Loading...
06-22-15 CC WS MinCITY OF SHOREWOOD CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2015 MINUTES CONVENE CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION Mayor Zerby called the meeting to order at 6:01 P.M. A. Roll Call 5755 COUNTRY CLUB ROAD COUNCIL CHAMBERS 6:00 P.M. Present. Mayor Zerby; Councilmembers Labadie, Siakel, Sundberg, and Woodruff, Administrator Joynes; City Clerk Panchyshyn; Finance Director DeJong, Planning Director Nielsen; Director of Public Works Brown; and City Engineer Hornby Absent: None B. Review Agenda Sundberg moved, Siakel seconded, approving the agenda as presented. Motion passed 510. Administrator Joynes noted that Council had asked staff to invite representatives from Xcel Energy (Xcel) to come and talk with Council about power outages in Shorewood. Michelle Swanson noted that she is the Community Relations Manager for Xcel for the southwest metropolitan area. She serves about 35 communities including Shorewood. She then noted that with her this evening is Kim Marinac who is the Area Engineer for Xcel for Shorewood and the surrounding area. She explained they have been asked to talk about some recent outages in the area. Engineers investigated outages for two years for three different addresses in Shorewood provided to them by Director Brown. Ms. Marinac will review the outage history and the causes for them and talk about what Xcel does on a proactive basis. She noted Xcel takes reliability very seriously. On behalf of Xcel, she thanked residents for their patience and any inconvenience the outages have caused. Ms. Swanson turned control over to Ms. Marinac. Ms. Marinac stated her office is in Shorewood and she serves many of the communities west of Shorewood. She works on reliability issues. She also works with Xcel's designers and construction crews who design and build Xcel's infrastructure. Ms. Marinac noted tree trimming is done on a 4 — 5 year cycle. Ms. Marinac reviewed the results of the outage investigation for the three addresses they were asked to report on. Each of the properties received their electricity from a different feeder. Outages are categorized as either preventable or unpreventable. The highlights are as follows. Address I — 5680 Christopher Road — The area is fed out of Xcel's substation in the City of Excelsior. The trees were last trimmed in 2012. There were four outages. Three failures were at the feeder level and CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 2 of 8 one was at the substation level. The outage lengths were: momentary; 1 hour 2 minutes; 2 hours 6 minutes; and, 2 hour 29 minutes. She noted what failed and what repairs were made. The substation was infrared tested by June 14, 2015. She will submit a job to get the transformer that feeds the 6 — 7 homes in that area upgraded. Address 2 — 4485 Enchanted Cove — The area is fed out of the Xcel's substation in the City of Mound. The trees were last trimmed in December 2013. There were six outages all caused by trees and all but one were unpreventable. The outage lengths were: 4 minutes; 1 hour 11 minutes; 2 hours 12 minutes; 2 hours 40 minutes; 3 hours 2 minutes; and, 4 hours 42 minutes. She noted what failed and what repairs were made. Because of the number of tree issues the tree trimming supervisor with do periodic checks on tree conditions. Address 3 — 5770 Marsh Point Drive — The area is fed out of the Xcel's substation in the western part of the City of Waconia. The feeder out of that substation is very long and it has a lot of exposure. The trees were last trimmed in 2012 and 2013. There were 11 outages. One was caused by a rotten tree. Two were caused by squirrels. It is difficult to keep them out of the equipment no matter what prevention attempts were made. Three were caused by Ospreys building a nest on a pole. The outage lengths were: momentary (15 seconds or less) for five; 1 hour 28 minutes; 1 hour 47 minutes; 2 hours 38 minutes; 2 hours 46 minutes; 3 hours 7 minutes; and, 7 hours 5 minutes. She noted what failed and what repairs were made. Ms. Marinac explained Xcel is trying to build a new substation in the City of Chaska. It would have two different lines coming out of it. The new substation would benefit Shorewood and other communities in the area because the feeders will break up some of the very long feeder line from west Waconia. Unfortunately, Xcel has encountered some conditional use issues with Chaska. Hopefully things can get resolved. If Xcel is granted the right to build the substation the goal is to have it online by the fall of 2016. Councilmember Sundberg thanked Ms. Marinac for coming and noted that she understands the challenges Xcel has. She stated the most frequent issue residents bring directly to her attention is power outages. She explained that she had previously lived in the City of Minnetonka which also has many trees and she never experienced the number of outages that she has while living in Shorewood. An outage doesn't just mean residents are without lights it also creates significant health issues for residents with medical equipment in their homes, issues for those who work out of their homes, and it prevents access to well water. Ms. Marinac encouraged people who need medical equipment to function to call Xcel and have their account flagged as such and that does come up when the dispatcher is looking at outages. The dispatcher will take that into account. Sundberg noted that residents are buying generators because of the high number of power outages. Sundberg asked Ms. Marinac if she has comparative data that shows outages for Shorewood and other communities in her service area. Ms. Marinac stated it is not done at that level. There may be comparative data for the west metro area versus east metro area. She noted that Xcel has to file many reliability numbers with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Sundberg stated it is difficult to locate that information. Sundberg stated it appears that there is too much equipment that at been in the field too long. Ms. Marinac explained that Xcel does take some proactive measures. It has a 10 — 12 year pole testing cycle which it implemented about seven years ago. It involves drilling into a pole, going down into the ground and taking a sample for testing. If the sample indicates rotting, the pole has to be replaced within a certain amount of time. All feeders (the main circuits coming out of the substations) are infrared tested CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 3 of 8 every four years. Xcel does not proactively replace transformers, for example, because it is too costly unless Xcel implements tremendous rate increases. From an area engineering perspective, she will look at loads and she will assess whether equipment is up to standard. If it is not up to standard or if there are consistent failures she will ask to have the equipment replaced. Sundberg noted today people are extremely dependent on electric power. She stated Xcel needs to find solutions to reduce the number of outages. Ms. Marinac noted that none of the outages she talked about were because of a failure of an underground cable. She explained that Xcel has a lot of cable underground. When an underground main cable fails Xcel needs to isolate it and make repairs the first time. If it fails again within a certain period of time, Xcel has a system called "fast path" which involves replacing the cable within 60 days. That system was implemented in 2014. Mayor Zerby asked if there is a higher number of outages in Shorewood than in other communities and commented that it seems to residents that outages are on the rise. Ms. Marinac stated she does not have an answer to that. Xcel uses different indices. She stated she would try to provide that information later in the week. Zerby stated he went to the PUC's website and tried to find the out what the service level expectations are for Xcel. He could not find that information. All he found is appropriate service will be provided. Zerby asked Ms. Marinac if she thinks there is trend of the number of outages increasing in Shorewood. Ms. Marinac stated based on the data for addresses 1 and 2 which are serviced out of the substations in Mound and Excelsior she does not see much of a change. For the address serviced 3 out of the west Waconia station Xcel knows outages are increasing. That feeder line is very long and there is a lot of exposure. Zerby asked Ms. Marinac if she has found a correlation between the budget and being proactive. Has the budget gone up, down or remained flat? Ms. Marinac stated the budget fluctuates based on activities going on throughout Xcel and noted that she does not know what the budget is for maintenance. Zerby questioned if equipment in the field is not being replaced fast enough. Ms. Marinac noted Xcel's reliability group, which operates out of Denver, Colorado, has spoken with Xcel's upper management about the aging infrastructure. Councilmember Siakel asked Ms. Marinac if Xcel has a strategic plan for its infrastructure. She stated the outages discussed would have been preventable if the power lines had been buried. She noted the City has a 20 -Year Pavement Improvement Plan. She asked if burying the lines is part of a plan and if not why not. Ms. Marinac explained Xcel's planning group that looks at things 5 — 10 years out does consider future capacity needs. That group helped get the funding for the proposed substation in Chaska. When that substation is built, some equipment that substation serves will be brought up to standard. If cities or counties or customers want power lines undergrounded they will have to pay the incremental cost to do that. She noted that Xcel has a very large project in Minnetonka and lines will be put underground for a number of miles. Councilmember Labadie asked how many feeders service Shorewood. Ms. Marinac responded she thought a maximum of four or five but she would have to look at a map to confirm that. Labadie stated that citizens on the eastern side of Shorewood, such as the Christmas Lake area, are not represented in the outages presented. Two of the feeders for the outages were for western Shorewood and one was for out on the Islands. She asked if the City paid for the report or was it done as a courtesy. Ms. Marinac CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 4 of 8 responded it was a courtesy. Labadie asked if an outage investigation could be done for the other feeder(s). That would give Council an outage snap shot for the entire City. Ms. Marinac stated she could do that but it would be only at a feeder level; the main lines coming out of the Deephaven substation. Councilmember Woodruff stated he would like to get several years of data for outages in Shorewood. He then stated he thought there were outages out on the Islands that impacted properties beyond his property but did not impact his property. He expressed that looking at outages for specific addresses may not include enough data to make the evaluation accurate. In response to a comment from Woodruff, Ms. Marinac clarified the report was for sustained outages. She noted that Xcel's equipment does not capture outages of 10 — 15 seconds. Residents would have to call those in. Woodruff then stated that from his perspective trimming trees is extremely important because it reduces the number of outages. But, the way the trees were trimmed was bad. The trimmers whacked the trees. Some were cut to a height of 10 feet off of the ground and no limbs were left. The tree trimming company basically told residents "tough luck ". Councilmember Siakel stated residents definitely think there is a serious problem with outages but she does not perceive Xcel recognizes the outages as a problem. She suggested a true assessment of the problem be done. She noted she lost power at her property very recently. She expressed concern that the problem is not being acknowledged and that there is no plan to resolve it. Councilmember Sundberg stated she would like Council to be provided comparative data. She suspects Shorewood is on edge of receiving acceptable service from Xcel. That comparative data could help Xcel personnel convey more funding is needed for maintenance in high outage areas. Ms. Marinac stated she will try and get that comparative data. Ms. Marinac stated the area engineers receive a weekly report about equipment that fails twice or more in a year for the same reason. Then area engineers have to report back on what action was taken. There is another report that looks at it from a customer perspective. That report shows customers who lost power six or more times in a year. There are measures in place to alert area engineers to what is going on in their service areas. In response to a question from Councilmember Siakel, Ms. Marinac stated every customer that has an outage should call it in. Councilmember Siakel stated when the power is out a customer may not have access to the internet so it is not easy to report an outage. The system is not user friendly. Siakel suggested the City encourage its residents to report outages and to tell them how to in its newsletter. Councilmember Sundberg asked staff if there is anything Council and staff can do to help Xcel get approval from Chaska for the new substation. Director Brown responded adopting a resolution of support would help. Doug Miller, 26850 Marsh Point Circle, asked why there is such a long distance between Marsh Point and the feeder when there is a feeder in Shorewood. Ms. Marinac explained the feeder from western Waconia is 35,000 volts and the one in close by is 13,000 volts. Caution has to be exercised not to over load the 13,000 volt line. Xcel made a decision 20 years ago to go with the higher voltage because it could go a longer distance and serve many more customers. Mr. Miller stated since he moved to where he lived in 2003 the outages have been horrible. Mayor Zerby noted that part of the residents at Marsh Point have underground lines. Chris Liz6e, 5705 Brentridge Drive, noted she lives in an area serviced by the western Waconia substation. She stated she is thrilled to hear a new substation may be built in Chaska that could provide CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 5 of 8 power more efficiently to the area she lives in. She then stated that all of the outages she heard about during this work session were for service provided by lines above ground. She encouraged Council to work with Xcel in a proactive way to bury power lines underground. She explained they had the power line buried for the first home she and her family lived in but it still went to a pole. For their second home, the one they live in now, the entire development is serviced by lines underground but the power still comes from a pole. She stated if the feeder power lines could be buried she thought the residents would appreciate that and she did not think they would mind paying a little more. Mayor Zerby thanked Ms. Marinac and Ms. Swanson for coming this evening. He stated Council appreciates getting information from Xcel and hopes to receive additional information about power outages in Shorewood. He noted the information will be placed on the City's website. kC�. evil 49ey1111&VAN'Nely iftw*ylllllPAX"91XV4Y!� Bryan Ross, with Great Plains Institute (GPI), noted he and two of his colleagues, Abby Finis and Michael Orange, are present to provide Council with an interim update on the renewable energy assessment it is doing for the City. The last time he spoke with Council he was working for his own firm CR Planning. Since then his firm merged with GPI (a nonprofit organization). He explained that Mr. Orange is doing all of the baseline benchmarking analysis for energy usage, greenhouse gas and for forth. He clarified that they are not ready to make any recommendations yet. They will present their findings to date. Mr. Ross explained GPI focuses primarily on clean energy work that includes facilitating discussions between stakeholders. Currently it is working with some environmental groups. It also works with communities on sustainability issues. It does some policy analysis and technical analysis as well. Most of its work is done in the Midwest with the bulk of it being done in Minnesota. For the City's project there are four deliverables. The first is an assessment of the City's operations in terms of energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is the most detailed and laborious. The second is a community wide assessment. It is a little easier to do that the first. They have most of the data for that analysis. The third is a renewable energy analysis. It involves assessing what the resources in the City are and identifying opportunities for the City to participate more in renewable energy development if the City wanted. The fourth deliverable is the financial analysis. It involves taking into account what is available in the City and what the options are moving ahead in terms of making cost effective investments and investments that have some type of return. After the benchmarking is complete it will require some prioritization. Mr. Orange noted he has completed the Citywide baseline assessment. He explained a graph of the Citywide GHG emissions (tonnes) by sector for 2013. There are three study years — 2011, 2012 and 2013. The six sectors and percent of the Citywide emissions total were: natural gas — 27 percent; electricity — 25 percent; vehicle miles traveled (VMT) — 25 percent; miles to the airport — 20 percent: solid waste — 2 percent; and, wastewater treatment — 1 percent. There are complex formulas for calculating the miles traveled. The airport miles are a share of a total. He displayed bar charts showing the Citywide GHG emissions, energy and costs as a percentage of the total. There was a reasonable correlation between the emissions and energy associated with them for the VMT and airport. Electricity is responsible for 14 percent of the energy and 25 percent of the emissions. More than one -half of the energy used to create electricity is lost in the generation and transmission of electricity. Natural gas is responsible for 27 percent of the emissions yet delivers 38 percent of energy. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 6 of 8 He displayed three line charts showing the Citywide per- capita GHG emissions (tonnes), per- capita energy (measured in MMBtu (British thermal unit)), and per- capita costs for residential energy, commercial /industrial energy, transportation (VMT and airport) and solid waste /wastewater for 2011 — 2013. By analyzing it by per- capita and weather helped normalize the charts. He explained the three charts. Mr. Orange stated the data he reviewed gives the City a benchmark. As the City implements the recommendations adopted as part of the plan the City should be able to see the Citywide graphs change. He will provide the City with transparent information and all of the formulas he used. Staff will be able to take things over. He will provide the same for the City operations. Councilmember Labadie stated that in the final packet the Council will receive from GPI she asked that there be an explanation how the airport miles share and the vehicle miles traveled were arrived at. Mr. Orange stated it is explained in his report. Ms. Finis provided Minnesota wind facts. She displayed a map of Minnesota's wind resources by wind speed at a height of 30 meters (about 90 — 100 feet). She explained the data came from the Minnesota Department of Commerce. That Department took wind speeds over the course of one year to get annual, average speeds. The best wind resources are in the southwest corder of the State. The northeast corner of the State where it is more forested is not a very good wind resource. In Shorewood the wind speed at 30 meters is about 4 — 6 meters per second (roughly 10 — 12 miles per hour) and at 80 meters it is 6 — 8 meters per second. At 80 meters that exceeds the 200 -foot threshold for FAA regulations and that would cause a lot of issues. Mr. Ross explained the City does not have much of a wind resource that is economically feasibility. However, it does have a substantial solar resource. The State put out very good solar resource data last year down to a one meter resolution for the entire state. That helped in analyzing the solar resource in Shorewood. He displayed a picture of the solar resource in the City. The best solar resource in the City is on top of the water because there is no shade. The trees inhibit capturing the solar resource. The City does have a really good urban forest. He and his colleagues are doing a solar analysis on several fronts and they will provide an analysis of the solar reserve in the City including the roof top solar reserve. A detailed analysis is being done for the rooftops of public buildings. The Southshore Center roof has about 20 kW (kilowatt) of solar generating capacity. It would generate 25,000 kWhs a year if the City put a solar system on that building. That is about the equivalent of about two homes worth of energy use. The roof on the Public Works facility has about 81 kW of solar generating capacity. A solar system there would generate about 105,105 kWhs annually. The solar generating capacity on the public buildings roof tops, if the City decides to go that way, will eventually be compared to the actual energy usage in the buildings. The total solar generating capacity that could be generated on rooftops in Shorewood is not enormous because of the volume of trees. An analysis of potential ground -mount systems has not been done yet. That will not happen until there has been a discussion about what Council's priorities are. Mr. Ross then explained they have some analysis of how the City regulates the private sector investment in solar energy. Zoning ordinances have been reviewed with regard to private sector solar development. A detailed analysis was done for solar energy land uses and amendment options were given to Director Nielsen for comment. GPI personnel can help the City do the same for wind energy land uses if Council desires. The primary thing they would assess is if there is an opportunity to do private sector towers and building mounted wind (which he thinks is a bad idea). They reviewed the City's planned unit development (PUD) regulations because of the proposed redevelopment of the Minnetonka Country Club (MCC) property. They provided staff with some language that could be added to the PUD ordinance. He suggested the developer know what the City's priorities are before entering into PUD discussions. They CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 7 of 8 reviewed the City's permitting process and made some recommendations about changes that could be made for solar permitting requirements to help make that process more transparent and predictable. Ms. Finis explained they analyzed the various financial incentives available for these technologies and including energy efficiency for residential, commercial and Shorewood. The PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) program is run by the St. Paul Port Authority. It basically allows a commercial entity to finance their projects (energy efficiency and solar energy) with no upfront costs through a revolving loan fund and it is paid back via an assessment on their property taxes. Shorewood would have a small role as the middle man between the commercial property and the Port Authority. Trillion BTU is a large revolving loan fund and is basically a financing structure set up between the St. Paul Port Authority and works directly with the commercial entity for energy efficiency and solar energy projects. Rebates are available through the utility programs for energy efficiency, solar energy and ground source heat pumps. Tax credits are available through the end of 2016 for solar energy, wind energy and ground source heat pumps. GESP (Guaranteed Energy Savings Program) is offered by the State of Minnesota for energy efficiency, solar energy, wind energy and ground source heat pumps. The City can take advantage of that program. It is for local governments to finance their projects. There are no upfront costs. There are two technology specific programs available for consideration — Windsource (it is offered by Xcel Energy) and Community Solar Gardens. The Community Solar Gardens program would allow the City to purchase solar power from a garden that may not be located in the City. Through the Gardens the City's role could be an educator, a subscriber or a host (have a solar garden on its public land or roof space). The Metropolitan Council is aggregating cities to do this. Councilmember Sundberg asked when the assessment is supposed to be completed. Mr. Ross explained the big gap is in getting all of the data needed to do the City operations baseline analysis. That is a complex data gathering effort. There has been back and forth with Xcel Energy making sure they are getting the correct data from Xcel. That has not been totally settled yet. They are waiting to get data related to the buildings from City staff. It is taking longer to get City operations data than originally thought. The ground work has been created so once they receive the rest of the data it should not take long to do the remainder of the analysis and create the report. Mr. Orange stated that once he gets the rest of the data it will not take him long to analyze it and generate the report. Mr. Ross clarified that if they miss one little piece of the data it could change the analysis. Sundberg asked when the work on the PUD can begin. Mr. Ross clarified there is nothing about the data that is limiting the City from doing that. He explained they would be happy to give Council and staff what they need in pieces. Sundberg stated because of the redevelopment of the MCC property she thought it prudent to talk about PUD sooner versus later. In response to a comment from Councilmember Siakel, Mr. Ross stated they have already provided language for things the City could do with its PUD ordinance. Council can discuss more specific recommendations with Director Nielsen. He noted he discussed the language with John Shardlow with Stantec Consultant Services Inc. Stantee coordinated the MCC Planning Advisory Committee's activities. Councilmember Sundberg stated she would like to gain an understanding of how well the PUD ordinance recommendations have worked in other communities. Mr. Ross stated that based on his experience if the developer knows in advance what a city's priorities are they are frequently able to accommodate them. He noted he would be happy to provide Council with the memorandum he gave to Director Nielsen. Mayor Zerby asked Director Nielsen if that is on the Planning Commission's work plan. Nielsen responded yes. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION MEETING MINUTES June 22, 2015 Page 8 of 8 4. ADJOURN Woodruff moved, Labadie seconded, Adjourning the City Council Work Session of June 22, 2015, at 7:25 P.M. Motion passed 5/0. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Christine Freeman, Recorder S4A Zerby, ay r ATTEST: W-tkl e"dvAab� Jean Panchyshyn, Citytlerk"