Well, good afternoon, everyone.

Um it's four o'clock, and uh the special meeting of the Rochester Public Utility Board to discuss approval and authorization for the Mount Simon Generator Interconnection Agreement with MISO is now called to order.

As a reminder, uh this meeting is going to be recorded and recording is available on the city website.

The first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda.

And may I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented.

I'll make a motion.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

The agenda is approved.

Next, we'll move to the open public comment period of our meeting.

Total comment period is limited to 20 minutes.

Each person having two minutes to speak, and any speakers not having the opportunity to be heard tonight or this afternoon, we'll be the first to present at the next board meeting.

Is there anyone signed up to make a public comment?

There isn't anyone signed up.

Thank you so much.

Moving next to the regular agenda on our regular agenda, we have item 2A, which is the approval and authorization of the Mount Simon Generator Interconnection Agreement with MISO.

And this item will be presented by Director of Power Resources, Bill Bullock.

Okay.

Thank you, Malikai.

Um, so yes, we're here to uh to get your authorization to enter into the generator interconnection agreement for Mount Simon.

Um we did, as you may remember, uh a little less than a year ago, got approval to enter the ERIS process, which is the expedited resource addition study.

And when they say expedited, they do mean expedited.

They gave us exactly a week to comment and return the signed agreement back to them.

So it has been reviewed by outside council who gave their approval.

Um, but I just wanted to run through just a brief overview of what the agreement provides.

Um it is uh an interconnection agreement between the Mount Simon Station and the MISO transmission system.

The parties to the agreement are uh as the interconnection customer, Rochester Public Utilities.

And on the other side of the table is the transmission owner, which is also Rochester Public Utilities.

Um and the transmission service provider is MISO itself, so they're standing in the middle.

Um and it establishes responsibilities for design and construction of the interconnection facilities, whatever upgrades are needed to accommodate the additional uh power flows from the uh from the asset.

Um, the cost responsibility who bears the cost of what, um, whether it's RPU or RPU.

Um, and then the long-term operation and maintenance of the facilities.

Um and it is a 30-year agreement with uh kind of an evergreen clause for annual renewals.

Um currently um the the agreement also provides network resource interconnection service or NRIS.

Um this enables uh the asset to to provide firm capacity.

Um the the alternative to NRIS is ERIS, which is energy resource integrate interconnection service.

Um and so it's it's much better to have NRIS than ERIS, especially if you're using it for capacity, which we will be.

Um so it does define the point of interconnection, um, the uh interconnection facilities themselves, uh the network upgrade required, uh, whatever system protection and then metering and communications.

So basically all of the technical details uh of the interconnect.

Um it doesn't provide transmission service.

We'll still have to pay for transmission service um for our load, um, but this does allow um the the uh capacity to be um to be sold even outside the system.

Um so uh the the project responsibilities for for the interconnection customer that's RPU.

Um we do have to fund the interconnection um facilities and require network upgrades um that we're causing by installing this.

Um we need to meet project milestones and commercial operation dates.

Uh we need to provide security and financial guarantees, of course, to the counterparty, which is ourselves, um, which is not hard to do, um, and design construct and operate and maintain the generator side of the facilities.

And the transmission owner, which is also RPU, is needs to design and construct the transmission facilities required.

We need to coordinate the studies and do the system upgrades.

And then we meet agreed construction schedule or potentially owe liquidated damages to RPU.

So the major risk really are delays in permitting a construction.

The mitigation there is that I don't think we'll sue ourselves.

I'll refer to our attorney for that.

The cost overruns of the network, the largest equipment has already been ordered.

So there is not a lot of schedule risk there.

And then on the failure to achieve commercial operation by the required date, really we've started early.

And we're we're ahead of schedule on the interconnect, and that's what the ERAS process has given us.

So if we compare the um the old process, the DPP um process was what we were originally in.

We applied for that in 2023.

Um those that we still wouldn't be up be in the study phase for that.

Um right now they're just finishing up the 2021 queue.

So it could be another two to three years before uh that is applied.

So, you know, obviously the costs for for that queue were you can see they were lower.

Um the good news on this is that we, even though we signed up for the DPPQ, we were forced to drop out of uh we could only take one path uh and we chose to to go with the errors path, which is more expensive.

Um, but we did receive um uh where we will be receiving a a refund of the fees we paid on the DPPQ, at least up to um uh the amount here less about 40 to 50,000.

Um and then on the ARAS uh queue, even though the total amount could go up to 1.4 million, most some of that is used for study.

We actually did the study as the transmission owner and the interconnection customer.

So we, you know, the the cost there was probably 100,000 or so.

Um and the the rest of the financial commitment would go toward um security for uh building uh the interconnection.

And we've we've estimated you know, in the initial DPP queue, we were going to be lumped in with a whole bunch of other uh participants in the study.

Um there were dozens of uh of applicants into the 2023 DPPQ.

Um and we would have probably been uh taken on some of the costs for all of them to uh to uh to upgrade the the networks.

Um and with it with the ARISQ, they really isolated us and just looked at what direct impacts we were having, which turned out to be almost none.

So the only cost we're incurring are really the cost of just interconnecting that we're expecting to do anyway through the substation at at Westside.

So it's about 5.4 million, and we had estimated about 20 million um for Mount Simon initially because we had no idea what it was.

Um so that's a savings about 10% overall on the project.

So it definitely, you know, if you ask me, we were a little unsure of if it would be worthwhile to do the ASQ, because it would it was a new process, but I would say that ultimately it was the best choice for the ratepayers to do that because we did save substantially uh on the uh on the interconnect um and on the overall project.

Um just on the schedule, I was pointing out this is the initial schedule.

And you can see the the interconnection agreement um was expected to be done uh by the end of 2026.

Um if I were to look at that again, I would uh if if we were coming to you and if we were still in the DPP queue, I would expect that bar to be moved out to close to the startup of the unit.

So it's really a good thing to have it wrapped up at the end of this year.

It lets us maintain the previous schedule, and now the only thing on the critical path is the the air permit.

So I do want to acknowledge uh the support we've we've had it.

It did take quite an effort of personnel to of the staff to make this happen.

And I like to you know uh acknowledge uh Anna Baswamovic, the manager of wholesale operations.

Um she really uh was key to getting the uh the ARAS application kicked off, getting um the data needs.

We were uh we were uh re when we tried to get a big engineering firm to help us with the submittal, they uh they turned us down because they had so much interconnection work.

So we kind of had to do it yourself, and and Anna was key to doing that.

She really marshaled everything, both in the initial application and then as MISO came back with comments and questions.

She was helping to monitor that.

And also Tom Conlin, who's the supervisor of engineering, he was really key in leading technical support.

He found a very nimble consulting firm that was able to help us.

Um he was able to resolve a lot of the MISO and consultant questions very quickly and competently.

And of course, we had support from Tim and Scott, Tony Zube, Judy with when we needed a check in an expedited fashion.

Um, she was able to do that.

Um, and Randy Anderton and of course the board who approved almost a year ago uh for us to do this process.

And I think it's a uh a very good outcome for for everyone involved.

Um so before you you have a resolution.

Um, I won't read it all in in detail, but it basically uh approves us to uh to enter into the agreement um as both the uh asset owner and the uh the transmission owner.

Um it uh it uh authorizes the expenditure of the 5.5 million dollars that will take to uh to build the interconnection of facilities, which is a much better number than 20 million.

Um it authorizes the general manager or his designee to perform all the acts necessary to administer administer and execute our obligations under this contract.

So with that, I'll answer questions if you've got them.

Well, thank you for that.

Um I had one quick one just to jump us off.

Um you build uh some of that infrastructure, are you finding a new place to do it?

Are you just adding new components to existing sites that we have?

And yeah, so we're adding um, we have an existing substation at West Side, so we'll be connecting through there, adding on uh the additional inner uh substation facilities that we need to accept the additional output from Mount Simon.

Gotcha, and those are all easily available when you want them.

There's no like COVID backlog on stuff.

There is a there is a backlog, but we've ordered the long lead time equipment.

Got it.

You're so yeah, way ahead of that.

Yeah, so that was one in one of the previous uh approvals authorizations.

Awesome.

Any other questions for Bill?

Councilmember Keene.

I am I'm interested just when you the transmission connection stuff here.

When you're generating energy locally, is there a rule that it has to go into a transmission before it gets distributed, or is that just the way we're doing it?

That's the way we're doing it because we have the 161 KV line there at Westside.

That is the best where it place to put that energy.

It does end up, I think in the loop and comes back into our system.

So it we don't expect it to operate and be exporting that often, but it can.

But if for some reason MISO wants us to run because there's a problem somewhere else, then we can do that.

Yeah.

And then the second question on this is I'm assuming this connection is modeled on the on the same connection we already have in the same location.

Yes.

It will operate the same way.

Uh yeah, we expect it will it will operate, it has different operating characteristics.

Like it's a these turbines are a little less efficient than the the West Side uh uh reciprocating engine.

So it won't run as often.

Okay, but you know, they'll MISO will decide if they want us to run it based on what we bid into the market.

All right, but but we expect a similar operating profile.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Wow, well explained.

Okay.

Thank you for scrambling.

Thank you.

So much.

Uh so hearing no other questions or comments, may I have a motion to approve the resolution as it appears on board packet uh page four?

Are we already uh yeah?

Motion and second.

Okay.

No.

Okay.

There's been no motion and second yet.

I'll make a motion to approve the resolution on page four.

Thank you.

And a second.

I'll second.

Awesome.

Motion seconded.

All in favor of approval signified by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Motion is approved.

And now I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

So moved.

Thank you.

Second.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor of adjourning, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

The meetings adjourned.