Minutes of the Meeting of Nevada Task Force for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation October 28, 2002
Committee Members Present: Las Vegas: Rose McKinney-James, Chair Mark Russell Carson City: Sam Routson Russ Fields Tim Carlson Bob Cooper Dr. Jane Long Bob Balzar Others Present: Carson City: Misty Young, KPS/3 Jeneane Harter, Hi Tech Communications Fred Rogers, Sunrise Garry Bowen Paul Normandie, Evol. Env. Carl Linvill, NSOE Shirley Swafford, AARP Alan Caldwell, Sierra Concepts Danelle Snodgrass, Bureau of Consumer Protection Judy Cox, Lt. Governor’s Office Richard Hoops, BLM
Roll Call The meeting was called to order and roll was called by Ms. McKinney-James. Ms. McKinney-James asked Bob Cooper about the responses to the RFP. Mr. Cooper explained that seven proposals were submitted to the task force for consideration. Ms. McKinney James was told that Mr. Russell was not in his office on Friday and does not have copies of the proposals. The Chair indicated that some discussion will be needed on the volume and substance, as well as the evaluation tool that was included.
Approval of Minutes Approval of past minutes deferred until next meeting. 1
Report from Nevada State Energy Office Dr. Carl Linvill of the Nevada State Energy Office presented this report. Dr. Linvill wanted to inform everyone about October 30 – National Weatherization Day. They have a couple of events planned in Northern and Southern Nevada. The Housing Division has worked with the Community Services Agency and helped weatherize 364 homes, which is a large increase over last year. 52% have someone who is elderly living in them, 57% were persons with disabilities and 22% have children under six. Another building event is November 1- the Nevada State Energy Office will be presenting the Annual Governor’s Banner Award, which is a Builder’s Association of Northern Nevada award for energy efficient buildings. The Solar Work Group meeting was held earlier in the month. Minutes were distributed to those on the Solar distribution list. For anyone who would like a copy they will be posted on the website soon. The Nevada State Energy Office had a Rural Renewable Energy Outreach group meeting that continues to meet on monthly basis. Finally there is an International Energy Conference and Exposition in Reno November 12 through 15 that will include a significant geothermal set of presentations. Bob Cooper asked Dr. Linvill about the status of the DSM program that had been approved by the PUC and the funding set aside to help coordinate with the Housing Division to integrate some of the utility programs and some of the housing programs. Dr. Linvill responded that the Energy Office had already committed to hire somebody to do an evaluation of programs and opportunities for leveraging that could occur between the DSM program, the weatherization program, other housing programs as well as county and city programs. Mr. Balzar added that they were planning a couple of meetings with the Nevada State Housing Division as early as this week or next week. Ms. McKinney-James had a question for Dr. Linvill relating to the extent that Nevada is active with the WRAQE (Western Regional Air Quality Effort). Dr. Linvill said that Nevada is in the loop on that certificate trading program and they are seeking to figure out how that can work with the efforts of the PUC to establish credits in the state. As far as the Western Regional Air Quality Effort, that is being coordinated out of the Nevada Environmental Protection group – Alan Biagi is a member of WRAQE. One of the things that came out of the Solar meeting is that some of the money that has come to the state through Roger Jacobsen and DRI is going to be used to do a census of solar energy in the state. This is a first necessary step to establish a base line to see what is out there to be traded and what the characteristics are. Ms. McKinney-James thought it would be very helpful to extend an invitation to Alan Biagi to provide the task force with an update on the activities of WRAQE. Final question Ms. McKinney-James had for Dr. Linvill is relating to a proceeding that is before the FERC which has become somewhat controversial and refers to the Standard Market Design initiative. The Chair asked Dr. Linvill to explain the goal of this docket to the task force and how it relates to renewable energy. Dr. Linvill explained that part of the Standard Market Design proposal is included in the Energy Bill. In that same energy bill there is the renewable credit proposal – the National Renewable Standard Proposal, which he thought was currently at 10%. The two are related in that way. The main concern in the western states, and which the 2
Governor is on the record in joining in a letter from western and southern states to the FERC, has to do with treating all regions of the country alike in terms of the establishment and trading of transmission rights. They have a problem with that because they believe the west is fundamentally different and over the last two years have repeatedly conveyed the message that the west is different and generation and transmission is more spread out. Dr. Linvill said the Standard Market Design started out as a FERC docket. Part of the SMD found its way into the Energy Bill and that’s how the two are related to each other. The fact that it tries to impose a “one size fits all” is not as appreciated. Bob Cooper brought up the State grants that came out around December and asked Dr. Linvill about the status of this year’s grant. Dr. Linvill said that it floats with the Energy Bill. December would probably be the best case scenario, maybe even the early part of next year.
Public Comment Joe Johnson of Las Vegas, a member of the State Environmental Commission, addressed the issue of the WRAQE membership. The State of Nevada had chosen not to be a formal participant in that agreement in 1999. They were simply members on an information and discussion basis. They are actively involved in the Class I air issues and since it may impact renewable energy, we might want to reconsider our participation in that organization. Ms. McKinney-James recalled that the decision was made not to participate because of the suggestion that most of the damage in the air shed had come from the Mojave Generating Plant and other activities in Nevada. She said some research will be done on this and the Task Force will try to stay in the loop. Jon Wellinghoff made a request relative to transmission. He is acting as a consultant to the Western Area Power Administration, one of the major transmission providers for the Nevada and Western states area. He is working with Mr. Randy Manion, who is their non-hydro renewables manager. Mr. Manion hopes to meet with Nevada stakeholders and an entity in California that is currently working on a study there with a great deal of potential impact on the State of Nevada and renewables specifically. The study, funded by the California Energy Commission, is called a PEER study being done by the Center for Research Solutions. The study is to investigate the PDCI, the Pacific DC Intertie which runs through Northern Nevada, starting at the northwestern corner of Nevada past Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, along the east side of Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation down through to the west side of the Walker River Indian Reservation and on eventually down into California over near Bishop and ultimately ends up in Southern California at a place called Silamore – which is a substation for Los Angeles Water and Power, and Southern California Edison. The purpose of this study is to investigate tapping into this DC power line in Nevada and using it as a collector point for significant amounts of renewable energy from Northern Nevada that would be then marketed to Southern California or potentially the northwest – Oregon, Washington. Since this study is so integral to Nevada, Mr.Wellinghoff would like to have the key players in Nevada have a meeting with the manager of the study at CRS, Mr. Ray Drucker and have the key entities have a dialogue with the study manager to see what input the Task Force could provide him.
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Ms. McKinney-James expressed appreciation for Mr. Wellinghoff’s consideration of the Task Force for this. She asked the members of the Task Force what their thoughts were about putting this item on one of the upcoming agendas. This will be considered later in the meeting when discussion takes place on future meetings. Gary Bowen from Carson City wanted to bring two items to the task force’s attention. The past weekend the Lake Tahoe Federal Advisory Committee met with Senator Feinstein, Senator Reid and what’s known as Tahoe Regional Executive Committee (TREC), which is comprised of some of the leaders from the regional offices of various government agencies (Army Corps of Engineers, Housing & Urban Development, etc.). The second item was the issue of forest health. Converting biomass into renewable energy, there is still an issue with that in the roughly 200 million acres of the forests in the western United States. He will be trying to consolidate those efforts through those agencies including Region IV and Region V of the Forest Service as well as the California State Forester and Senator Feinstein’s office. He felt this was an important issue in terms of air quality and renewable energy. Dr. Linvill suggested that Tom Baker of the Forest Service may be a valuable contact regarding this issue. Mr. Baker has been involved with the biomass issues along with Judy Cox of the Lt. Governor’s Office. Bob Cooper brought up a letter that was received from the Bureau of Land Management regarding an update to their wind energy development policy. Ms. McKinney-James deferred that discussion to item 7 under Other Business. Bob Cooper gave a brief update on the Nevada Portfolio Standard. Docket 01-7029 was the PUC rulemaking docket implementing the portfolio standard. This has been formally closed by the PUC but this may be revisited in the next twelve months. A couple of companion dockets are going forward, docket 02-5029 regarding the tradeable credit program, which is scheduled for a final workshop on November 5, 2002 and a final hearing on November 8, 2002. The draft comments are available on the PUC website under docket 02-5029. An additional docket that is unfolding is 025030, which provides for updating the resource planning regulations to integrate the portfolio standard into resource planning and take greater account of present worth of societal cost and other externalities. Mr. Cooper didn’t believe the RFP responses had been filed by the utility yet and wasn’t sure what the timetable was. Ms. McKinney-James asked Mr. Balzar if he was aware of what the timetable was on this. Bob Balzar answered that within the next couple of days some contracts will be submitted to the PUC.
Other Business Rose McKinney-James addressed the timing issues of the RFP. Because some of the members of the task force have not had the opportunity to review the proposals there is a bit of a dilemma. There are seven proposals and a set of guidelines for the members to use in evaluating them. The task force is obligated to have the discussions in terms of evaluation, in a public setting though but can review and rank the proposals on an individual basis. Because of the seriousness of this decision the task force decided that another meeting should be called after everyone has had a chance to review the proposals. It was also decided that the field should be narrowed to the top three proposals – from the
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standpoint of timing and volume. Once the three have been chosen the task force would invite the finalists to another meeting to question them personally and make their decision. Ms. McKinney-James asked Mr. Cooper for a quick overview of guidelines that were submitted and the scoring document that was developed. Mr. Cooper said the guildelines and scoring document were provided by the State Purchasing Division, which is the entity that helps promulgate regulations and the uniform state contract that the successful vendor will be asked to execute. Ms. McKinney-James feels strongly that the whole task force must be involved in the decision of choosing the final three vendors. A decision was made to meet on November 12, 2002 at 10:00am to choose the final three vendors and November 22, 2002 at 1:00pm to have the three finalists attend the meeting for the final selection. Following is the list the seven proposals that were submitted: Evolutionary Environs Golden State Energy Deborah Struhsacker KPS3 – in a strategic alliance with Jeneane Harter of HiTech Communications, Kim Swearingen of Sunrise Sustainable Resources, Tom Clark of Syndetic Partners and Bill Kockenmeister of the Law Offices of Bill Kockenmeister in a joint submittal StarrPR Public Relations Firm, a division of Starr Seigle Communications of Las Vegas Daniel Hart of Dan Hart and Associates Cynthia Mitchell and Robert Kahn Further discussion took place about time frames for each vendor’s presentation. It was decided to limit each vendor to twenty minutes. This would allow for a full hour of presentations and at least allow another hour for discussion. Business Meeting Ms. McKinney-James asked for a motion regarding the request from Mr. Wellinghoff to set aside a portion of our agenda to discuss the projects with the Western Area Power Administration. She suggested the December meeting may be better because the consultant selection will be made. Another item for the December meeting is the formulation of specific recommendations to be transmitted to the legislature for our report for this initial year of activity. Mr. Russell offered a motion and it was seconded by Mr. Fields. Ms. McKinney-James will invite Mr. Wellinghoff to the December meeting. December 2 has been targeted for that December meeting. Mr. Hoops of BLM was asked to give update on Wind Energy Development Policy letter dated October 16. High points of this letter were outlined and a copy of this letter is attached.
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Mr. Hoops said he would be happy to discuss this in more detail at a later date if the task force desires and emphasized that the function of the state office in this is overall program oversight. The local field offices will actually be granting the permits and conducting the environmental review and are the offices the various applicants will be dealing with directly. Mr. Carlson has been said he had been working with Mr. Hoops on this and applauds the BLM for their proactive approach. Ms. McKinney-James said this shows positive signs of progress and that wind resources will be playing a significant role in advancing renewable installations in the west and across the country fairly rapidly. Mr. Russell had an informational item that dealt with a 25 megawatt power plant that has been approved in Tonopah that is going to generate electricity through used tires for gasification. He had a question about the burning of tires as a municipal waste under our current statute which defines four categories of biomass. It talks about municipal waste and forest products and wondered if anyone was aware of this process or whether the EPA approved system was going to allow the burning of tires to generate energy and was this considered biomass and a renewable resource. Mr. Russell inquired whether other Task Force members had thoughts on this matter. Ms. McKinney-James was not familiar with this project and asked Bob Cooper to respond to this. Bob Cooper did have a limited understanding of the technology that was being proposed. The claim is that the technology involved was somewhat different from the Moapa tire-burning proposal of 10 years ago, but wasn’t sure it would fall within the biomass definition of the renewable portfolio standard. He did know that the folks involved in this project were contemplating a potential solar thermal component as an adjunct to the tire-burning proposal. He believed that under the portfolio standard regulations implemented by the commission could be eligible for a credit if there is a meter to separately count the solar thermal component of that plant. He will try to get more information and provide it to the task force at a future meeting.
Meeting adjourned.
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