terrible camera it looks it makes me look like i have no here all right go and it's a good evening all start hopefully we can pick up some time pretty busy agenda but i think we can very likely get through it we're going to kick it off with a rate hearing so those of you that have been paying attention over the last couple of meetings are aware that we have been as a light board working with chris and like for advisory committee to take a look at our rate design we've had a couple of rationed over the last couple meetings of options and ultimately the white board made a recommendation that we proceed with a particular option last week or last time we met and now we're entering the next step in the process which is a public hearing so what we what we will do is from a procedural perspective suspend this regular session momentarily an open  hearing which will be kind of conducted here and then we will close that session and return to our regular business so with with that we do need a motion and a roll call vote to send the regular session of the municipal before you as well as available as a handout in the back basically the scribes outlines to two things st is scenario six which is the ultimate result of those discussions on how to approach the rate adjustments resulting from the cost of service study and then the other packet is the actual formal rates reflecting those adjustments i get fi with the d p u and so i figure i would just go through a real quick recap of those adjustments and that way you know a high level that way would you know unless you like to you don't have to go through each and every actual rape case just because this is a unique situation where every rates impacted could take a while to go through each one individually we certainly can if you like so scenario six the important what were the points can be found summarized on the front but basically the premise there was to reset our stabilization funds to give back of zero so basically you know the p p t a zone rate stamp funds stabilization funds now you know with this rate adjustment will not be necessary and that way we can then implement them moving forward in a manner i feel like is more fucked of of their intended use so we can  now have them available for seasonal fuel price fluctuations spot market adjustments due to who knows what type of uncertainty could happen past the market bid auction increases that we didn't and more of that we're looking to anticipate because those happened three years in advance but it frees up those mechanisms again to be less of a long term rate adjustment and more of a short term collection to smooth out rate  increases so that was a big part is that they also this keeps all fixed charges and customer charges at their original values so that was an important point because moving forward with this rate adjustment overall as you will see it's the limited to two percent in terms of overall revenue change each rate is impacted slightly in that but if you call in the very back of the scenarios six describes our adjusted operating income coverage ratios and so this rate adjustment allows us to as you'll see two thousand and nineteen we have our two percent twenty twentieth's zero and so the hope there was essentially as we consider to be discussed more than a little bit as we look at our strategic planning our rate design approach what this will allow us to do is keep us keep our rates equivalent for the this year and next year while we navigate those changes so we were doing one if i was better to keep revenue is certain to keep our revenue targets predictable and that way as we look at time use rates critical peak pricing the revenue targets don't change but the manner in which we collect revenue does and so this will then keep things predictable and steady over that timeframe and then by two thousand and twenty one we would have to make a modest adjustment  right hearing right there was a possible that we had rates that carry over for a couple years without well the rich go up two percent this year and the next year you're projected to be zero percent but the two percent is already there does it go back down to zero i mean just retract it you're process wasn't formalized to a rate hearing that one was one we somewhat discussed as to make a more formalized public process for the rate discussion that's a good idea and absolutely thing last year we just voted the right we didn't  question the only thing about the city are six to keep in mind we're not using the stabilization fund right and we are not increasing the rates for the low income class correct which which was the one change that we wanted to make right so that's why we're using scenario s this was a scenario with asked you to come back with many meetings ago correct correct and we and i was the result of december's meeting that it was the supported scenario and so with all that i guess i so page three sensually covers the percentage if you call it that's the percent changes to each of the different customer classes with the revenue changes and so and then in the packet of the more detailed line items of each rate which changed and so basically to streamline the process because you know in many cases a rate hearing might be residential rates go up by x and so that's easy to go through line by line but because there are so many lines here what we the form this this impacts i mean there's an increase here and i see a time mistress in here for us is it street lighting in large the public to see these disease rates ok so i suppose folks will know this and for those maybe following home can't get the aggregate increases two percent but you have made adjustments to each of the rate classes somewhere between zero for low income yes to as high because so many different classes are in fact it's hard to generalize but residential generally being the most popular one to discuss you'll see the rate increase is found in the distribution charges reflected in all of these and we just translated that to the right packets and these are the packets that formally get five of the diffuse for crude you these are average monthly bills right here yes so the cost of service study suggested last time that we did have a few of the fixed charges that maybe weren't entirely representative of the cost of service correct we made the decision that we're going to revisit that as part of the strategic plan itself in the next re just meant we made just those as well exactly this is your traditional rate adjustment that you read utilities have done for generations the next iteration is where we try and look at a more moderate out notices the other important part is we send out notices to the public that's what this you know february would be for and then with the effective date of march st so people have thirty days  perspective steve our meetings and although no one likes to raise rates that's not what we prefer to do sometimes it is very much necessary and based on the analysis that came out of the casa service study and the further analysis that chris's done it does seem necessary by doing it what we're proposing what chris is proposing now would get us a couple of years and we can then analyze what needs to be done at that point but it that's good to see any members of the public that would like to come to the mike introduce yourself and express your ask your questions or express your concerns the other members of the community have an opinion to share all right seeing none i think we can we can close that portion so just to clarify chris should we vote while in the rate hearing on the frame how the different costs and revenues associated with a project like this flow into the different mechanisms of the community and how those benefits then get distributed and so we thought a venn diagram would be a good way to display that visually and so starting working left to right so you have utility player and so that's where we see the energy markets come into play so as we see there the ultimate revenue number that we're looking to discuss is this one hundred k to three hundred dollars k and you will project value and what is so what does that mean so pressing transmission savings peak cost savings wholesale thousand dollars that is a number that that range is generated by the different ownership models so we could there be their revenue share of revenue share approach versus an ownership approach and so that wasn't incorporated into this that i feel like it might be more likely discussion a later later date but basically the p p a model takes these benefits splits it between the owner of the battery and the off taker being belmont and so that's where you see you know obviously the owner of the battery tries to take their larger share so it's not always five thousand and fifty dollars so that's where you'll get to one hundred dollars k range but if we went and built our own battery in two thousand and seventeen we did the fractal this study for us that looked at the ownership approach and that's where we pulled the three hundred and fifty thousand dollars annual savings  then we'd be in the in the black about three and a half one million by year fifteen so when we averaged out the whole thing it's about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year and so you know there's a risk associated with  that you know p p a is come with performance guarantees and you don't have to maintain it things like that but that's part of that ownership model discussion but we could get upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars annual project value and then there's the other siting you know say solar plus storage then you can actually hear you know charge the battery with solar and then discharge it at night so now you can have the benefits of solar and things like that so that's in the increase a liability category skip over the middle real quick and then go to the municipal tax payer side so that's where you'll find you know so one is obviously the the like we just discussed the revenue targets for utilit that's where that fire funding goes this goes into the general fund associated with tax payers so you have the ground lease and the pilot payment and so those as i think to be discussed later you know with the digester those typically are negotiated amounts and again just through the balancing act to be had there is you know going with the business model any increases you know with the p p a side so say belmont's not the owner you know back to that ownership model discussion any future costs incur any of the greater costs incurred to the owner they're know your cargo ship containers so room for two for two megawatt type of unit you're looking at maybe two of those you know three but very conservatively you could say half an acre of disrupted space scott's more al back but the ownership model is certainly the most lucrative the most popular is that or not is most popular but but most lucrative again it's the dad the biggest downside is again that three million they pay any towards capping the site as well you think how much of a premium could we get i think there's money here the way you're describing it so it was seem like if they're going to come in and get a profit we would obviously the town would get some of this you know whatever storage needs we have to buy energy it's cheap at night and then use it when it's expensive during the day so we would generate a savings but then they would maybe they would put it three containers and they would take energy from private sources and whatever and  the same and then they could have that profit then maybe move them to give us some money to cap the site to enable them to do this well and that's so the longer answer to that question is that's so with that one hundred k know that comes with the fact that most companies everyone's going to see a three hundred and fifty dollars k and you know end goal and so that's where you see if they take sixty percent of that well that only leaves us with one hundred  so that one hundred would change so that then very depends on if we're not owning it the lease of going on you know the pilot and so it's it's hard to say we basically reached out and no one really wants to deal with a cap so i think folks little personal property taxes on the equipment there you take that sort of like with the substation yes getting that into account as well yes rate stability being in town solar the difference to is basically another perhaps comparison that might be helpful is i mean the storage i think of it as not dissimilar to having generation in town except generation uses a fuel or snow sun being a type of fuel to generate electricity this happens to need to be charged and so so it's it's a very clean unobtrusive way to generate spill these are it's if you go inside you know your typical installation they look like server farms you slide them in and out and this is another field of rapidly developing technology so they have other you know newer technologies that don't even need fire suppression just based on the chemical makeup of the battery and you know everyone we're all crossing our fingers you know for superconducting batteries tomorrow i mean you look at ten years from now you never know and i ask you the sort of the big question would you say this is a viable choice for the incinerators and i absolutely love the idea because it's kept question as it was too so let me just get the number down right this is this is spider web we tie in project c and so right now we're constrained by station two to five m b a and so we've been focusing on the two mega buy energy during the night but it's cheaper put it in our battery they pay us for that and then they draw down so i know they have their own plan to do i feel so sure i'm not i'm not saying they're going to i'm not using them is i'm just picking where you have various stakeholders buy in like shares essentially buy and sell towers by sort of spacer shares yes so that that's something again that's wires trying to trying to separate separate out the ownership in five years from now i mean i'm not an expert on this gentleman it would seem to me that technology can change dramatically almost like the car model if you lease a car and it goes up so we give it away versus you buy a car you have to figure out how to  that's what's that's some of the p p a or rd party ownership side with some of the advantages they take they give you or you bake in the performance guarantee so as long as the technology is performing at the levels that you want  then they keep it and then they take it away and you can still have a computer that's a few years old with those or it doesn't work i mean it's so close and in an effort to sort of keep things moving i think we're going have a broader discussion as to the future of the incinerator site but i think you're hearing some level of enthusiasm from the board i strongly support this and yeah and i think that that the idea that perhaps because of the deep complication on mis we use only if we were to go short of more sort of use of private absolutely so generally speaking it's call it eight to twelve months for construction and with a site that's readily available that we would issue an approximately a year you could have a turn key facility up and running that's a fairly small engine and you don't need to do any upgrades of any of the other electrical infrastructure leading into that so there will be a component of that obviously getting onto the site needs upgrades we need to make sure there's readily available three phase power which there is close by but that is a small aspect that you know a line chris thank you for the work on this and i think it's quite exciting that there seems to be an opportunity with a relatively small print footprint that could be financially advantaged to the town that's very all right next step is going to rise one update  investor owned utilities must comply with the clean energy standard and over the recent years there's been some tension that the fact with the fact that municipal light plants such as ourselves are exempt from this clean  there are others that do not and so this legislation was an effort that resulted from the legislative bodies of of the you know why plant representatives being massachusetts any power supply consultants and work which is the another power supply consultant so each has their own legislative arm and as a group they work through so that create this legislation to basically say look you know we realize it doesn't look great that we have this exemption and perhaps it could be construed as we're not participants in the greater initiatives and so they worked up the language and  to be can help which is the language you see there and so for a town like ourselves that actually has minimal impact because our power supply policy already meets these goals but it's much more impactful sometimes for what these other  on i guess in accordance with the scheduling that we discussed before we've been working this month and into it will be in february and creating a draft and so the way we're approaching  we're putting together our thoughts with the draft by looking at you know all of belmont's policies helped to go through the we're still in process because that also was very heavy on looking up on policies it's looking at the initiatives operational customer service goals and ultimately we're targeting the next like board meeting was february th and so over basically most of february our hope is to bring a draft at the next meeting for feedback and import because it's it's the way the way i'm approaching this is it's it's really a so it's a light board strategic plan if you will so so this is our best effort to say this is what we feel like is reflective of what we know of belmont bring it for feedback and then will will then take it back with the feedback adjust it and or many times we need to do that but hopefully get it right fairly early on and  so the initial strategic plan really covers the you know the high level targets but we've also started the next phase of that so just for conversation sake right you see and any most utility of the future models if you look at as we look at other strategic plans you're going to see solar you're going to see storage you'll see the rate designs but the but what is missing from a lot of that is you'll find a lot of folks that say well we imports and here's your ideal output structure for investments to maximize greenhouse gas reductions or financials or what it what your optimum portfolio of all maps are so you can decide well how much funding do we need to put to rebates how much funny should we put to use you know utility scale storage or things like that so that's that's the next phase as we get through the beginning part of identifying what our plan is but this is what's the appropriate time for community in play right this i think should be something that gets properly vetted by the community is that the meeting you would want to do that or do you want this board feedback and then about four and and then the other timing we're trying to be sensitive to as i think a large part of that is driven by the energy committee's roadmap and so you know there's a similarity is the synergies with that and i think there's some of that that's  it's our enterprise management software and so just something that as you might you might see come down the pipeline we're looking at really beefing up its a it's it's a great system it has it's serves a large percentage of the utilities in the country so we're really looking in implementing some of their powerful features that they have so over the next basically looking at fall winter time frame would be go live dates for some of our more advanced features much more friendly online payment processes but also a big part of the op side so work order management to have better cost accounting that will feed into the budget that we're working on  tage to mention outage management so we get an out web map and reporting capability so you can see where outages are reported outages we want to integrate it with our smart meter system so as we fast know it's nice of you not so with that comes messenger so you can sign up to messenger system that communicates with us directly through the customer portal smart how that will know if you use it but really beefing also i know you may be aware there was an idea lighting pilot done a year or so ago we've continue that discussion we have favored fixture so we're prepared to move forward with that in fact the  crews are excited the the tricky piece to that is we're hearing word that maybe dio we are might offer additional funding and we're also looking at grant funding from green communities so i would feel badly if we just went for have you know i've heard that if some of the l e d sort of communities have that blue light i mean these are and the so taking into some of the reports that are out there in the feedback a lot of the initial blue lighting reports and complaints came from the