 24 hour period, um, during one hour period, 70% of Washington and Oregon energy supply came from natural gas.

So that's an example of the interdependencies of electric and natural gas.

Uh natural gas is being leaned on to provide capacity, that capacity is there.

And industry leaders in that 10-year forecast have stressed the urgency for coordination and investment in both natural gas and electric electric resources.

Um regional collaboration is essential, and I believe that you may not want natural gas, but you need it.

Next slide, please.

There's an interest in understanding the local impact of emissions.

Um to step back and understand the relative amount of emissions.

Uh we source this data from uh 2023 um Oregon Departmental Environmental Quality.

And what it shows is that 35% of all emissions in 2023 came from transportation, uh, 29% from electricity, 15% from natural gas, and approximately 3.4% of all emissions in 2023 were attributed to gas distributed by Cascade.

And while that's a small amount, um, Cascade is investing in low carbon solutions like RNG and dual fuel systems.

And I'm gonna ask my colleague Cole to come up and share some information about those investments.

Yeah, thank you, Don.

I'll just do a quick introduction of myself.

Um, my name's Cole Burgess.

I'm a manager of industrial services for Cascade Natural Gas, uh, focusing on renewable natural gas development.

Uh I do have a background in environmental engineering and actually do have prior experience over the last decade, both working at the combination electric and gas utility as well as an electric cooperative.

Uh that being said, I want to introduce you guys to kind of some of the efforts that Cascade is doing.

So, in addition to energy efficiency, uh our investments in participation in RD efforts through the Gas Technology Institute.

Uh, we are investing in renewable natural gas.

I'll give you guys a quick preface of what that is.

So, biogas is an existing uh resource, whether that's used or not is a big question.

So with biogas, that's something that's naturally emitted through decomposition of organic materials that can occur in landfills, wastewater treatment, it can occur at agricultural sites, so on so forth.

But really, we have avenues to repurpose this biogas.

It can be refined, upgraded to meet utility specifications and utilized in both the utility and transportation sector.

Our company continues to make investments in renewable natural gas, and we'll discuss those shortly.

So Cascades Natural Gas renewable natural gas efforts can be depicted here.

So we have three projects that are currently injecting renewable natural gas into our systems.

And then we've got two projects that are currently under development, one of which here is locally at the Not Landfill, where Cascade will own and operate the renewable natural gas plant.

So looking to utilize that existing energy resource that's already here in the community.

It's currently being flared, and we're looking forward to the opportunity to capture that, refine that, and then utilize that for benefit of our customers here.

So Cascades efforts in the renewable natural gas space currently are focused on landfills and industrial wastewater treatment plants.

And one thing I do want to mention as well is the fact that we've got a voluntary renewable natural gas program.

So there is options for any of you that are Cascade Natural Gas customers to actually receive supply of renewable natural gas via our company.

And the more participation we have in that, uh the better that can help us drive our efforts in this uh emerging technology space.

Uh additionally, here in Bend, we are working on a dual fuel heat pump system.

Uh so what this is trying to understand is utilization of these dual fuel heat pumps.

Can this be a better system that can benefit both electric and natural gas companies?

So alleviating uh demand constraints that are existing or future demand constraints.

So while also leveraging a heating and cooling system for customers that is more cost effective holistically, uh, both across the summer and winter seasons.

So this is something that we believe uh has great opportunity to benefit uh both the constrained grid as well as meet uh customers' needs here in the local area, as well as uh expanded service territories.

So I'm gonna ask that we pause here on the slides and just check in with folks with any questions about what Cascade has presented so far, um, especially about R and G and this dual fuel heat pump.

This is a time to ask questions about those things before we get into more of the discussion on the policy.

Just a question is earlier.

You said uh actually your colleague said uh Cascade Natural Gas supplies 3.4% of the is it attributed, all the emissions are uh 3.4% attributed to Cascade Natural Gas.

And I was wondering does that also include uh uh emissions attributable to distribution leaks.

I guess can you when you say distribution, this these emissions are attributed to the volumes that we provide to a customer?

So these are end use uh molecules that we report on to the Oregon DEQ.

So I guess when you talk about transportation, you're talking about can you provide a little more context?

I guess.

So I'm I'm guessing I'm hearing no.

Would not account for distribution leaks.

I can answer that question.

Answer it just so we can make sure it's on the recording.

Thank you.

It's system emissions and gas distributed.

I didn't I didn't hear that.

Can you would you just it's it's both system emissions and gas distributed?

Okay.

Other questions for gascade?

Okay, I see Sarah.

Yeah, hi.

Um, I was curious about the results of the pilot um the dual fuel heat pump when you would what kind of data you're expecting to share and when that would be shared with the community.

Yeah, actually uh referenced their uh the Gas Technology Institute is our project partner on this.

Uh, they're pretty active in uh the utility industry for pilots as well as research and development opportunities.

Uh, they actually have a presentation that was presented uh a few weeks ago actually at a large industry conference.

Uh, it is publicly available there.

So our preliminary uh findings can be referenced now, and then the full findings are anticipated to be in uh about a year.

We are looking to utilize those systems over a full calendar year uh to better understand how they operate for our customers.

Okay, Mike.

So um, can you talk a little bit about how the full cost to deliver RG to your kind of typical residential customer and I mean capital plus delivery plus operations compares to the full cost of natural gas?

So the equivalent is one more expensive than the other, and if so, what's the magnitude of that?

Yeah, renewable natural gas is inherently more expensive.

Uh, we are required to comply with emissions reductions in the state of Oregon, uh, renewable natural gas at the time of evaluation uh was the most cost-effective opportunity for us to meet our obligations.

Uh as far as scope and scale, my understanding based on a previous analysis was it's about magnitude four times higher.

Uh, but this is offsetting our needs for fossil fuel gas supply.

So those uh equivalent volumes that we're bringing on board and injecting are both serving the needs of environmental compliance requirements as well as offsetting uh natural gas volumes we would typically source from fossil fuel.

Okay.

Steve?

One of the things I I'm interested in is the landfill capture here locally, and you're talking about how it's being flared off.

Um two questions about that is how many homes could be heated using that and uh what's the expected timeline that you could get usable renewable natural gas off of that site.

Yeah, if you don't mind pivoting back one slide, I do have uh equivalency there.

So uh in the state of Oregon, our customers, at least per our last evaluation in uh September last year, use an average of 672 therms.

So uh with anticipation that we'll annually anticipate injecting about 2.5 million therms, that's about 3,700 homes uh worth of gas that can be associated with our volumes there.

Uh as far as lifespan, uh, I will acknowledge that the fact that the not landfill is scheduled to close.

Uh, that has been factored in the business decision to move forward with this opportunity.

Uh, this plant will utilize gas that is continually generated over the lifetime, which uh we're currently involved for a 20-year period.

So there will be renewable natural gas uh sourced from that site for at least the uh next 20 years.

And 3700 homes off that site.

That's correct.

Okay.

Thanks.

Any other oh, Brennan, okay, go ahead.

Yeah, my understanding is RNG can come from a variety of feed stocks, generally speaking.

Your dairy and manure projects, those are the ones that have the greatest carbon intensity reduction where it might be you know more marginal compared to fossil gas.

I'm curious if Cascades pursuing any of these dairy projects, and in particular if they are, is Cascade using the environmental attributes from that gas and the low carbon fuel standard or in another compliance marketplace.

Yeah, so you are correct in the fact that uh different RNG sources do have different uh carbon intensities associated with them.

Uh the company currently is not involved with anything with dairy.

Uh, the reason for that is to your point, most of those projects are sourced in the low carbon fuel standard, so they're utilized in the transportation industry, uh, which has a bigger financial driver to reduce the emissions.

That is a federally mandated program.

Uh not saying that there won't be something our company invests in the future, but for purposes of our compliance uh within the state of Oregon, uh they're a little more carbon agnostic.

Uh, so they're not necessarily focusing on those larger investments uh with say a dairy facility where you might have a large digester that needs to be installed.

Um, not not something we're currently involved in, but not saying that won't be involved in the future, depending on kind of what the state policies are.

Okay.

If Cascade does get involved in the future, then those attributes don't help with CPP compliance, though.

Is that a correct understanding?

Uh we depending on how we're involved with the project, we do have different structures.

Uh, this carbon compliance could be sourced and utilized for the CPP if we are in fact uh involved with that project from that business environment where we are uh dealing with both the biomethane, so the raw gas as well as the environmental attributes that are associated.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, anyone else with a question?

All right.

So what I'm gonna ask um Cascade to do is that the next three slides are more general feedback.

I'd like to skip to the implementation feedback and just start get make sure we get on record your feedback around the implementation time frame and the exemptions, which are the two things we're discussing here today.

Um so if we can move to that slide and whoever's ready to present on that, if it's you, Alan, or the next person on the input for um implementation time frame.

Yeah, and I would be glad to speak to that.

Thank you.

Great.

So again, I'm Alan Spector from Cascade Natural Gas.

I really appreciate the opportunity to speak a little bit at the round table about uh some potential ways to uh avoid unintended consequences of a uh potential fee.

And so, first, we really feel strongly, especially um after hearing the feedback of the electric utilities, that until uh compliance is demonstrated with HB 2021, there's just no guarantee at this point that it's going to reduce uh carbon emissions uh to put this fee in place.

So we would just ask that, you know, at the very least, you know, Pacific Power is going to have results this summer.

That's gonna be very critical information.

And until they're able to make meet their goals, the ordinance shouldn't move forward.

Uh, likewise, you know, we've been working uh with the city with the dual fuel pilot that we've put together that pairs an electric heat pump and a gas furnace, allowing each system to do what it does best.

We're there's going to be full findings integrated in March of 2027, and we would love to have that pilot complete and provide that data to the city to help inform whatever moves forward.

Now, if the ordinance does pass, uh we would just encourage that the city explore this as a multi-year pilot program.

Uh implementation be phased in over time.

And I think it's very important to pay attention to impacts to energy costs, to demand on the grid for resource adequacy, and then impacts to carbon, just to make sure that we're avoiding unintended consequences.

Because uh some of the um analysis that the city had shared in previous discussion showed that there was a potential for carbon to increase uh at least until such time that Pacific Power was meeting uh HP 2021.

Uh so language should also uh mandate that the bee be discontinued if there are um resource adequacy issues, if targets are not met on the electric side, or if emissions increases are observed.

And of course, and we know that the city would be transparent on this, but we just want to reinforce that you know, revenue allocation should be transparent to the public.

Uh, next slide, please.

So, in terms of some potential modifications to strengthen the ordinance and to avoid some unintended consequences, uh, like we said, it's very important to consider the utility's capacity to meet state garden goals, to look at things from a full fuel cycle, both from an electric perspective but from the gas perspective as well.

So, as um Pacific Powers ability to meet 2021 is taken to consideration or looking at electric fuel mix uh likewise as RNG uh is put into our planning documents and shown to uh comply with CPP, we just ask that that be taken into consideration when you're looking at incremental carbon.

In terms of the utility system, I think it's going to be very critical that before this ordinance is forwarded, that there be an analysis of winter peak impacts, just to ensure that displaced demand can be met by the electric utilities.

And uh just keeping an eye on potential off ramps if electric utilities are experiencing infrastructure constraints.

And again, I think it's just very important that if the intent of this ordinance is to reduce carbon, that uh pathways for low efficiency electric equipment be eliminated.

Uh, next slide, please.

So, in terms of exemptions, I'm sure that uh a lot of folks at the table will also have feedback today from Cassip AIDS perspective, we would love to see an exemption for affordable housing and housing designated for first-time home buyers, understanding that uh Bend is struggling with housing affordability issues.

So, you know, I think that just as members of the community, we want to make sure that the folks that work in Bend are able to live in Bend as well.

And then uh have potential uh delays on the fee, exemption for the fee.

If there are impacts to development, or if there's delays that result from infrastructure constraints for incremental electric demand, just making sure that that infrastructure can be built out to meet the demand that would be displaced by gas.

And then uh maintaining if we're able to comply with the climate protection program, you know, there is a risk of redundancy in the design of the ordinance.

So we would just ask that if we are in good faith complying with the CPP, that the fee remain dormant unless we are not able to meet compliance.

And then the other piece of it is just gas plays a very critical role in resource adequacy.

You know, the gas and electric system work together in a very effective way.

So we would just ask the dual fuel systems and emergency gas backup, which can be a health and safety uh bring health health and safety value to homeowners to have that gas backup or that dual fuel system uh be exempt from this fee.

And then in terms of reductions, like I said before, um, backing off the incremental carbon from the amount of RNG that we place into our system is demonstrated through our integrated resource plan.

And so to uh move to the last slide, please.

So really what we're saying is we can't afford to have a fee that is raising energy costs and carbon.

And that just means that make making sure that this is done the right way, that the correct analysis goes into the design of the ordinance, and that until uh carbon targets are met, um electrification targets are met, that this fee lie dormant.

Electrification, I want to reinforce is not decarbonization.

And so, you know, as previous city presentations have shown, there is a risk that at least for some of these pathways, looking at lower efficiency electric equipment, uh, until those uh targets are met with 2021, carbon may increase.

And uh, so that's just something to keep in mind.

And we really feel like, like I said before, ordinance should be delayed until 2021 can be met.

And then we just want to avoid redundant efforts.

So, you know, preventing a duplicate fee by waiving the charge if we're in compliance with the climate protection program and delaying the ordinance until our hybrid study is complete.

And we will, like I said, be very glad to continue to work with the city uh to help forward decarbonization solutions.

And we really appreciate the time today.

Thank you.

Thanks, Alan.

All right, so that's a good way to transition into the next part of this meeting, which is the discussion around these two categories that Cassia just gave their input around, um, which is the implementation timeline and the exemption.

So Cassie's got a couple of slides to sort of guide us through this next discussion topic, but I want folks to also be giving their perspective on those two things as well.

Um, what are things on the list that you agree with or disagree with?

What are the things you really think the city should do in these two areas?

Um and so Cassie's gonna get us going with starting with um exemptions.

Yeah, so the two topics that we're looking for input on today are on exemptions and the implementation timeline.

So for exemptions, we have three potential exemption topics that we are raising to just start the discussion, their ideas.

Uh, some that came up um now from our utility presenters and just some from other discussions that we've had either with the council or community members.

So the the three topics that we would definitely like feedback on are whether there should be an exemption for deed restricted affordable housing, homes that install dual fuel equipment, like the dual fuel heat pumps that Cascade was just talking about, um, and then homes using renewable natural gas.

And I think the conversation on renewable natural gas, as we've thought about this, like just in the last week, it feels that it may be challenging to exemp like a single home for RNG.

So uh more broadly, should there be sort of um an accommodation for the use of renewable natural gas, whether that's on an individual home basis, which we can explore pathways for, or potentially, as Cascade had um proposed, that it would be factored into the fee equation, sort of the the mix of the fee equation, and then um and it would it would be adjusted sort of system-wide.

Um so those are the three ideas: affordable housing, dual fuel equipment, RNG, and then we also are looking for other additional ideas from round table participants.

Great.

So for our participants, um, if you want to comment on these ideas, present your own ideas, this is the time to get that conversation started.

Um so whoever is ready to go first.

I know we have our committee folks, um, our affordable housing committee.

Of course, I can guess what you might want to say, but if whoever wants to start us off, and this is just we're just here to gather information.

So you may say, you know, you may hear something that you disagree with.

We're all going to be respectful here of everyone's position.

Um, and we want to hear even conflicting opinions because that helps us to think about how we're going to deliberate on this um topic.

So, Garrett, you want to kick us off?

Yeah, on the deed restricted affordable housing, I might suggest that we look at an AMI target there, just knowing Ben's housing crisis is along the entire continuum.

Um, so that missile missing middle on top of deed restricted affordable, uh, just throwing that out there for consideration and our position.

Other thoughts?

And you may have thoughts.

No, we shouldn't have these exemptions or we should have more.

So we want to hear all of that from folks.

Mandy.

Um the affordable housing committee does want an exemption for um deed restricted affordable housing.

Um, I would uh agree with Garrett that um maybe we should extend that just because we do have a problem with our our middle housing as well being more affordable in that.

So can you both expand on what you can you quantify what you mean by that middle housing and what that looks like as an AMI target?

Yeah, I'll I'll throw it out there up to 120% would be our preference, but open a conversation on that.

Okay.

I think that's all aligned with what we end up dealing with as well.

All right, other thoughts.

I know people have them.

So the general question.

Sure, yeah.

So we're talking about exemptions.

Um are we talking about what could be done with the fee if there is going to be a fee imposed to help offset that?

Um, not today.

I think the where the revenue is going to be spent is a separate conversation.

But if there is if the if that's helping you think about an exemption, feel free to expound on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um the environment and climate committee supports an exemption on deed restricted affordable housing.

Um, most affordable housing is already all electric, as we know.

Um, so this would mainly be a signal from the ECC as we want to remove any potential barriers to affordable housing as Ben desperately needs more.

Um, and then I I can go down the list for dual fuel equipment.

Um the ECC does not support an exemption, but we support a fee reduction for mixed fuel heating systems.

We think that adding a heat pump should be acknowledged, but we don't want to create any sort of loophole where if you just simply add a heat pump, then you don't pay a fee.

Um, you also could adjust the settings on a mixed fuel system so that the gas kicks in at a high temperature like 50 degrees, and that would mainly be a gas system.

So we want to have the rate be conservative, reflecting continued gas use while still recognizing the contribution of an electric heat pump.

And then in terms of RNG, we do not support an exemption um or reduction for RNG, as RNG is simply injected into the gas supply with other fuels.

And RNG is important and useful.

Um, so it should be prioritized for more hard to electrify sectors, such as heavy industry and transportation and not residential buildings that are easier to electrify.

Got it.

Thank you.

All right.

Other thoughts from any of the other members.

Oh, Sarah, thank you.

Um, I guess I was just gonna second the the comment around AMI levels, especially the 80 to 120 um from the Tamers perspective, that workforce housing uh banned has been really important for us to focus on.

Um one of the other things that we're talking about, I know that this is not pertain to multifamily per se, but I think further defining what multifamily looks like because in some in some um instances, like a quadplex or a duplex or a triplex could be considered multifamily.

And so just further defining uh with clarity in the code what that looks like um to ensure that you know builders are aware of that when they're important.

Yeah, and Cassie, maybe can you speak to that as far as what how we've talked about this fee going forward and how council's sort of been shaping it, that it would not be applying to these large multifamily developments.

So is there an ability to be very clear in our code what that means and what this would apply to?

Yeah, definitely.

And it's something that we plan on bringing to the council on April 22nd because um that question, like what we've heard from the council is we don't want it to apply to multifamily, but sort of where is that cutoff.

So we've just been in discussions with staff this week on how to define those.

Um so we'll talk about it with the council.

I think I'd rather wait because we're actively discussing it.

I'd like to wait.

Yeah, flag on it, but they're sort of flagging it as the week.

Yes, clarity there, which makes sense.

Yeah, so that would be included like in the basically in the definitions of what the code is applicable to is sort of where that would be um defined.

And we'll include that in the discussion on the 22nd.

Great.

Okay.

Scott.

Uh yes, thanks.

Um I I would say the human rights and equity commission would support the um deed restricted affordable housing exemption uh along with affordable housing advisory committee, uh, recognizing that uh to be fair and equitable with uh that middle uh range up to 120%.

So just kind of wanted to emphasize that from our our perspective.

Thank you.

Okay.

Right.

Yeah, I think Garrett was first.

Oh, go ahead.

I've already I've already had a chance.

Go ahead.

Um on the affordable housing question, I think somewhat to Robin's point, right?

We we think the vast majority of affordable housing is already built all electric or and slash or multifamily.

So that's kind of a do-nothing addition to the policy.

Just from my perspective though, you know, the the like looming equity issue that I see around expanding the fossil fuel network.

And this is you know outlined in our Oregon state energy strategy as well, is the risk of a stranded asset of having a gas asset 20 years down the road and having a homeowner who's middle or low income or a renter that they're the ones saddled with the cost of getting gas out of their house as there's a decline in customer base.

That is the equity crisis that's on the horizon.

So anything that we can do to reduce the amount of fossil fuel expansion, like two-thirds of our gas built today are maintenance costs, and that's not going away.

So then we it's important that we're meeting our goals today.

But I want everybody to just be cognizant of long term.

The more that we build out the fossil fuel network, that is avoidable costs, and it's pretty unambiguous in our energy strategy.

The longer we take to electrify buildings, the more it's gonna cost everyone.

And that is always disproportionately going to hit the people that are least equipped to deal with that.

Um regarding dual fuel equipment, I think cascades pilot is a good example of this, that there's many different combinations of what a dual fuel house can look like.

You can have different types of heat pumps with different types of thermostats configured differently by different technicians, and then set points are tweaked differently by different residents or renters living in those houses.

So the range of outcomes is huge.

So just as the city is considering that, be conservative and be realistic in those assumptions because not every house is going to be switching over from gas to electric at 35 degrees.

Like the realistic carbon benefit is more marginal than that when we're thinking about in practice how these dual fuel systems are going to be rolled out.

Um if I can go on a bit of a personal anecdote about renewable natural gas.

Last time I was at an industry industry conference, RNG works and Nashville.

I went, we had lunch or dinner with three separate clients, and all of them told us about a cool project they have in the works, and they were all talking about the same project.

There's not that much RNG out there.

I would expect Northwest Natural, A Vista, and other gas utilities are all looking at the relatively small pool of available projects.

So we shouldn't be, you know, hedging our bats.

The Cascade is going to be able to meet all of their CPP compliance goals through RNG alone.

Um public utility commission has not acknowledged their long-range plan to comply with CPP.

So I think City of Ben should be cognizant of that.

Great, thank you.

Um Alan, can I ask you a question?

And off of that, um, for your CPP long range plan, when do you uh think that will be acknowledged, or when will that go through the process and when will that be complete as far as for you all and your plans?

And I might defer to um my colleague on that.

Sure.

Yeah.

So I guess there's as a context on uh when you say commission recognition, can you further clarify how you view that?

So Cascade's last IRP filing, public utility commission said Cascade was making insufficiently supported assumptions about the cost of RNG.

So my understanding of that is public utility commission does not think cost assumptions that were made are realistically guaranteeing low risk and low rates for eight payers.

How is Cascade plan to resolve that if RNG is still going to be, you know, 90% of the compliance portfolio.

And I know that's a very specific question.

That was yeah, yeah, being a whole ticket there is really what I'm looking for is like timelines because that's what we're talking about today.

And it's going to be the next part of our discussion is implementation timelines.

So we're talking about when is specific power going to comply with 2024.

So just we're looking for timelines for you all on.

We know there's specific places we're out in the process now, and there's been some back and forth in PUC, but what is the expectation for when we're going to get to that point where you're going to have a plan that you know is going to be the thing you're going to be implementing?

Absolutely.

And we're looking at um best cost options in terms of integration of RNGs.

We were talking about in terms of timeline.

Um, I can't speak to that fully today.

I would be glad to uh follow up with the city with more detail.

Uh, but what I will say is the projects that we're discussing today, uh, there's three that are fully operational right now.

Uh so it's more than hypothetical.

And so, in terms of how that's going to be utilized for CPP compliance, we're continuing to have those conversations with our regulators.

And, you know, if it is a priority of our communities that that be integrated for compliance, that's something that we've certainly take back to our integrated uh resource planning team.

And uh, we would start to have conversations about how we can work with the city to incorporate that in a way that would be satisfactory to the city and to our regulators uh to meet CPP compliance, and we'd be happy to continue those discussions.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Can I just to just to beg to for this is for counselors to gather information?

And um there uh we are not at the same level that many of you are.

So when you are talking in these acronyms and and and I would just ask that you um uh take another level that we can all understand.

So I apologize.

Yeah, it's okay.

That's okay.

I would it's it's to everybody.

That's yeah, just you.

All right.

Um, so Garrett, I see your hand up.

I know we haven't heard from uh David or John.

Just want to give you the opportunity if there's and you don't have to if there's nothing to add at this point, but anything you want to add?

I'll go ahead.

Yeah.

Um so uh local 290 and the building rates would support the deed restriction, portable housing.

And again, we're somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty AMI.

Um obviously we are full support of uh installing homes with dual fuel equipment.

Um I've had dual fuel equipment in my homes in central Oregon since 2002, and they work great.

Um, they both supply when the temperatures are low and gas gas can um make up that difference when the heat pumps can't.

Um they work very well in this climate.

Um, and that's something that needs to be thought of too.

Um dual fuel uh projects like that um are different in different climates.

This climate supports a good dual fuel um program.

Milder climates, maybe not so much, but we have pretty good temperature swings and pretty decent winters, although we didn't this year I get um the other is uh renewable natural gas, and we would support that 100%.

Um, and then something to think about in the future to add on to that, just because technologies change, things change, the the what might be available changes is um there might be a hydrogen mix some point in natural gas, which will also do the same thing.

Got it.

Okay, reducing the carbon uh of the of the gas.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, and how about you, John?

Yeah.

Can we go back?

There was a stat about the impact of carbon from what Cascade Natural Gas presented that showed that 15% of emissions were coming from natural gas versus 29% from electricity.

Can you can you just dimensionalize that a little bit more for us so we understand that?

And I hear that it makes it sound like the impact electricity has twice the carbon heartput of natural gas.

But is that a function of twice the energy usage or the supply is coming from electricity versus natural gas?

Or how do I how do we understand it?

And I would be glad to uh share like sources for the study as well to provide some more information on that.

But I think some of it uh does pertain to scaling, you know, the delivery of gas versus the delivery of electricity, um, looking at kind of the fuel mix of the electric system today, looking at the direct use of natural gas versus the use of uh non-renewable energies for electric generation.

So I think that there's multiple factors that go into that, but I would be very happy to uh make sure that and I think there is a uh link to the source on the slides that are now up on the city's website.

Yeah, from a DEQ study from Oregon.

But yeah, good question.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I I guess that's still trying to process what you're saying.

Um, however, I guess in terms of what's being asked in the exemptions here, the the conversations we've had at BDAB, you know, support um exemptions around uh things like deed restricted affordable housing.

We believe the housing crisis is real, and you know, we want to support ways to um you know offset that impact to homeowners.

Um I think we're also very supportive of continuing to do projects like the dual fuel um proof of concept.

We think there needs to be more data that supports um the fee structure and uh the outcomes that that uh ultimately then gets passed to the to the home owners.

So those are the discussions we've had.

Okay, great.

Yeah, Garrett.

Yeah, to Sarah's point earlier on four plexus, just an additional exemption idea.

Um, there's been lots of action at the state to try to reduce barriers to building certain difficult housing types, mainly condos, and then in the Plex world, triplex, fourplex and and beyond.

Um so maybe a consideration for an exemption would be to at least hold off on those housing types to begin with, to let that progress play out, see if we can bring these to market rather than adding another hurdle to developing them.

Okay, so something that separates by housing types.

Okay.

Okay, any other thoughts on exemptions?

And and if you think of one later, we'll come back to you.

Go ahead, Sarah.

I was just gonna offer a clarifying on something a couple um comments ago around the stranded asset comment for the exemptions for certain AMIs of housing.

I think all homes are gonna be dual fuel regardless.

The the infrastructure will be laid to the homes to have gas and electricity because of the very nature of the the choice issue.

Um so I think that eliminates the concept of a stranded asset.

So um I guess I would just uh let us think about this broadly um when we're thinking about um what that that AMI um exemption would look like.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I think just so just to make sure we're grounding for anyone watching, the the fee that we're talking about is a one-time fee that's at the very beginning of new construction, right?

So this um these exemptions are talking about at that time of new construction, what would be exempted from having to pay this fee or where would that reduce fee be?

So all right, any other final thoughts on exemptions before we move over to the implementation timeline.

Yeah, Robin.

Oh, hold on, just like let me get Robin and I'll come back to you.

Yeah.

Um just wanted to kind of add that the ECC only supports one exemption, which is the deed restricted affordable housing.

Um, and we want to limit exemptions because every exemption uh reduces the emission reductions that this policy has.

Um, and every exemption adds administrative burden to the policy.

Um, it adds additional tracking and calculations and enforcement.

And as we know, you know, we have had 20% of the snowpack in the dischutes, and we need more climate action now.

And so those exemptions kind of limit the impact of this policy.

So we just advocate for less exemptions.

Yeah, thank you for that.

Yeah, do you want to step up to the mic if there's anything else you want to add?

Uh one consideration so it's not been voiced is uh winter heating via electric is more demand than summer.

So if there are developments that cannot meet that incremental demand and that requires large infrastructure upgrades by the local electric utilities, uh there's a potential that they would be penalizing that development and delaying the development while that infrastructure needs to be built out where there may be gas resource adequacy to meet those resource needs and get that development up and running sooner.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Dave, do you have a final thought?

I just had some other ideas.

Yeah, but let's hear it.

Um, so any home that uh has natural gas in it that also is going to include solar.

So we could put an exemption on a home that has that.

Um, another one could be any home that or the future um behind every appliance has both gas and electric.

So whatever they choose now can be whatever service they want and it could be changed at any point.

Then it's not an extra cost down the road.

It's already available built into the home.

Okay, got it.

Um any thoughts on those different ideas?

Oh Robert.

Yeah, one thing on solar.

Um, the ECC, we we touched on so in our last meeting.

Um, and if we want to add solar to the conversation, we don't want it as an exemption, but as a reduced fee in the calculation.

And that would be based on the size of the system and the size of the house.

Um, you know, as we know, with the grid being um dirty, these local renewable emissions could really support help uh make that grid cleaner.

Um, so yeah, we don't want it necessarily as an exemption though, because you could just have one panel on your home and that would eliminate the fee, but we want to acknowledge the addition of solar because we think solar is um an important part of this conversation.

So reduction.

Go ahead.

Yeah, a reduction.

Yes, yeah, Brennan.

Yeah.

Just want to reiterate Robin's point as well and take cues from Cassie and staff on this, and that's when we're considering exemptions, let look, let's look at them in their totality.

What can realistically be administered by a team of two within the city?

And then somewhat back to Sarah's point.

Um, I do want to push back on the idea that you know, stranded assets are uh are a non-issue because ultimately it is still a decision developers are making to lay gas on the ground to new developments.

Are saying again, affordable single family housing developments, overwhelmingly built all electric and banned and you know, sisters and many others.

Okay, thank you.

All right, final thoughts on exemptions before we move on to implementation.

Yeah, Garrett.

Um, just to kind of uh echo Sarah's point and talk to our builders, especially with how the fee is structured per equipment, all the infrastructure is still gonna be brought out to new construction, both gas and electric, making them convertible in the future.

So I don't think we run into this risk of a stranded asset.

Yeah, I think we're gonna have a disagreement of opinion on that, but that's okay.

Alan, go ahead.

I was gonna say uh to the point of having limited staff to administer this.

I think that's why and talking about the fuel mix today not being decarbonized on the electric side.

I think that's why it would be very important to have this fee lie dormant until such time that the uh carbon intensity of electricity is lower than the carbon intensity of gas, and that would minimize administration of the fee until such time that that switches, and then the fee can take effect.

Incredible segue into our next topic, which is around when should this fee be in effect?

What should the timeline be?

Which um you have already given us in your presentation, which I took some notes on.

Um so Cassie, you want to cue us up for this one?

Yeah, so for the implementation timeline, we're looking for feedback on what essentially the effective date of the fee.

So a starting point date that we'd like to put out there is that it would go into effect on January 1st, 2028.

Some of the things, this is not an exhaustive list, but some of the things that we thought of when we were thinking about what an appropriate timeline might be some of the considerations was um Pacific Powers compliance for House Bill 2021.

Part part of it was um based on our understanding that Pacific Power has this RFP open this year, and it might take till the end of the year to get information on costs, which will in turn give a lot more information about their compliance timelines.

Um Elisa did just tell us that we might be able to get information about that sooner.

So that's that's an um interesting consideration.

Another one is um we've had some ideas about lining up the implementation with the next building code update.

The residential building code update is coming in October of 2026 and we would become mandatory on April 1st, 2027.

And then the last one is the 2027 Oregon legislative session, which will be the first half of next year.

And you know, we did also hear from Pacific Power just today that there is uh potential uh rumors of changes coming to the greenhouse gas regulation hospital 2021, which would have a significant impact on how our fee would be calculated.

So anything that happens during the legislative session, we would probably need some time to accommodate.

Okay.

So this is our starting place.

So happy to hear from people your opinions about the timeline or other considerations you think we should be taking into effect, as Alan just said, thinking about um some of those things in and when the fee should be in effect.

But this is our our next topic.

And I want to acknowledge we're at 5:30.

I think we'll be done by six, but if not, we will keep going.

Um we have the room for so if people can stay, that's great.

If anyone has to leave at six, please make sure to tell me so I can make sure to call on you before.

But I think we'll I think we're moving at a good pace with the discussion here.

So wants to kick us off on implementation ideas or thoughts.

Yeah.

Um Pacific Power does not have an opinion about timeline, but I want to make sure I'm publicly acknowledging to the round table that we will absolutely keep staff and council um appris of any changes that we see in our regulatory compliance and or anything that comes out of legislative session that would impact uh gas emissions for us.

Great.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, um, I think my thought would be that uh if I believe the council's intent is um to reduce carbon right in the city.

Um and until Pacific Power gets to that point where they can reduce their emissions, which they're saying that they can meet that goal, would be around 29 or 30.

So I'm asking that it be pushed out until either 29 or 30 or until they can prove that they have met those goals.

That would be my ask.

All right.

Uh Gary.

Uh it'll be no surprise to folks here that have been following this issue that COBA is willing, uh wanting to participate with the city at a pilot program.

So I would love to create that pilot program, have it play out, study the data from it prior to uh fee being imposed.

Um I'm happy to get into more depth on what we kind of envisioned from a pilot.

I know we haven't really had a chance to do that in two minutes presentation to cancel the past, so open to questions there.

Okay, great.

Yeah, let's just get some more ideas and we'll come back to that.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Um policy making is is not perfect.

We're never going to be making decisions in a vacuum about this, whether it is an ongoing pilot, whether it is a pilot that might happen in the future, whether it's HB 2021 progress or climate protection program progress or a building code update or speculation on a legislative session, or a new federal administration.

Like there's always going to be something dynamic in the energy policy landscape.

That is just the nature of things.

At some point, we do have to stop collecting data and just do something because we are in a vacuum of leadership on climate right now.

Like we are we are federally backsliding since the first CCAP emissions inventory, but BEM's emissions have gone up 20%.

We didn't have a winter.

We're headed for a bad wildfire season that is disproportionately going to impact the people that are least responsible and least equipped to deal to it, deal with it.

So we we have to just try something at some point.

This is already a very modest option, right?

Like originally a red-way restriction was on the table, a Knox restriction was on the table.

The CEDA's already scaled back the level of action because of concerns from affordable housing, because of concerns around economic development.

But just as a North Star, we think we need to remember that climate action has right being good stewards of our environment, having healthy air.

That is the underpinning of what makes Bend economically viable.

So at some point we need to just try something and we can build in sunsets and check in on the policy.

Like that is good implementation, good development.

We think the city should do that to make sure it's not having unintended consequences.

But every model is wrong.

Some of them are wrong and useful, but at some point we just need to try collect real data and then we can revisit.

We can tweak things down the road.

Oh, so April 2027.

I was saying this day.

We should align with the building code update.

Especially for developers to have a single compliance calendar.

Yeah.

That makes sense in my head.

Okay.

Robin.

Yeah, the ECC recommends a start date of July 1st, 2027.

Um, we do not think we should wait until January 1st, 2028, primarily due to speculation of a legislative session.

If anything comes up in that legislative session, you know, we could have the opportunity to delay the policy and amend as needed.

Um but as Brendan says, we need to do climate action now.

Um also want to note um based on David, your point, um these appliances can last for up to 20 years.

And if we install electric now, you know, or gas now, those will last for 20 years.

And in that 20-year lifespan, we are assuming that Pacific Power could change their renewable source drastically.

So we want to build SMART from the start, knowing that these appliances and these systems last for quite a while.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm gonna go over to Sarah.

Um, yeah, thank you.

So I guess um we would land a little bit more where um where Garrett is and and um the conversations around the pilot.

I think when I when I look at forming um an opinion on an implementation of this, I think about our North Star, which is housing affordability for our workforce and the fact that 53% of the people that work in Bend don't live in Bend.

And that that's something that we need to do some something about.

Um, just yesterday we were at Parkside Place, it was super exciting.

We've got deed restricted, like we're making progress, but we can't we can't hold the gas on that kind of progress.

So that's where that's my lens that I'm coming from, trying to balance obviously with the concerns that we're talking about with climate.

Um, I also think it's important that we we have a lot of different policymaking that's happening at the city that's sometimes happens in silos.

We've got the um home hardening building R327, which is being expedited and I think makes a lot of sense to be expedited from a variety of perspectives from wildlife, um wildfire prevention.

Um, we've got the the tree code conversation, we've got the um natural gas fee code conversation.

So all of these things are kind of like tiny chunks away at that level of affordability.

And so I think having the time and the space to um sequence some of those decisions in a manner that makes sense that protects that affordability and some of the things we're doing for our community is something that um I'm very supportive of and our members are very supportive of.

Um and I guess I'll leave it at that.

And would love to hear more about the pilot of Garrett if there's a chance.

Yeah, let me come to Steve and Mandy, and then we'll come back to you, Garrett.

Steve, did you have a question for somebody?

Well, uh, just Cassia's the I just want to level set for the room here just a little bit.

You talk about that building code uh update coming in right here.

Can you tell us that just to explain the room to the effect of that building code in terms of of installation of new equipment into homes, particularly in the HVAC world?

Yeah, so um, and if a building code person in the room wants to jump in, you can do that, but I can take a stab at it.

Um, the new building code update uh improves the energy efficiency of all new residential construction by roughly 30%.

Um, and with that new um I think I think that's maybe I can say confidently, is there anything to add, I guess, from the building.

Well, I guess what I'm trying to get at is is in most cases if there's going to be an AC unit installed in a home, it's gonna require a heat pump for the yes, yeah.

Thank you for reminding me about that part.

Another part of the code update is that when air conditioning is installed, it has to be a heat pump.

So that will ensure that any home that has air conditioning, which is which is many of them these days, has a heat pump.

So even if they have a gas furnace, it kind of sets up those homes to be more of those dual fuel options.

Um, so that is a that's a big change that will have an impact as well.

And I guess I'm just I'm sort of asking that question because I I do acknowledge the affordability and I agree with Sherry to find North Star uh as well.

Um that's a way to really avoid a large portion of our a la carte fee, right?

That's about 1500 bucks off a 2,000 uh all in cost.

So about three quarters of the fee goes away when this when this drops into our laps here in April of next year.

So it's a I think that really helps us with the affordability uh well, it would depend the until we make a decision on the dual fuel systems.

If someone puts the gas furnace in, then the cost would still be there with that.

Fair enough.

But it could drive, yeah, it could be automatically driving more of those electric systems as people are putting it in for sure.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

So Garrett, oh well, Mandy, let me go to you and then I'll come to Garrett to talk a little bit about what you think about a pilot program.

There was a couple members of our committee that were concerned about the layering on of fees similar to what Sarah said.

I think if we do go the route of the exemption for like up to 120 AMI, there's less concern because it was the it was the hardening and then this as well.

We just want to reduce those barriers for affordable middle housing.

Makes sense.

Okay, Garrett.

So when you're talking about a pilot program, um, if you could explain what you mean by that.

We're we're really in the world of timeline here.

So are you talking about something time-limited or what is it that you mean by that?

Yeah, uh, on the time limited scheme uh aspect, we want to study it for at least a year so we could collect that utility rate data, uh, the energy use data so we can understand grid impacts.

Um, and then on the construction data collection piece, here's what we kind of envision in terms of how this comes to life.

Um, we have three members of production builders right now, so we're hoping we can do this at scale that are willing in upcoming projects that are into queue to identify select homes where we can have a side-by-side comparison of building all electric right next to all gas.

And the reason that selecting homes within the same project matters is that all projects are different.

So if we want to control variables here, same piece of land, two different products is probably the best way to collect that data.

Um, all alongside of this, um, I know high efficient electric equipment was mentioned earlier.

We do have high performance builders, uh, one of which is offered to be a kind of a consultant to our members that are participating in this.

We also will probably reach out to Earth Advantage just to make sure that we're using electric equipment in these all electric homes that really gets counseled to where we're looking at for our climate uh climate goals.

Um, so here's timeline.

Um, our members have talked like quickest is probably two years we could get the homes identified, built, sold, and we're starting to study two to three is is roughly what we're thinking with city support and the permitting process.

I think we get closer to that too.

Um, and the also a piece I missed when it turns the home selection is we really want to make sure we have a diverse selection of homes.

So town home, single story detached, two-story detached, get a real good picture of an entire housing mix and how it contributes to emissions and also uses energy and what the affordability looks like in terms of development outside of equipment and direct costs and everything like that.

Okay, so to clarify for what you're saying is that the policy would not apply citywide for two to three years, it would only apply in these certain ways as we are studying the data before it goes citywide.

Is that the proposal?

Okay.

And I tried to make that as brief as possible since we're on short time here.

So if there's about that.

I mean I understood it, but yeah, Mandy.

I just have a brief question.

Why would you not look retroactively at information?

Like there's lots of houses in Bend, there's lots of buildings, there's already you know data from these.

Why would you need to build the homes, wait the time frame versus identifying homes and finding a way to get that information?

Yeah.

Yep.

One of the challenges when we're looking at development cost slotted it's sourced regionally, not specifically to Bend, where we do have unique requirements, regulations, code.

So being able to do it here, collect local data would be really most impactful if we want to understand the affordability impact associated with this fee.

Um, and I'm sorry, the second part of the question was Why wouldn't you identify locally something to look retroactive?

Yep.

And it's and again, that's kind of comparing the variables.

So if we were to look at an all-electric home built here and an all-electric home built here, there's going to be different costs associated with that just because the difference in the pieces of land we built on.

So being able to do it side by side with a gas home and electric home that are all went through the same development process, we're able to control for those variables.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions on that or other ideas?

Council Mendez.

Uh thank you.

Question about, you know, we've heard a couple of times concern about delaying until we have more certainty about our on a pathway to complying with HB 2021.

Um, but we've talked about this before, where we we talk about the importance of uh comparing high efficiency to low efficiency electrification.

And I believe council expressed a preference to pursue policies that incentivize uh high efficiency electrical appliances.

So my question is, and I think this would either be for Tassie or for Alan.

Uh, to what extent does the worry about pathways to HB 2021 compliance depend on assumptions about the efficiency of the electrical appliances that are um implemented?

So even with it matters more if you're looking like with low efficiency equipment, Pacific power not being in compliance with household 21 2021 is like a is a very, very big problem.

Because then you have high emission electricity and the quantity of electricity consumed is really high because it's the low efficiency.

If you have efficient equipment, the concern goes down because it should be total less energy used in total since that's being used efficiently, but the electricity that would be used is still dirty.

So it the concern is still there.

And our analysis shows that um using today's mix, even uh when Pacific power homes, some of the equipment, including some of the high efficiency equipment over the lifecycle of the equipment would still have like a higher carbon impact using a high efficiency heat pump at a at a today's grid mix compared to gas.

So it's definitely the grid mix still matters even with high efficiency, but it matters a lot with low efficiency.

Right.

Thank you.

And there's in even with uh grid mix that's all clean, low efficiency is problematic in general, and especially from a cost perspective, and that's sort of a grid um perspective too.

Yeah.

Anything you want to add to that, Elisa, or did that make sense?

She did a great job.

Okay.

Great.

All right.

Other um ideas or um information around timeline that folks want us to know, David.

Yeah.

I would like to support the the pilot programs.

Um, not only um with all electric and then all gas, but in adding possibly a third in there, which is a hybrid home, whatever that may be, um, so that it's not just one or the other.

Um, we've talked about different ways of doing that.

And when you touched on the efficiencies, um, when we talk about an all-electric home, most affordable housing currently that I see being produced out there is using the most horrible electric appliances.

And I think that is something we really need to look at.

Okay, great.

Other thoughts on this part of the discussion.

Um question about the pilot idea.

In addition to the questions about why not look retroactively.

If you've ever gone to a neighbor's house and felt like either it's too cold or too hot compared to your house, you know the baseline of what you set your thermal stat to makes a huge difference, even if the homes are the same and they're right next to each other.

So I guess um I'm still puzzled by why there's why it would be so important to have this idea of like two houses right next to each other.

Like, are we gonna also come, you know, how do we control for thermostat settings?

Yeah, and I think we'd hope to come to that by having enough scale that we could take the average in terms to calculate for that energy use.

Um, because that's a big piece of this as well.

If we want to study the grid capacity as well as with utility rates, we're gonna be tracking that usage data, which we need help from our utility friends at the end of the room to do.

Um, but yeah, so if we were able to do this at a big enough scale, I'd hope we'd be able to average that out.

Okay.

And one more piece, just at Dave's comment.

Uh, that came up in our conversations with members about if it's if the fees associated with individual pieces of equipment, if council or the city wanted to see that hybrid approach, we're happy to do that as well.

Of if someone wanted to pay for a gas fireplace upgrade, we can do a home or two like that.

Uh so we're flexible and and would appreciate feedback from the city on what you need from us to make that work too.

Okay, great.

Other thoughts, yeah, Robin.

Um the ECC does not support a pilot.

Um, we don't think waiting three years to have that pilot is a good use of our time.

Within those three years, there will be thousands of homes that will not um potentially be all electric because of that.

Um, and we think you know, it is it is part of a delay tactic, and we want to implement the policy one year after it is passed.

Um, as developers are used to um having a new code one year after it is passed, they will have that one year in order to implement this new policy.

Okay, got it, Brennan?

Yeah, in a similar thing to Robin, right?

We're 80% of our housing stock in the next 20 years, we kick the bucket another two years, four years, that's 10 or 20% of that housing stock, but the city has effectively done nothing to push development towards all electric.

And I think that the city has relatively high confidence that this is a climate solution we need.

It's in our community climate action plan, right?

Strategy ES2A develop policies to limit fossil fuel use and new construction.

So I would just challenge that we are at the stage where we need to be collecting more data to make a relatively modest policy proposal go through.

Can I ask you because you had said before that you were okay with building in sunsets or check-ins?

Can you elaborate on that?

Like, what does that look like for you all as far as monitoring this policy and checking in on it and potentially modifying it?

What are some ideas you have around that?

I think staying in line in step with building code.

So every three years and say like at the end of two years, city is done collecting data in that last year between so that we're building codes 2027.

So by 2029, city is done collecting data and they can look back.

We have better KPIs of what are the actual appliances going in, how many people paid the fee?

Did this impact our housing production rate?

Look at that data and use that to inform an update that would go into effect with the next building code update 2030.

But okay, so aligned with building code.

All right, Steve and then Megan.

I just wanted to ask Rent, I don't know that I heard your inputs.

I heard from Alan and I heard from Elisa on timeline.

I I'm just as another provider.

Do you have thoughts on the implementation timeline?

Not on a specific timeline.

Okay.

Thank you.

Question?

I just a question for Cassie that um when you were talking about the pilot and and thousands of homes.

What can you remind me?

What were the assumptions that were made about people that were going to, you know, how what percentage of the new homes that were built that would comply with um the fee entirely or or would comply with some of it?

I'm trying to remember what the the calculation that was made or the assumption that was like how many people would pay the fee at the 20% level?

And how many would just say, forget it, I'm going all electric.

I might ask, I actually have Daniel Walker, our consultant on the line right now.

And if you are listening, Danielle, I might ask if you have that data handy because I don't have it on the top of my head.

Hi, can you hear me?

Okay.

At 20%, we expect uh 25% of homes built to go electric.

Okay.

Okay.

Good to know.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Can you ask a quick follow-up on that?

Sure, yeah.

Um, Danielle, is that when you when you made that um calculation, that assumption, were you aware of the building code change that counselor Platt just asked Cassie about earlier?

Where if you put air conditioning in a house, it has to be a heat pump air conditioner, not a standalone air conditioner, and how that is going to influence how many people just decide to go all electric just because of the building code.

Um, I mean, we're basing this off of willingness to adopt studies on electrification that I don't think consider a mandatory building code.

So that would be something else that we'd have to take into consideration.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks.

Okay.

Any other final thoughts on implementation before we wrap up?

Um, Alan, I see you, so I'll go to you and then I'll go to Garrett.

Oh, one thing I really like about the multi-year pilot idea is in addition to testing to make sure that carbon reductions are actually achieved, you know, the affordability aspect of it is the resource adequacy, because that's so essential.

So allowing a few winters to pass, looking at winter peak demand and the impacts to the end user, to the homeowner, both with the electric home, the gas home, and the hybrid home, and to be able to compare, compare if there are peak events that take place.

I think that's crucial, especially since, like as we said before, we are a winter peaking region.

Great.

Garrett?

Yeah, one more uh piece on why letting it's a pilot play out would be helpful.

Is I did talk to some of our developers building Washington as well.

And when they move towards the electrification policy, there were supply chain challenges with appliances and equipment providers.

Um they were serving more homes than they previously had.

So getting some runway for the market to get there as well, I think would be something that's wise.

And then additionally to Sarah's point earlier, the layered costs are going to impact developers.

Yeah.

So if you so if if this was to go in, let's say we we we we don't decide to do a pilot and we are going to implement.

Is there a recommended date for you?

I know we heard some from Dave, but is there a recommendation from you all for that timeline and that runway?

I would say is as much runway as possible, 2028 or okay.

All right.

Any other thoughts?

Oh, sir, uh hop up.

Yeah, I guess uh Cascade would like to request that um maybe the study reincorporate some of the future assumptions of the electric supply cost.

Uh, we've heard both uh Central Electric Cooperative as well as Pacific Power say they've got new information that may not have been incorporated in the study to date.

So a lot of the discussion is focused on affordability as an upfront cost, but how about the ongoing cost for the residents here?

The more dollars spent on utility cost, uh, the more that we'll take away from just dollars available for the economy here in the city, then all right, thank you.

And Cassie, um, as we wrap up here, has staff thought about um, you know, even with the recommendation of 2028 or mid-27, you know, would staff be interested in doing check-ins or how often would staff be needing to look at at data to update this fee as it goes forward.

Yeah, I think it's definitely and any sort of policy like this is always a good idea to have sort of periodic check-ins to ensure, you know, one that it's sort of achieving a goals and that we're sort of scanning for any of those sorts of issues.

I think one check-in I would definitely recommend is regardless of when whether it's 2027 or 2028 or later, is um be at a certain period.

I don't know if it's one month before or three months before, having a check-in so we can recalibrate the fee calculation with whatever most recent information we have from Pacific Power about their timelines because we really do need that information in order to make the calculation work.

So that's when I would definitely recommend.

And then the cycle after that, I think um, I don't have a specific recommendation right now.

I can think about that for the 22nd, but um, you know, I think it's a discussion we can have with council, you know, balancing the effort it takes to put in review, you know, having enough time to have enough meaningful data where you're not reviewing too soon, where you the data just doesn't have sort of enough variation with you know, still being responsive to things.

So every couple of years, I would think.

Okay.

All right.

Well, um, we've gotten a lot of really good information from everyone, and I appreciate everyone being here willing to share that with us.

I mean, I think we've heard some different perspectives around urgency and then also why delay might be um desirable for some of our stakeholders.

So um I appreciate all of that and the and the discussion on the exemptions.

I was gonna ask Eric, um, who's been taking notes over there, and I've been taking notes as well, just to sort of reflect back some of the the top level things that we're gonna be bringing into our work session, and then we will um close it out.

So you know, we we captured the general feedback from each.

So I don't want to go through you know each group said this.

No, just go a general theme.

But I think general themes of um, you know, other ideas to consider beyond what was shared here is uh consideration of the pilot program, housing mix and the 120 AMI kind of expanding on that.

The um uh input from the utilities to in terms of just calibrating with with metrics, um, just kind of looking at all my notes here.

I'll add I think we had a we had a mix of support versus not support for the dual fuel heat pumps and the renewable natural gas.

So that's something that I think we'll be looking for direction from council on kind of based on those different things that you've heard.

Yeah.

And I think um, I mean, I heard um uh a lot about the pilot program and a lot about wanting to just try the policy and get it going sooner on the exemptions.

I think pretty strong support on some sort of um talking about affordable housing and how we are gonna um exempt that potentially.

Um, and then I think what you said is right, Cassie, just some some mixed opinions on the dual fuel and the RNG and some ideas for some potential reductions or putting things into the calculation versus them being exemptions.

Um I think those were all things that we captured um around solar um as well.

There was discussion of that um too.

So um we will bring all that to council.

I do want to kind of level set too that what staff is going to bring to council.

Some of these ideas are more um intensive or might take more looking into than others, right?

It's just saying, okay, deed restricted affordable housing, that's very clear and straightforward, talking about a pilot program or talking about particular megawatts of solar, those are maybe a little more involved.

So I'm we are gonna ask staff to really tell us which of these could we do on the timeline that we want now, which is to pass this policy in June, and which of them might not be ready or available for us to consider as fully flushed ideas by then.

So just uh for everyone to have that expectation, um, and we will discuss the council what we want to do with that information, right?

And how we want to proceed.

But um really good ideas, I think to bring to the table for for our discussion on the 22nd.

So any other final thank yous or thoughts from council.

Yeah, this is incredibly I took a lot of notes.

Thank you so much for all of you for for your perspectives and and your guidance.

Yeah, appreciate everybody being here and um leaning in and being respectful and having a good back and forth.

Yeah, and if there's something that you thought of that comes to you that couldn't come to your mind today as you were sitting at this table, you you know, send it in to Cassie.

Um, give us, you know, make sure that she gets that.

So if in case you had a really good thought that just didn't come to you, we would we still want to hear it.

Or if someone else, you you're debriefing over coffee with someone and they give you an idea, like send it to us so that we can incorporate that and think about that as well.

Okay.

Wow, perfectly on time.

Good job.

Good job.

Thanks.