##VIDEO ID:1k-d5M14KuQ## okay okay let do it okay it being six o'clock I would call the uh meeting of the our multi Board of Commissioners to order U and um yeah and and I will call the uh citizen Advisory Board to order okay um is there um any comment [Music] one no okay no public comment okay like um Liz her is still connecting to audio well if if Liz has something to say then you know maybe let me know okay otherwise what we move on to um comments from any Liaisons do we have any Leons from the boards here I don't think so so want to go forward with okay uh Jason you want to read the motion for meeting minutes move that The rld assistens Advisory board approved the approve the April 18th 2024 and April 30th 2024 open session meeting minutes as presented on the recommendation of the general manager and the board secretary okay and vote I I I present so I move the rld Board of Commissioners approved the April 18 2024 minutes and the April 30 202 open session meeting minutes is presented on the recommendation in the board secretary second okay just a comment yeah um I review both these one of the things I have suggested to Erica is you right now we we list separately the the cab and then we list separately the rmld I think it may be a lot better if we just list them all as one one set of minutes because it's the same thing I mean Justin J Jason looked at it first and then got his comments to me and then I Incorporated that and made my final comments oh for joint meetings we should just do one set of minut instead of having two setss because right now it's the same both both sen to minutes are the exact same thing yeah that's a good point yeah exact same thing yeah uh yeah to the extent that that we continue with joint meetings and and that the agendas are identical then that makes sense there might be times when the agendas are not identical so I agree yeah going forward we need to think about are we always having joint meetings or the agenda is always exactly the same because there could be things that we're doing that you're not or vice versa but that's it but yes good point good point yeah my only change was I think at one point fam's name got spelled wrong so wait we did motion second we didn't vote on the minutes right we did not okay so all in favor any other comments approve the minutes 5 yep thank you and now uh Megan or in load management update I don't know who else is on the meeting I don't know if anybody does you want to go back to everyone's on mute are supposed to identif then if they can't identify themselves and they're they're in the meeting right supposed to I don't well they're allowed to be in the meeting right I mean it's public meeting himself open meeting yeah yeah I I don't I don't know I thought you had to identif if they comment they have to identify themselves if they comment they would but if they wanted to be there watching if they're trying to get to sleep or whatever do yeah perfect I have one person in the waiting room I'm G to admit them I think it might be [Music] so the context for this um Megan's the new director of ird she's been with us since February um we've been talking about load management demand response type programs so she's going to bring us up to speed at some of the things that the rml team is working on you thank you good evening good to see you all again uh today I'm going to talk about three main things one is the changes are making to the residential incentive programs that includes the regular appliances and you might want closer I'm not sure oh okay oh that's better okay I'll start all over I'm gonna talk about three things one is the changes to the um residential incentive programs uh there are two pieces to it one is the regular appliances and Equipment the other pieces heat pump I also talk about um a demand response program that were going to start with uh MWI and then I'll talk a little bit about what's in the pipeline in terms of uh residential sector and the cni sector so okay yeah so for the residential incentive program uh this is the current status I'm excluding heat pump here because you just to keep in mind I'm going to talk about heat pump later currently we provide rate base to 25 types of appliances like fridges dryers washers I don't know humidifiers ranges different thing and yard tools and and then we added EV chars a few years ago and so we did some analysis in the past three years we issued $390,000 to over 2,000 resal customers and we also tracked the sort of the turnaround time from the time when the customers apply for reates and then by the time the reates are issued we use a platform so they go on a different side to to go through the whole application process and the average process time was 70 days which is pretty long um so we are planning these changes one is to eliminate Ray Bas for most common products uh and then we're keeping Ray Bas for six products right now EV Chargers electric panels uh electric snowf flowers energy STAR certified electric ranges energy certified energy STAR certified Wireless thermostats and then Municipal LED Holiday Lights um we are also in the process of I hope it will be successful that we're trying to change from a vendor platform to a in-house processing to shorten the processing time and the reason behind that we did a lot of analysis data collection and discussion so it comes down to two two two things one is um I think these Appliance incentives have been going on for many many years the intent of the incentive is to incentivize it's like customers many many years ago they were not uh inclined to choose a energy efficient Appliance or equipment so we give them a rebate to lower the cost and at the time on the market these more efficient Appliance may be more expensive because they're new so that's the in the point of the incentive after all these years pro the product Market has changed so for a lot of the appliances they if you go to Home Depot most of the appliances are energy St certified anyway um and a lot of the yard equipment most of them are electric already so the conversion that to go go over that hump already happened that's the main motivation for for us and the other piece I didn't included here is now the new thing the new wave is heat pump and EV so we're trying to you know we we only have a limit uh amount of budget for Energy Efficiency incentives so we want to concentrate our funds into the more needed um equipment which is heat pump and EV Chargers making on the the appliances have you considered maintaining a rebate for a closed dryer gas to electric conversion we did that analyses most of the dryers are also electric and also efficient right you've got an existing gas then that would be significant in investment for a homeowner to convert to Electric so may be worthwhile they would save a lot of money on the when you use the field because you pay pay paying electricity versus paying for natural gas I'm not sure like if they're most so most people they would buy a new thing is when their old thing die right if you had an existing gas you would probably be inclined to replace it with the gas but if you wanted to move away from the the fossil fuel you you you know you've got an electrical outlet to install you know 30 amp two phase eror yeah we had this debate conversation many times so one thought is okay for example yard equipment a lot of them are still gas powered Y and but you know when you look at the uh kind of the consumer behavior when you go to the store what do they buy they buy electric and I I mentioned here a little bit like some customers received multiple rebates it's not that that's not right because that's how the program is set up they can do it for different equipment but they do the same thing but they got one rebate for another so so the the reason I'm saying the free ridership it's a very common phenomenon in the Energy Efficiency world it means someone is going to buy it anyway and then you give them extra money for something that they are already doing yeah I think yeah K I think your point we focus primarily on electric to electric and right now there's only one say there's only one choice there all high efficiency but I think we might we'll just take one more look at any natural gas conversions particularly because right it's not the cost of the appliance the installation yeah yeah so so we'll go back and look at the natural gas to electric conversion we're trying to basic clean up as you mentioned the free ridership piece we're trying to encourage different Behavior now the behavior is all the same but I think you're right we'll take a look at natural gas conversions that's good so on the um breakdown of the $390,000 basically how much was appliances verse yard equipment right yard equipment is still a desire to own gas powered lawn equipment for a lot of people right bu battery powered it's going to last five years I got to replace the battery in five years I got to start all over again so yard equipment is a much different ball game than in a appliance right appliances you know can last 10 10 plus years maybe hopefully right but a lawn equipment a battery life on a heavily used discharge battery is a lot more consuming so that will die so I don't know what the percentage is in $39,000 how much your appliances I I I understand the appliances side but on the yard equipment side um I I that's where I'm kind of so there's the hand yard tools you know the trimmers trim mowers everything lower so we need um the area where there's still a significant amount of gas power available is in the snowblower as we started looking at the so the handbase tool is almost 90% or I mean you go to Home Depot or Lowe's whatever you're going to end up buying electric because that's primarily what's available unless you're a purist and really want the backpack yeah yeah back I get it I get it um but on the lawnmowers most of the lawnmower if you look at you know distribution of lawnmowers it's you know there's 12 different electrics and there's two gas yep so there's going to be the purest and I say purest they're going to be the they're gonna be the ones that don't want to stick with natural natural gas gasoline but on the the one place to exactly your point the one place that we did not that we held eBay B was snow snow blowers because that's we'll see how fast that goes has a whole different it's been a while since I've looked at lawn mow was that just push mowers or like that or even the riding the riding triple pack we've seen we've seen residential customers buying a heavy duty almost like commercial grade Mower and then get a rebate for it which really is not a good incentive well I I just on the on the on the L I just got was kind of curious how much of that is yeah I can definitely because the appliances you know going to be a$ thousand dollars right so it's going to be Hefty but you know small stuff okay but you know I Ride Along what was going to be somewhat similar so if you had a choice between a gas or an electric you know it might be an incentive still on that side of the house uh what is LED Municipal lighting is it is it is it ready like every year so this is part of the hall I made a run at this right year um we should leave it in place it is basically we rebate up to $500 a year to each of the towns for them to buy LED lights and use it for their holiday display and every year we get four applications in and we yep okay y it's it's good VR yeah no no I'm with you on that one yeah where do air conditioners stand in this change like uh air conditioners were not part of the program to it used to be I remember I got speaking a free riter I mean I probably got $50 for buying a window AC a bunch of years ago congratulations that or is that still there it's not there but but is there last three years no okay but for is there any consideration to incentivizing a high Seer like the 14 or 18 or whatever the number is like if you walk in Home Depot it's 10 or 11 and it would cost a lot more to get a whatever the number is 18 like double got a he yeah I was gonna say that you're right I mean you're absolutely right $15,000 right when do I see and it's ,000 that's the thing people are walking into Home Depot and I'm always struck by the stack I'll give an example you know sitting in Home Depot and people are walking out of them every hot day I'll give you an example a customer new house new heating cooling system he used propane then he discovered his little basement doesn't have the equipment so he went to home bought a $4,000 heat pump and then he asked for Ray we give them 3,000 based on the rules of the program Mr cool so it's not really exactly so it's not really helping to Electrify that's an outlier it is that's that's not that you know okay someone got a good deal okay that's that's that's not the majority right yeah well um to to Ken's point I would like to see a rebate where we offset gas dryers there is no Energy Efficiency on dryers dryers are not ing efficient your efficiency of a dryer is how much water you can ring out of your cloes before you put it in the dryer which is why you get Energy Efficiency on washers you don't get an energy star rating on dryers because sort of by definition they're not energy efficient right um but I think supporting the conversion a way from gas is Ken's suggestion I would say um that would be a good place to support yeah support that we we definitely had similar discussion on ranges and then one thing is to ask the customer to verify that you are actually replacing a gas field equipment and it's logistically it's difficult yeah um but we we'll look into that yeah to ask them to take a picture and then when was that picture taken where was it taken when you get to the details of the program it just gets wild one thing we we did mention before was was basically timers on water heaters electric water heaters the efficiency of the water heater um that should be included in the program because if you just have a water heat it's just gonna heat stock heat stock heat stock but the controls to manage the the time the time that it's it's heating yeah we have a we have incentives for water heaters I don't think we El specifically for timers no but we'll look at that as well good feedback all right so the other kind of reason to make the changes inhouse is to uh reduce the processing time we don't know if it's going to pan out we'll have a lot of you know cyber security issues if we do it in-house but we're still kind of exploring that what what is it about the third party process that takes so long uh so when customers use that online application form they often don't know how to fill it out and then there's a lot of back and forth oh where do I upload a picture you know some you have to show a picture of energy start you know that yellow tag um and sometimes it's Miss information and then sometimes you know it's because it's a vendor it's kind of out control um that kind of slows down it's not entirely because of a vendor but that has a actual layer where the customers are not familiar with so it creates and then it's like a three three three-party conversation and customers calls us and but then it's a platform that we don't control so that that that kind of back and forth takes some time and just one further note on the verification issue you raised for like a gas to electrical range or a gas electric dryer yeah the incentive is not for the appliance it's for the installation so you've got El you would have only the rebate would apply to an electrician's invoice for the installation we are not allowed to do that I don't think for in labor no no no no I think what we can still do it on the device but I um if somebody's got so to do your natural gas gas to electric they'd have to do electrician have to do work they pull a u number and so we might be able to key it up the U so there's actually we might be able to to know that because electrician did it if if it we wouldn't necessarily do a dii we could possibly put in because of the verification yeah um that might be a nice Avenue for that so y any other questions you think there'll be any uh PR will back from customers saying you know hey wait a minute why don't you do this anymore I just you know out of curiosity hey my mother got it why can't I that's so we are hoping to launch this in January so in the fall we're going to do a lot of marketing efforts to tell people this is happening if you still want to get these reps doing now so they'll have four months we I expect a surge a little bit and I think the other element is is just to reinforce the purpose of the incentives it is to promote a behavior and now the behavior behavior is pretty established know what do what other Behavior do we start focusing on right because customers may call you I didn't know they yeah yeah they answer already and it's a rate issue at the at the end of the day I mean that they're paying for that incentive so you can so you can hold a line on that ultimately we're not the objective is not to cut back on rebate amounts the objective is to redistribute that rebit budget more people understand clear part of the messaging yes good problem you're fully electrifying hopefully will actually be better for you just 40 by yeah all right I'm G to move to heat pump So currently our heat pump rate bait is a th000 per Tong up to 6,000 um uh the past two years we issued $1.4 million to over 400 customers and the average is about three three to 3,000 to uh $3,500 um the the second point is what I was trying to say like I think what we really want to incentivize to do a whole house heating cooling system replacement but currently only a quarter of the reates that we we give are are doing whole house um and then the good news is that this last uh Point most the customers because it really make economic sense so 80% of the customers are replacing their not replacing partially replacing their oil no that's one there you go I would needs to be muted nobody it was a member of the public I believe who wished to comment should identify themselves you know identif before they Babble so we're planning the changes we planning for heat pum bra bit is one um currently um weatherization is an option it's like we encourage them to do but this is the common practice in in for the bigger companies already they require weatherization which totally makes sense because you don't want to install heat pump to a leak house so that's what we're going to uh kind of a uh add to the requirement we're also considering increasing the rebate we don't know how yet so we'll we think about that and the other big piece uh of change is to have much higher incentive for whole house heat pump installation so $10,000 we're not going to do per Tong anymore because I think even right now um in our territory the regular the the the the average tonage that's needed for the whole house is actually only about four you know give or take so but the total price of installing that system is about 25,000 to 35,000 so if we provide 10,000 that's a pretty good cash uh incentive um and then an alternative to that we're also talking with the reading Cooperative Bank to uh have a uh zero interest and so way rmld will pay the interest on that loan and then the the bank will deal with the customers in terms of the rest of the loan so the so the the customer it's a it's a choice it's either you you pay cash up front and you get cash up front or you you don't want to do that you don't have that 10 10 to 15,000 UPF front then you kind of stretch out three to five or seven years to pay that 20 25 to $35,000 so it's really a choice we want the two choices to be Equitable so that they make their their decision based on their own situation and then the last one is more like the the Ohad oh uh that's just um the manual J is more of a a technical assessment for the heating needs because we're in a cold climate environment so that is pretty important for the whole house uh replacement so we want that to be the requirement instead of the option Ju Just A few items you know the technology of the whole house HP is it quite there for four stair right so for four stair you got a four stair system oh four stair yeah and you try most people have Force there you try to get the technology you try to get the heat pump that's not quite there you know you stand Al looked at I I've done two houses Force hard air system with heat pumps I tried to do L it was way too expensive for me to do it right so I you're making an economic decision the question technology got two houses it and and it was you know even the guy he was talking to was like yeah you know you could do this or you could do two independent units which he thought was more efficient right so my my point my point being yeah ahead my point being here you're talking about whole house right so that we're we're getting moving to a whole house system even if I did a portion of my house I'm accomplishing the goal right of reducing you know my energy consumption on fossil fuels I just think moving towards whole house or nothing okay that's what I'm reading we're not yeah we're not taking away the yeah we're trying to trying to create additional incentive to do whole house so we're not eliminating the current incentive I thought this was I I it's an and okay I apologize I I thought this was we're shifting from this to this but but then the the other comment you know $10,000 that's great you could incentivize on the other end per ton to kind of equate to that same value but zero interest on a loan we're paying the loan at what knows it at what interest rate and for what period of time you know things are 10% or whatever that could be a Monumental amount of cash so on that exact note the structure we're working right now is to make the two roughly the same for for a comparable system and so as Megan mentioned we wouldn't be we basically be prepaying the interest and so we're working through so we've had several discussions with one of the local banks once we get that kind of figured out working through work through the rest of them we're trying to learn what Mass Save has already done um you guys remember V Ruchi was here back in the springtime he walked through a program that was state sponsored so at the end of the day the the intention is still to have it be comparable as Megan mentioned the choice between either you can take the rebate or you can take a zero interest loan and the I the numbers working out right now is to trying to make those two numbers the same roughly in terms of dollars per system installed and make it just easier for the customer to choose a or b and from our perspective it's sixes that's what we're trying to that's the intention behind it but you do bring up a good Bob and we got to make note of this so when we think about a whole house it doesn't have to be a single hypers system it can be multiple systems yeah it's to cover the heating cooling knes of the whole house it doesn't have to be one single additional option yeah no then the IUS do cover the cost the weatherization where yeah we do too well up to to some extent right so whether so we're not again we don't s quite as much money as an IOU right and so we don't pay quite as much incentives but we put the weather's asan program in as a pilot last year here it's working pretty well so we're looking at do we change the amount of it we probably won't change what's covered we're doing primarily insulation and air ceiling um but the second element here is that we wanted for air source heat pump system as opposed to make an option will make a requirement that's a second pie we looking at as well but weatherization we're yeah weatherization um they they are the fastest turnaround or fastest payback uh program you can possibly do nevertheless um people still would like to have an incentive to encourage them to do it so that's why we put in place last year other comments question does the whole house system uh require that the homeowner decommission their fossil fuel system I think that's a mass save requirement it is a mass save requirement yeah even so I don't know if uh the's upcoming uh clean heat standard is discussed at meetings like this for but even for them that's not a requirement it's a self-certification that they won't use it unless it's absolutely necessary because I think sometimes you have to prepare for the emergency so a lot of households would use we will keep the system as a backup I mean that's our current thought process yeah as opposed to band and monitoring yeah I mean a practical matter I would not want to be without the the backup but yeah again we're kind of we're looking at customer service and customer relations a high priority on this one yeah I mean but I mean the backup is a little bit of a myth in terms of oh I'm G to go to Electric but if power goes out I want to have gas as a back you want a backup your gas burner is electronic fire so if you lose power you're going to lose heat too the backup is for the cold days and i' oh so you're talking yeah the buffer on the very cold days and that's more of a confidence thing than than oftentimes yeah I mean I I've got a system a two-year-old system that you know very high efficiency it does not keep the house warm when it gets down to 20 degrees so I start whole house ones have an internal heating element that turns on that will so you're not us anymore right okay so whole house will have resistance yeah resistance if you're doing the whole house system you won't okay and you can go ground source and then you don't have the def frosting element that internal heating element literally cost a fortune but when you run that you're running for those for those days that you do it yep there's always I mean so that's for the three days of year you don't we don't know that we don't know that could be we could be a two we deep freeze we could be a who knows right lots of variabilities okay all right I'm going to move on to the demand response program so we literally this afternoon we're talking with MW to finalize some of the details of oh I'm so sorry can I I didn't realize you were done with that topic when do we think we'll finalize the details of the program changer um in the fall September October oober because we yeah because we want have enough time to uh tell the customers that the changes are coming and it will be first system that they install starting January 1 yeah yeah the the cut the cut the the yeah the cut off date is usually when they apply so that's when we count as like the application date depend on what system it is they cannot apply until they install the system so right yeah okay so for demand response program um we are kind of discussing the agreement oh that's not clicked one more uh with M um uh so they have a demand response program called connected homes they uh have a partnership with virtual peer which is a online platform that would have the capability of directly control a device in someone's home if they agree to participate so we are basically um um when the customer signs up they will say I'll connect my device because all Wi-Fi based right so then it's connect to Virtual peers platform and then each month when there's a transmission Peak MWI will call that Peak and then will'll send messages to customers to participating customers they say we're going to you know lower your thermal sty do whatever device they sign up for will do that and to to to reduce demand and the customer has the choice to overwrite to opt out we call it uh and then one of the details we're discussing right now is how many times of op out is enough for us to say Hey you really should not be in this program so we're not going to give you an incentive anymore so that's that's kind of the gist of how the program would would work I don't know if you have any questions but basically we're just oh one one piece I want to talk about the cost Effectiveness the key is really to have High participation rate uh the first couple of years it might be challenging um but if we don't start now we'll never get there especially for residential programs it's just a lot of times you cannot only look at whether it's cost effective for rmld but rather like what's the the message behind that to change customer Behavior I will talk about the rate the the r design pieces that we're going to do um next year um it's it's kind of to PVE the way for that because to change customer behavior is probably the most difficult thing in the world in my mind so we're trying to to to implement the program to to to start this conversation this educational Journey with the customers um and then yeah I already thought the marketing is is the key I don't know if you have an any question for that I'm trying to in my mind trying to understand if you are doing heat pumps you would adjust the set point and mean it's not an onoff thing for that um but you could delay set point a few degrees preheat or preol yeah um easier with EVS because then easier to shift that the charging times EV is where the Leverage is Yeahs and furnaces aren't big there small loads but you get enough of them it could be that's what it goes back to point about participation yes speaking I was just gonna say speak of EV this is the other kind of a uh demand demand response EV related um initiative there were uh in discussion with um a new tech company called stepwise they got some funding from SCC and in partnership with us we we didn't get the funding where their partner in terms of our territory is their test bet for this new uh product it's called EV Tab and it's the main function of that is to avoid the cost of upgrading the electric panels if they install a level to charger at at their home so so that's the first drive drive and the second one is they also are developing a kind of a sim a platform that can um uh kind of modulate the charging and discharging it's not just stop charging or start charging but but but rather modulate the charging to do better demand response so in in terms of like you know you know when you do demand response if everyone is doing these hours and then you preheating precooling the peak will shift before that Peak period so modulating will help to really smooth for a longer period so this is the another program we're trying to um uh implement and one element of that is potentially to design a new rate just for Lo management devices which can get technical it's like where where's the boundary that you call load management U we don't we don't want the customers to go to Home Depot to buy something and it's called load management so we have to Define that kind of a technical boundary of that so for the re yeah for the r um one one question on the step wise um anytime you form anything on your electrical pan panel it's a electrical inspection required exactly a lot of times everything listed in there has to be UL listed yes it is okay so this they came in and demoed their product it is UL listed and also it's not attached to the panel it's between the panel and the EV charger a load limiter it's a current liit forend purposes is UL the new new new product but UL they got the approval that was one of the requirements before and we you guys know we don't endorse products we don't promote top products but we're going to create a a rate incentive and it's part of again the key thing is demand response or load Management on the residential side so it's another it's another tool in the portfolio so load management device Ray does exist in California so what we are looking into like how they Define that and maybe adopt some of that um y so back to the prior page with the Y connected homes piece this would be connecting devices that uh residents purchase themselves or would this be connected to a the meter upgrade it's their own devices it's like the the the socalled bring your own device program so it could be a their own battery it could be their EV charger it also includes the EV telematics so now some oems they can they can do the control directly on the on the on the vehicle instead of through the charger and it could be thermostat and missing others but it's Wi-Fi based so basically the signal goes out so they reg when they register the device they register an IP address um and so then when the signal goes out it'll basically it'll alert them either they can choose either email or text you can opt at so you you opt in to participate in the program and then when the alert comes you want to opt out for whatever reason you can do that um but the system is automated so that it will send out when the peak comes through it'll send out an alert to that particular IP address to adjust whatever the adjustment is uh typically on the current way the configuration works on U thermostats it's basically a four four degree increase whatever it is where it is currently two to four that's right two to four so it's not yeah so any that's but it's all like it's there we're not it's a it's a touchfree system and that we're not going we're very careful about not going for liability reasons we don't go into somebody's houses and make all these changes just like when a heat pump is installed or an EV charger we do a rebate for it um but we're not we're not owning the equipment and we're not we will send signals to control the equipment we have to be very careful liabilities and endorsements but that's how it works make sense all right so the last piece I will talk about the pipeline for customer programs one is uh we're in discussion with en& they have a pretty uh established tury um EV promotion program so um it's it's it's this is more focusing on the vehicles you know we we're electric company we we have we don't have much to do with the vehicles themselves but so if we use their servers to help our customers to understand what is a EV what does it do and you know how do you overcome range anxiety and and things like that how do you get a rate for your EV and all all sorts of thing so that's one and then the next two um is the time of use rate we are uh in the final stages of uh installing the Met data management system so we are already seeing hourly data for a lot of our customers so we want to uh do a cost of service study to understand where the costs are and then based on that we're going to do some R design part of that rate design uh in addition to the regular like to really establish rates like how to make it more uh has a better foundation in terms of cost um the other piece is to do the time of use R uh redesign and um to make that a good a smooth transition for customers with we probably will want to do a whole a full year of Shadow building of of time of use rate we still exploring the feasibility of it of our current Billing System whether we can add this Shadow billing piece which is basically you still get your regular bill but side side by side is the if you were on the time of use rate how much are you going to be charge then they can see during the peak hours they'll be charged more and off peak they'll be charged less so we want to do that for all four seasons and people get educated and then we implement the real rate and then cni is challenging but we are moving ahead um generally when our team contact the cni customers they do not want to talk to us they don't want to be bothered they pay their bill that's it so they're less engaged comparatively than the residential c yeah yeah however they have the biggest potential of Energy Efficiency and electrification so we're doing a lot of analysis and research on uh what efficiency measures would be helpful for our customers in territory because um if you ever look at the mass saves uh technical uh resource menu it's 900 pages with thousands of different equipment and devices and Technologies to that's that's uh uh that you could choose from so we're trying to do that research to help our customers because if we go to the customer and say this like blanket St statement oh you you need to do an Energy Efficiency where do they start so we're trying to do that leg work for for them hopefully to have that conversation um and then uh we have a peak demand Reduction Program with a CN cni customers the persistent customers are currently getting credits on their bill but most of that ction is passive it's like during the peak hours if they happen to have lower usage than the previous hour then they they will get some of the savings they will we will share that savings with them but I think it will be much more helpful if we can have them to do active demand response but then again it it involves the technical details okay if it's industrial customer they need to run their operation maybe 247 so when do you ask them when when should they lower their usage How do they potentially have to change their entire procedure to to do that is that is that worth it so it's it's a lot of detailed questions that we have to answer before they can do anything so that's it you also mentioned the customer P oh yes there's a lot to that too yes as part of the meter data management project uh the vendor is developing a customer portal where they log in through our website but it goes to the portal and then they can see their daily uh hourly usage they can also sign up for if their usage is too high they get a alert yep and they can see their bills the payment history and all that regular stuff be so trying to get that released um this quarter between now and the end of the year since we're in August but that'll have a lot of a lot of things we've talked about in the past are you know how do you do alerts on a more consistent basis more broad basis and that's people sign up for alerts as well they can look at their performance on a more detailed basis so a lot more information to the customer big focus on that any questions for M um just first Meg congratulations on your role as taking over the the group um thank looking forward to seeing more of you as you uh present progress um not part of this presentation I understand but solar voltaic uh we getting another we're going to have a presentation on that at some point or customer yes so um there's a whole bunch of so as yes so in terms of in territory gen solar is the highest priority um had some met with the town already yesterday on Parker school a little bit of followup on killum uh but but I and and yes I I do want to have a follow up on those uh Town ones but I'm thinking residential solar incentives uh so we are in the process of doing some analysis like you know you look at rooftop right it's it's right now because our rates is so low resident residents don't have incentives to to install solar not as much incentive because they're not really getting a whole lot of money back for their money for the money they put into the solar panels so one solution that we think of is like they need to pair it with storage that way they can actually it I push back on that only in that you got an oil fired burer and you've got a gas car so if you take your energy demand now you're going like oh that's not much power demand but you put a heat pump and an EV car all of a sudden you're gonna find your bills going to be a lot different than what you might have an economic justification for now yeah so no I yes we have a low rate and that's so on that that's desirable as opposed to a higher rate but I'm I'm not buying that statement so we have an adjusting program in place right now we've had in place for years right um it had and we we changed the the incentive we doubled it for a while and we brought it back down recently um we are looking at you know what else can we do to encourage the adoption of residential um we haven't we haven't we're focusing on these other programs my question wasn't so much you answer the question is that when we will when we will get an update on that that that that's a piece of so I actually I'm curious because we are actually looking more at the cni solar than residential solar so I'm curious about your like um maybe thinking about what is what are we trying to achieve to to to push residents to install solar it's definitely a good thing but so so so my concept if that's was a question yeah is on one hand we're we're trying to tell customers put in electric heat pumps and electric cars parallel to that we ought to say that's a big electric demand that's going to drive up your electric build even at whatever cents per kilowatt we're charging you on whatever demand response curve we're on but if your house qualifies then you can put solar panels on and will'll help with that because we don't want to have to carry all that Demand on our grid because we're we're expecting a huge load to the system and if your ca doesn't qualify then we are buying a lot of space for solar panels buy into the solar panels and join Community the community solar system and we'll give you credit for that to the degree which you participate in that now we've given every customer a chance to have a solar option whether their house has an optimal Arrangement or not and it's not based on the you know the $100 bill that you're getting if it's based on the 300 or $500 bill you'll be getting when you put those systems in place the only thing I'd say to that is as far as offsetting maybe system Improvement on that the reading would still have to carry the capacity because if a cloud comes over storm comes over I understand aren working you still have to have the available capacity on the grid to supply those customers solar or not understood it's not perfect yeah still a balance not offset in readings infrastructure yeah and and not every house is going to qualify for solar and not every person's gonna opt in so you'll still be carrying a large quany of that but the extent that you can yeah there's part of so the first the Focus right now is is on load management demand response type stuff um our so you know our in in territory generation initiative is still um high priority for all the reasons we've talked about over the past six months um storage is the intermediate solution right that's in play right now we talked about before and and Jason that would be storage in the house would be a way to buffer that also but yes you're right the has these are all systems you're relying on the resident or the customer to maintain and keep in work in order and there's a whole bu there's a whole lot that goes into that and I don't think as an electric utility you want to take the risk of not being able to supply the load when those things don't work reliability is directive number one yeah so there's there's a bunch of analysis to do on the tradeoffs but um yeah in my mind the most important thing that you said was the incentive was one thing and it's now it's gone down yep let's do something soon about getting the incentive back up yeah that's that should be easy like so we it doesn't make sense for a lot of people to do it anymore even if they were looking into it before you know the loss of of that incentive piece is impactful so we'll provide some analysis and did yeah no problem got it take great thanks and I agree with Ray but yeah let's yeah thank you thank you I have to get you a name sorry um so you um so we're going to talk about uh hedging power supply uh why they're all related and it's a big it's a big topic so we're going to focus specifically on the question relative to the thought process behind wire wi Bob and Ken attended the Monday morning session um Ken did a fair amount of analysis over the past couple days but I you know as we kind of dug into it we wanted to for some you um back in 2021 and 2022 we did a lot of work on power supply we fundamentally restructured in the context of 2021 climate bill and I'll show you slide here in a second we fundamentally restructured our power supply portfolio um support from and a lot of other people so we we're very aggressive on that and you'll see it's fundamentally restructured and it's in really good shape um there's a lot of changes there we'll walk you through some of the big picture um in a nutshell the things the key points I want to get across are going to be pretty straightforward right um power supply is foundational to fulfilling our mission we just talked a minute about reliability right you got to make sure we keep the lights on the mission reliable low cost noncarbon first and foremost make sure you supply the customers um power supply strategy is complex there's a lot of moving Parts there's no one piece of analysis that gives you the answer um you know Dave you you had it on the Monday morning meeting um there was there was some analysis um you know I guess do you know the I'll come back to a minut um we'll get that the very bottom um hedging is a form of insurance and we'll get into the discussion but it's basically to um it's insurance against high priced hours or high priced energy you mentioned you know thinking about using um R stabilization or F we have a couple of different funds we actually are using them we actually use those in in the August time frame to dampen the upward pressure on the August bills um it also is used to help ensure the reliability that's why we do hedging as well there's a there's another complex piece that we won't get into we won't go through all of this I'm just trying to give you some big picture context but there's the concept of intermittent sources versus firm sources our nuclear contracts as we've talked about before are firm sources and whether they if if many of them even if the if there's if they're repowering for example or if there's a problem those firm contracts the supplier has an obligation to provide Power from some other source intermittent hydro which we love wind which we like a lot um solar which we also like a lot those aren't intermittent and they're not firm sources so we have to take that into account in terms of thinking about Hing um LMP we're going to do some quick definitions LMP is not a useful analysis in terms of looking at your power supply portfolio you can do it but it doesn't tell you a lot we'll get into that as well what's I'm sorry LMP it's uh it's what it's so it's what you call open market so it's a subset of open market pricing so we'll do definitions in just a minute well just what is the Acron locational marginal price okay than locational marginal price and there's two Cate two elements real time and day ahead um the wire wind price um is so for the 2025 it is a very good price relative to the forward price curve there's another term that we'll talk about very brief We're Not Gonna spend a whole lot of time on it I'll just give you the big picture pieces um rmld is currently highly hedged for 2025 right known and by Design they're two drivers in terms of when we look at hedging one is what's our load look like it's a load forecast and what's the actual output of or what's what's the forecasted output and what's the actual output of the assets we'll talk about that more the example is um if it's a particularly windy uh season then you get a lot more wind if it's a particularly wet season you get a lot more hydro and that's what we've experienced over the past two years um rmlb and we're exploring options so we are hedged I'm highly hedged over hedged in the springtime and we are um what is that's called long and we are short in the summertime so one of the things that we're working on is how do we take some of those long positions and move those to fill the short positions the reason why the long positions are advantageous our long positions are in high priced hours and I'll show you a chart on that and we want to replace them with so they're high value for for many customers we're in good shape because we have plenty of it um we'd like to we'd like to fill our short position in the summer months so those are not very valuable so we're in a good position to be able to do that um the last piece that that is important context um the wire wind project is a one-year extension there are no new Hydro facilities being built in New England we were very aggressive in 2021 and 2022 to um secure and contract numerous um Hydro facilities um there are no more so if we if we pass on if we don't contract this wire wind there are other MLPs that are not as strong in Hydro that will pick it up we will never well never is a long time it'll be unlikely that we'll ever get back so when we think about this um extension of wir in particular we are basically buying an option to buy another year to see how things play out those are the big pieces um presentation so real quick um I share this all the time I drive it into the organization I use it as a reference to how we think about how we run this business it's a great framework reliable low cost non-carbon in that order that is our power supply portfolio if you look to the left that's 2021 and if you look just a few years to the right you see 23 24 25 massive the blue is is hydro a massive change a massive change in pink which is nuclear you can see also the yellow massive change in terms of the yellow as well so a lot of a lot of changes that went through uh the structure you can't quite read it under there but but that basically says is that the iso Market structure is designed to encourage sellers those are the generators and just yeah I did that go back yeah um to contract longterm to avoid low LMP prices and it's designed to encourage buyers like rmld to avoid High LMP prices I'll talk about definitions here in just I'm not going to go through all these details um when we think about factors driving power supply contracts um there's a bunch of different pieces load forecast is the first key piece right and so when you think about how hedged you are it's what what portion are you filling versus where you think the load is going to be the load changes um it's very Dynamic a load if it's a particularly dry hot summer the load is more significant than if it's a cool so remember 2023 was a very mild temperature so load was actually lower in 2023 than it was in 2022 um in 2024 year to date we are about 4% higher than we were in 2023 so there's when you think about hedging there's one variable which is the load and then there's the other variable which is the actual production of these intermittent resources so on that right hand side it's says again I I'm going to try to be quickly through this there are factors which are the forward price curve not LMP prices forward price curve the location of that generation asset and the production p50 basically means 50% likely you know what's the most likely output of the system intermittent resources solar wind um Hydro in particular are variable they change somewhat dramatically depending upon the weather conditions those are those are key pieces that go into it so um the key economic factors that second thing forward price curve um the second thing is what's the production and then where it's located other Factor on existing is um are there challenges in terms of repowering the asset are there license renewals what's the age of the unit what's the maintainability ETC new resources I won't go through all those but there are a whole bunch of factors on new resources we have experienced directly several of the projects that we contracted in the past two years aren't going to get built so we have to think about that in our structure as well um in terms of the broad risk consideration we talked about this before we have a very broad-based diverse portfolio and the attention is to basically manage risk manage any concentration of risk and risk is the type of the asset location of the asset who the vendor is um you know is in the same Watershed um is it on the same transmission line so these are all factors that we get into um I'll come back to that in a second um important definitions forward price curve is basically um what the industry thinks the price of energy is going to be in the next up to five years out right on a monthly basis fa statement yeah that's financially and then fundamentally we go out even further than that we got 20 years 20 years um l&p is locational marginal price and that is and it's calculated by ISO New England and it is what the in real time is what the price is every minutes so if you go and look at the iso New England app that's a that's a location that's a real time and then on the same app what's the price going to be for that hour tomorrow so you know that's the time Horizon is literally you know 24 hours down the road um it's useful data for us but it doesn't drive power supply um and I don't you know Dave I don't know the source of the the analysis that you gave um and I don't know what the source of the analysis is we could not replicate this so this million dollar number I don't know if you could share the data with us I I mentioned in the uh in there that after after asking you for for your financial analysis that underpinned the wire wind recommendation and not getting it I I did reach out to the former ird director and he did some calculations and did you share that with you or yeah that's what that's from and I said it right there in the memo that's where it's from great and I'd love to have you give corrected or better or numbers but well I don't know how it was created so we you know between and us we tried to recreate it and we couldn't recreate and you don't have that that ISO New England is um is having to sort of resell or get rid of power that rmld contracted for and then sell it and at whatever price the market will bear you don't have that data or you say that's incorrect we we do have that well go ahead I mean uh everybody that participates in the pool is buying and selling all the time right uh mostly at losses you know if you're a supplier or generated because you're balancing out your system right you have two moving targets Supply and load that's always moving so you're always doing a little bit of buying and selling uh we have the data you know we haven't had time to really study it well that's frankly not something we look at a lot because it's in the past and we know going in that we're going to have some wins and we're going to have some losses typically sure and uh I did take a quick look at it it looked you know about right but it didn't have like well no these numbers yeah yeah so these numbers Ken couldn't replicate but you know we went back and look at the weekly forecast so we had estimated back in September of 20123 so we got a weekly forecast of every week we get an analysis of what for the next five years what the monthly cost is going to be hedged and unhedged so in September literally every week literally every week it's called an e week week September October we estimated in 2024 back then not knowing fully what the um uh the actual load of production was going to be but it would be about $400,000 that we'd end up selling back into the grid during those three months um we looked at the 21st of August so literally two days ago it's 408 so it was 400 392408 so that's our estimate in terms of what we sold back into it that's so but what I was told is that these are the the net losses at the iso New England settlement of what we paid versus what the power was purchased for at that moment so I'm I'm showing you real data David I can't replicate this this data you say it's inaccurate I'm saying it's inaccurate I'm I'm saying it's inaccurate so we look at that like you got to remember like the price of a renewable energy certificate is embedded in the price of the energy so you you know it looks like he left those embedded W prices in those numbers Poss yeah so that's what it looked like to me just quickly and and when we look at the month you can't separate the wreck management from the Energy Management so if you look at a month like January by the time you look at what you've sold to the pool even at a loss and then you manage your recs and what you're going to retire what you're going to resell you typically end up and this isn't just rmld all MLPs end up about even or a little bit in the plus side and that's what we're designing to do that's how we're designing our portfolios so quick question on on that so right now we're 90 100% right no what what's our percentage right well if you want to look at so you know as of right now we're 80 so for the year right any month will be different it varies but for the year currently the snapshot is we're at 88.6 89% hedge 89% hedge so the target 9 so is that the right was that the right decision getting to that point was that the right decision because of a lot of the stuff that we're hearing is saying you know when energy is cheaper if you're a lower lower hedge you you are doing better you know you were okay if I was sounded 50% you know you know what are what are other MLPs doing you know were they better at that lower hedge you can answer that one goe answer that one uh me I've we've had like high-powered Consultants look at this issue and not when I was at I but other places I worked at a company that owned a big pump storage facility so we were trying to figure out when do we make our money and we make our money on volatility right and uh many studies show that when you have a lot of intermittent energy so you have a lot of wind driven energy or a lot of hydr driven energy your cost of production is is zero right so so they're going to on a variable basis always produce because they're trying to get their wreck so they'll produce below zero they'll produce to negative uh $30 if that's the if the rec value is $31 follow me so we're gonna see lots of negatives until we get a real cold snap and then price is Skyrocket so you can like you can lose everything you made as a like a producer by selling into the spot market for on like seven days of the year when prices go to a, so that's a market you don't want to be in because the if you're if you're in that market you're like a big Financial house down in New York and you're literally betting you're making bets prices are going to be low this day price is going to be high that day and that's not the business we're in right we're in the business of reliable reliable and matching up our budget to our supply so we have good competitive rates do you have do you have numbers that you can put up on the screen that reflects the math that you're talking about that says that's math is wrong I mean you're saying you're saying that it's wrong but I'm not seeing your analysis the an so I don't know how that analysis was created so the analysis I have is $48,000 that's the analysis that I have what what is 400 $8,000 is what so in those three months right we sold $48,000 worth of power back into the market meaning well that's the question what does it mean so so I don't like all right I don't know what this means okay it's it's not it's not valid analysis so well so what I'm what I'm walking through you Dave so you know at the end of the day is the question wire wind is the question Hydro or is the fundamental question the overall power supply strategy so because our power supply strategy is awesome and if and again you'll compare it to any of the other ones we have I mean again they have they see more than we see and they know our power supply structure is very very good well I can't be in the middle of two sets of experts here because what I'm told and he says it doesn't include the rec is these power that was sold and that's the net loss as a result of the sale of 400 and change in March something 300 change in April and 100 adding up to 900,000 in three months yeah wait sorry Meg I'm gonna give you know well we would want this as the you know someone from the IID director not as an economist like we're not talking in theory right I think we're talking so I just I just want to say it's really difficult or or maybe it's not comparing Apples to Apples when you compare one year of a long-term contract price with a open market crash that's not but that's not what we're talking about I think well the1 million dollar loss calculations do you have any support like how that's calculated I think that's well I'd like to call if I could get Bill into the meeting he actually he's watching he texted me but you know that's ridiculous we can't you know so we got to talk about so are you talking about power supply strategy or you're talking about a position in three months so the end of the day we look at Power Supply strategy course of the Year all right let me tell you what I'm what I'm what I'm real understanding the real issue is so I believe rmld is way up high in the 90s as to what the overall hedge is and I also believe that's quite much above other MLPs like not true you you managed Taunton right and they're in the 70s they're in the 70s of a hedge well coch has a lot of ta Taunton who taunt ta but Taunton has a their own generator sitting right inside their server territory they have 20 megawatt generator so taunton's a totally different animal uh compared do an rmld the ton can afford to be less hedged because it it's got the equipment right in their service territory in territory generation I'm not disagreeing that we lose money but we know that everybody does sure I guess that going back to my question that I had that in the prior meeting and asking for the financial analysis is to try to understand what is the net when you say okay we lose money but we have wins and losses and we come out ahead you can say our power supply is awesome okay but we need I think the ask is what is the actual net impact we're hearing is that the net impact in the beginning of this year was over a million dollar loss however we're measuring that share what is the impact from your perspective on uh with those pluses in minuses and and then I think the other question was you know there was a question around this fer wind contract is this better or worse than the market rate and the answer was this is better than market rate we have in reality maybe it's not better than Mar I need to just say and okay go ahead Ray but then I want to just all right so my short answer to your question is we have a profit loss statement that prepared and audited so money spent on power versus Mone money collected by the customers providing a net positive cash flow to rmld to break that down into individual contracts might be interesting but they're all gonna be very individual contracts I'm saying like so we be better my question is could we be better if we don't lose lose all right well a million well yeah and that's the question how do we how do we show that I think so my answer is on one level you can look at a profit loss State you can see money in money out and how you net that's on overall on an annual basis are are we losing money as an organization are we not losing money as an organization when you break it down which what you're asking for can we do better on one contract or better than another contract I think the answer is that's complicated but like where I was going to go with my statement is as you look forward to Future years where are you going to see the growth in demand you're going to see the growth in demand in the winter and you're going to see growth in demand at night and what power supply will give you additional power at night in the winter well not solar no wind in in in power grid maybe we can draw more wind Off the Grid but to have a little water company that generates right power in the winter and at night it would be a desirable thing to have in your portfolio are we making money on that right now no are we losing money to the point that It's upsetting the balance sheet I don't I don't see it okay so now can we do better I think is your question and and there are ways we can find efficiencies in that I I need to frame I need to frame because we're all we are all all over the map here and I just want to try to get us back to what I understand the issue to be and then I just got a text that bill is in the room I want to let him in because you just told him you just told uh the public that he provided false information so I'm going to let him into the meeting to talk directly to you I don't know what well hold on so that's what we're gonna do okay but first I want to frame the question as I understand it and let's assume it's correct but it may not be that in three months of 2024 ISO New England because we bought so much power had to resell it back into the market and it was exceptionally high and over three months it was a net loss of 8 to $900,000 that's how I was told I I understand you say it's false or misleading I don't know the analysis okay hang on a second now then the question becomes we get a contract in front of us on July 25th it's only one year of a of a new Hydro clearly Hydro is flowing in the springtime and if the numbers I just said are true if they are then one would assume you would look at hey we just lost $900,000 in three months because we had bought more power than we needed and ISO New England had to resell it and that was the net loss over the three months if that was true then you would want to say hey in July should we renewed for only one year because the place isn't going to be isn't going to be functioning a year from now what's the financial analysis that says that's a good deal to do and we're told it's a good deal and we've asked you for that specific analysis on wire wind of what we're going to pay and then relative to what just happened in the spring if it happened okay please let bill in the room because I want him to talk to you directly this is a public meeting of a public entity and we need to have the conversation and if it's wrong it's wrong but I'm not the expert we have the guy who used to be the ird director and used to run programs at nck so he's in the meeting so can you let him in you called him a liar let's hear from I didn't call him a liar well okay he provided false information okay I don't know the information provided I want I want to let him we're clear no we clear I cannot replicate what he said please please let him in let him say directly and let's get through this in five or 10 minutes okay he says I think I'm in can you hear me yes bill can you please respond to what you just heard as to that your numbers are false and misleading okay well I you know first of all I don't know where the $400,000 number came from but I can say that we looked at uh you know I was able to get the hourly data for um the LMP pricing and then looked at what was oversold into the market um there there are you know and looking at the what the wreck values were um so either with or without the wre there were uh you there there was an over production of of power um particularly um actually with during all of 2023 uh every month had over Supply um in the power portfolio not just due to to wire wine but to all of the um the portfolio um so if you look at that analysis there is like there is it is over hedged and when you look at the you know the the the area chart of the total production each month uh to the total load for rmld you can see that uh they're almost at 100% um um contracted power um over the course of the year so that is is not uh time dependent and then when you look at the time series and you look at when the when the contracts are producing versus when the load is occurring there is a a pretty big mismatch and I think that is the problem of being hedged to that level is that you're Crea you're you're worsening the overs Supply during the over Supply periods um I think if you look at um I I think with the numbers I looked at through May um there was actually um about a uh 106% um over Supply um for the first five months of the year and uh and that you know that that's what contributed to the to the losses the other thing I think that contributed to the to you know the over um hedging was probably the um the the hydro Quebec contract um that was signed late last year that went into effect the first of the year that was it's Hydro but it also is um Around the Clock Supply meaning it's it's flat um uh and it you know and that's I Around the Clock 5.6 megawatts is going to provide about 50,000 megawatt hours of Supply which is about 7% of the total Supply so um unless the uh the amount of uh you know the load growth was over 7% you know that was also going to add significantly to the to the overhedge position um in the month so that that uh added to the to the overall losses but again the methodology I use is pretty simple math it's looking at at the time series of every hour of the LMP at the Northeast uh Mass node comparing it to what the uh assumed contract price was and um you know that's where the dollar value came from um you know the the and as I said the W value um would not make any um uh impact it does have an impact because some of the wrecks are sold uh but it it it it did not make the difference between you know the number that that uh that I provided and um and the 400,000 just on that this is Bob Castle Bill uh on that Hydro Quebec contract hyro is running out of water so we did that contract because hydro hydro Quebec now will no longer sell additional power into New England they've made a uh a policy up there to keep all their lowcost hydro which is all their Hydro in back so yeah had an opportunity to get that contract done so that's why we did that contract with Hydro that's actually a contract it's it's a a non-carbon contract the only other source of Around the Clock non-carbon megawatt hours is nuclear power yeah so that Hydro if you're using the hydro quec contract as like a bad example you're just way off yeah so but but the question is like why would you like do you think it was a good idea to also add the wire wine contract for a year in the year that you're also adding the hydro Quebec contract for the for the next five years yeah and it's an you have an option to continue it it's not a bad thing to do when the price of all the intermittents we seeing are going up dramatically so yeah I do think it's a good idea Phil well but none of the none of the you don't need any of those in the next year right I mean brought this up when we're doing the hyro Quebec contract well he we're saying it in the context of of wire wind the narrow question that we asked and we still don't have the financial analysis you're here you go that go it is the value of this million dollar commitment when we just saw if do you disagree with now his math of the $800,000 still disagree we still disagree with it yeah I think much closer to the 95% than 106% at it from January through now the 400,000 350,000 and he just and he just explained it and Bill I mean you know I do want to keep entertaining this conversation in the ballpark but I don't think he's drilling down enough okay get what the true numbers are Mr chair we're getting to it he said he said he said he said well you know we're not getting anywhere well I I disagree with with you I think we're trying to get it uh maybe you should meet with the department and have Bill come down meet with the department and work the numbers in one one place that was the invitation my you know if you take it at a high level right somebody externally is pointing out a potential loss that potential loss should have been identified are we overhead right we're running it why why weren't we aware why weren't you ird aware um through 2023 what I'm just saying right right I you're pointing up I get it but it's everybody right you know that there was a potential loss from a a different point of view right and is the over the over the high hedging is that the incorrect strategy right at at that great that's that you know the strategy then if if someone had said well hey me look we lost milon bucks last year you know and we're aware of that which I you're right b i so different point of view but the point is if you had looked at that said oh well you know let's look at this maybe we temper this down maybe we don't enter into this contract because it's not necessary for a year I understand there's your reasoning behind continuing this contract is potentially I roll it over again next year right because again you're your point about Hydro but I I think that this the question begs the the the strategy structure is the question right that's that's the question is it is it the right was it the right one you went this way was anybody backchecking to make sure that that was the right way to go and that's the I think that's what the big question on the on the on the table we we talk about this lost yes or no but that strategy that's that's the question you know what there why was there no check on that right that it's not that there's no check on so we should walk through strategy again because we have looked at power supply in this depth in a couple of years we didn't do a lot of contracts last year we did several but not a lot um so it's a very good discussion you guys can set policy the strategy that we've been talking about is to bring up go from 60% up to 90% hedged that's what we've did now you've got differences because output is variable and load is variable um answer your questions Mr chairman the value so it's right there okay so the value of if we were to take the output against the forward price curve for 2025 at $716 a megawatt hour just take that number if you use the power if you need to use the power if you don't need to use the power in ISO New England is selling it back into the market as they did heavily in March April and May then that's that analysis falls apart we need so it it'll be very important um as we said before power supply has numerous variables no right it does so the the sweeping generalization that if you have to sell it back it makes it irrelevant is not you need to understand the bigger picture but this this is a narrow picture but what you're presenting here is is a narrow picture yeah well you asked for a specific so the analysis that I I get what you're saying we should so I what you're saying no hang on hang on we have ndas relative to sharing pricing first and foremost okay so that's one piece so we ought to take these types of power supply detail discussions because we have lots and lots of analysis we and we look at this literally every week so we'd be happy to walk you through the detailed numbers there's a strategy piece again I serve at the pleasure of the board if you guys to say hey we think this this the the limit should be 80% fine we'll execute against it my responsibility is to share with you and educate you guys what risk we are taking so remember hedging is an insurance policy right you're going to win some you're going to lose some um again all of the things we'll talk about it in in the next session in the session after then say session when we talk a little bit about goals Etc yeah um we are able to be 55% retirement of certificates because of the structure of our power supply portfolio so we we'll walk through as m numbers as you want um I'll leave it at that right that makes perfect sense if you're only comparing it against the Ford pres that that makes total sense the the issue was if we if we were having to resell so much power in the spring as it is evident that we did and I think you even stipulated that after hearing from Bill it's it's in the ballpark those numbers I heard you say that and if it's in the ballpark it was 400 and change 300 change and 100 change it was like eight eight or N900 thousand was that close Okay I we're probably within like requires careful analysis okay and well for somebody to take but then but then and then to go into a hydro knowing that you just experienced if it's a little different than that it's a pretty large over Supply that had to be resold at a loss why at that moment would you go into another one-year hydro and get yourself from 95 to 98% or whatever that's all I just want to like when if you look at January and I looked at every day in January last January it was on the cold days and our LD didn't need all its power on some of those days we sold it and we made money and then as you the month went on there was a really warm week in uh January and that's where the demand went the demand went down so the load went down and that's when we sold some back at higher numbers but if you go through the whole month and you look at the buys and the sells and then you count in the wreck uh cost we're right at budget right at what we forecast to budget well budget sure I mean natural gas does actual versus budget part of the variable of the right I want to add that you know when you think about long-term power supply strategy it's really about the willingness to take the risk if this commission decides to take the risk of the open market that's a that's a that's a that's a decision it's it's about because every time when you make the decision you're looking at the future which we nobody knows what the future is so last year there was over Supply partially because we're fight not fighting it's the weather it's the climate it's very wet year so Hydro production was much higher it's like it's supposed to be 10,000 it's 15,000 that's like 50% higher production so in the spring yes probably everyone who has a hydro contracts has over supply for that for that estimate anticipated production so so basically comes all back to if you think about strategy when you make a decision it's to take a risk you either take open market risk or you take the contract risk right but it's over Supply as we're talking time side is always 2020 so it's always good we do track all the historical prices we do look at that and actually Bill if you still here I think your analysis is actually different from our analyst analysis I just look at this morning so I can all have really different analysis and projections but then fundamentally the decision is a judgment C to be to be honest I mean at some to some extent so I just that yeah I'm but and one one point is that you know a one-year extension is not a long-term you know um hedge right it's just for the is that your fundamental issue that's the question you were asked question is that the issue he has the issue that we've narrowly asked you was to defend the wire wind contract and it's a one-year extension and in in a nutshell yeah it's below the Ford price curve it gives us an option I mean the numbers are right here so um right but I think if you if you looked at when you know even if you looked at the year before when it was producing when it was expected to produce if you did that analysis um before you may have not entered into that contract um see I wonder who was we'll come back to that in a minute well I was I did not present the I just want to say just like if you looked at the last two Winters have been mild yeah so you would think the forward price curve would be predicting low prices going into a third winter but it's not the forward curve today for the winter is $133 so that's telling you that experts think we're going to be paying much more this winter than we have in past winters even though we've had two mile Winters in a row so to answer your question Dave um we haven't finalized that contract we are looking so weeks ago we scheduled a meeting with e to look at our power supply portfolio again we're looking at the forecast we have new information right now the key thing is that if we don't do that contract we will never see it again and that's part of the equation it's not big it'll be literally two-thirds of a million dollars for the entire contract just just so there's a big picture here uh happy to you know we should do an executive session to get into more details I will make a commitment to all of you guys that every time we get together we'll take 15 minutes to learn more about power supply together it is changing massively what used to work in the past does not apply to the Future just that's my commitment to you and let just a reminder as I said at the last meeting the another Hydro contract we were quoted 90 $90 that's even higher than the forward C that's a real quote that's that's very high so compared to the wnd price the wnd is very competitive yeah and I'll just you know we've been looking at other projects new wind for a 25e contract is 100 to $110 a megawatt hour and you know we did the uh Western main contract at $78 so you can see prices are going up for new projects new solar we did a deal a gravel pit in the low 70s we did a 50 in the 50s before that low 70s now if you want to get do big solar $90 to $130 uh and you know New York did a offshore wind auction and it came in at $155 a megawatt prices new renewable energy a Skyrock that's why you grab what you can now but but but Bob you don't grab more than you need or you end up selling it at a loss into the realtime market right unless you unless you take that long and you trade it for somebody on a short so you know as well as I oh just this is ridiculous this is can speak please because we're getting way off and it's becoming again who he said he said he said he said we can move on I I think Bob made a very interesting comment about the strategy I think it's we should we should go look at what the strategy would be are is the correct strategy in place R the last meeting talked about we have experts Al also question the use of your expert quite TR a yeah you're next year could be 100 degrees every day you're gonna be buying it oh sorry yeah so he's ahead not buying it now for the future we won't buy it if it doesn't make sense for now as well that's that's safe okay okay thanks let's go it you want to go to no n let's go item nine okay so mik Mike can sorry Mike we would have done your first here good luck thank you thank you for coming thank you thanks I'm going keep wait Mike are you doing um eight he will do eight okay sorry umn Let's do let's do nine first let's get nine out of the first okay straight forward that's the first one is on the bucket truck so we had uh put out a B for a bucket par bucket truck replacement we got two prices one from Altech and one from uh James Kylie uh James Kylie was the high bter 30 over little over $31,000 more than Altech and the reason why we selected James Kylie is because uh well one is uh alt gave us an estimated delivery gate of 54 to 57 months the truck and also they had lot of stipulations in this and uh add is certain dates weren't met so really wasn't a fixed price contract it was all kinds of add is that they can't they can't sell they can't guarantee that price Tak out that that qu so we we selected Kylie and they were within our spec and within our um our requirement delivery okay I think the biggest problem with alltech um you know the service like everis n when they buy a truck they're buy they're not buying one or two trucks they're buying you know 30 50 trucks often so you know they'll be there thr me dead in Van but we buy one or two trucks you know kind of thr the back and small yeah not really 50 four to five years truck the motion please do yeah so this is the bucket truck right yes move the proposal ifp 224-3146 be awarded to James a Kylie company for $347,900 foot 40 feet 40 feet 40 in truck I collect what can I say the only question I have is the the trading value what what shape was what the vehicle getting traded in 2010 so we're getting value for that there is a value I don't know if they yeah 2500 theyed we've been before we had truck gate there for a while so that's right we did we had truck gate we just want to make sure we're getting value for trading well as long as it's being disposed of according to the updated policy then it should be yeah the proper marketing proper book chairman yeah for for those of you who are not around with truck G was a truck got sold and uh there was a complaint that was not sold for the correct value the truck did not run need a new transmission was later sold for 17,000 there was a whole investigation by the finance Comm because somebody had somebody had complained yeah it was all included with the B process okay y all right that's fine okay did we did you second it okay all in favor thank you okay thank you and uh second item was uh uh Ros that we were purchasing put out to bid we had uh three biders it was on g&w uh Wesco gave us two prices um so the the lowest bid was uh was g&w the only problem with g&w they didn't meet our spe when they uh submitted uh their spec were close up uh didn't have we requested uh six CTS it only had three CTS it didn't have a control so Westco submitted two bids uh one of the bids uh had a control cab it was uh spec for aluminum cabinet uh the bid that we'd like to select is uh second uh West submitt and that had the six CS in a stainless steel cabinet which is aspec so uh the bids g&w was the lowest bid 28,000 wco aluminum count it was more money 232,000 the middle bid by Wesco was $2 16,720 and we'd like to um select that bid okaye move that ifp 2024 D30 for ABB brid Shield 15 kV recloses be awarded to West CO distribution Inc for 26,7 and20 resuming to Mass General laws chapter 164 paragraph 56d on the recommendation general manager second any discussion all in favor 5 thank you very much thank you sorry to keep you up it'll be for the next discussion okay yep yeah yep I do so Mike and I gonna walk through over time um overtime is a topic that we've been actually analyzing and working on for a while um there's a I'll walk through just some quick definitions um planed and unpl are the two big categories for it um plan consist of of uh say plan jobs jobs requested by customers storm standby um heat standby which is Storm related um Plan customer outes Etc um also tied into the plan is under our existing contract uh if we have a uh contractor crew in place which we do U we are committed to offer 8 hours to each lineman for that um so that's a piece of it um we also are working on a 4-day work week we're evaluating that we haven't finalized it um it has a lot of benefits but it also has drawbacks because it draws higher overtime um so we'll talk about that in a little more detail in terms of different categories and some numbers control room is the other piece and this is a situation that we had last year as well as this year U we have been running uh a three-person crew uh We've recruited several individuals we've had a couple of people that transferred to other departments within rmld we are supportive of that um but what happens in the control room is that we which is a good thing we allow um qualified individuals to staff the control room when we don't have regular staff and so we've only had three qualified instead of five the challenge when we have uh a non-control operator Staffing that room is that get they get paid at time and a half it's overtime for them and they tend to be paid at a higher rate because their linemen for example are Engineers um so that control room piece is a is a noteworthy piece um we have we're about to have four people qualified uh we hired a fifth person actually the offer was accepted today interesting enough but if takes six months roughly to qualify that control operator so the control is a is a I'll say a known problem um there's another element which we'll talk about in a few minutes with capital um you'll see in a few minutes planned is over or will be over budget capital is under budget we still have a fundamental issue that we're working through right now so um in terms of storms um you'll see a more detailed piece here in just a second but uh early part of the year um January February we had quite a bit of storm we'll talk more detail um uh we've had new high so we've actually beefed up our Line crew as you remember we had the rodeo we have a very strong Line crew which is good um you'll see that the number of projects that we've completed so far this year is sign significally higher than 2023 so while there is a dry while there is a higher overtime the amount of work that we've gotten out is significant as well we're still doing some additional analysis on yeah go ahead I see the mutual AIDS up there that's usually reimbursable but it's very reimbursable yeah so that that doesn't that that close yeah it it is there in different buckets different buckets and it doesn't it doesn't it's it's h it's netted out of these numbers but you're exactly right yeah so we've we've started participating Mutual Aid which is a really good thing um good for training good to be part of part of the broader team to help uh our neighbors U particularly North in this particular case um the reason why those product complete is that we put in their reliability remember we talked over and over again our goal is reliable low cost non-carbon um lower numbers are better so 23 and 24 our our performance in terms of reliability is excellent right now so part of the reason by making sure that we are that we are working on our Network our distribution network is to keep those numbers low um overtime comparison so here are some numbers going across we got planned and unplanned there's different slices of this that you know we're working on making it easier for us to do the analysis on overtime uh but this is one cut planned and and un planned and unplanned in the far right hand column there you'll see a difference just to the left of that 2024 through July and then 2023 through July so this is meant to be comparison um both of numbers are the first six months of first seven months actually of both 2023 and 2024 but you'll see 2024 is much higher than 2023 and in the top line is primarily and the unplanned is slightly lower but the the real driver is the plan so we've got uh in the red numbers July 24th you've got these different blocks they're paired up July January 23 to January 24 next bot so 168 versus 150 168,000 in plan versus 55,000 that's a big difference you can see there the note January we had three storms in the same week resulting in about 65 hours of overtime per person that week that was a big big issue again lot of lot of storm in January time frame February you'll see the same thing it's not quite as significant 68,000 versus 97,000 the $30,000 difference driven primarily by a two-day storm um as we get into April 89,000 these are the big numbers $889,000 $157,000 another storm um and then June we actually had some heat standby so there was a pretty you guys remember um this summer was hotter than usual so we are tracking back to um why we have it um it's still a big number so that's it's you know it there's there's a reason why it's you know well the the right now like compared to budget you're but that's let's just call 1.15 right now what for total for the for the total um through 2024 right so what's that relative to our budget for the year right our budget we're going to be our budget is going to be roughly about 1.2 million so we're gonna at the rate we're going we're going to go over budget yeah we're already over budget on plan the now that's on planned Bob it's just fair statement so don't get me wrong I'm not saying there's not a problem here there is yeah but but in it's particular in the plan piece and it's how we're covering it um and we're gonna so we'll get into a few minutes with the changes we're going to make yeah yeah but like unplanned is unplanned that that that I understand I would argue that storm standby is unplanned yeah but that's that's where I'm going of the buckets such big buckets we need to break it down small buckets and system right now that's set up is not set up that way where storms stand out you see like yeah you have to go through like hours an hour like everything dissect this so let's just say unplanned a storm right but plan well I would we just try to good point we're just trying to so it's consistent we left it in you're right the way you're tracking it right have to track it now it's considered planned but I mean it's not really planed I mean I know you like the day ahead you say like I'm going to keep some people so it's like what we do it's planned but it's not really planned because you don't know what you're get storms of the year you know no it should be storm yeah standby or or like a wind event or snowstorm be in the big change right between 2023 and 2024 at a certain point was the schedule right you went to four you went to 410 AB I've said it before this is an operational 24 by7 five day a week operation when you go into 410 it does not work for an operational based team and then the other item right it's it's when you're bringing contractors and you're bringing them in you gotou whatever you're gonna call it right when they're working and you're working right you gotta you got to you do the work you bring them in when it's work right I understand that that that it's work but your fundamental structure of using them on a consistent basis right that that that's where your guys got to be more more productive than the other guys and then the other I mean I don't know where to put this one but I keep hearing I keep hearing the word rest time right that's that's rest I don't know where you're hearing it from but that's that doesn't move this needle well it it but it it moves the needle because all it becomes is a a sick buyback monster later on it's the same exact concept that it and they'll say well I won't I won't do you overtime I I'll do rest time you just have to be extremely cautious of introducing that Concept in because it it becomes a be in it it's it and it's you you have to think of things that every day you're trying to play in overtime the first thing you think of is how much rest time is someone going to get because they build up huge Banks right it just rest time is actually a cal time right just called something because rest time where where I come from is you're home sleeping because you worked all night right yeah yeah so we work between shifts I need eight hours talking time so we have a temporary rest time agreement but there's no there's no b no quota Bank to build on it they go home your caution is very appropriate we serious and if we if we got forced that we that uh we had to keep that guy we had we had to pay him there there's no bank that rest so there's no quota bank that rest yeah because we have right now and that's basically is an incentive so you know if you have guys working you me like a certain days you want to make sure people respond at night time oh yeah there's no on bank for that quot a bank for rest time at all the comp time is is in the contract the four hour if they if they work so many after 16 hours which you know it's something we got to live with's in the contract right now you know I just I just think there's a direct that's a there's a direct correlation to the schedule change to the lot of overtime just pumping up and and that's that's gotta that's got to change right I mean that's just you learn a new system okay this is how I get it this is how it works right I I understand that but that's a you know it's a just a direct result so so I'll come to lessons so I'm with you on Lessons Learned right and you'll see that in the middle right further ref find the work schedule right um we're we're trying to 4 by10 and we're you know what's working and what's not working so we're we're with you on that one so so feedback is is warmly received right so this is you know these are the things so before we go into this right there is the productivity right a stuff we're getting done so we're getting a lot more stuff done and that goes back into Transformer Replacements pole Replacements things that we're doing to update update our Network and that ties back to reliability but the point you're making which is go back and look at your 4 by10 which is which is very good feedback and that's what we're the process of doing right now um the other elements is you can say you can see right here these are things that we're in the process of making changes to right so additional charge codes so we can get a little more detail retraining the team to make sure they're doing the proper time recording and this goes back to what Jason was just mentioning you know plan versus capital in particular because capital is below budget right so net net we we still have a an issue but it's not as it's not as Extreme as we think because we have to get the capital piece in um we're doing more monthly analysis in terms of the trends which will allow us to do that um we're going to change the approval process um and re the schedule the approval process and review for the work schedule which ties directly in the 4x10 um we got to make better decision in terms of when we're allowing for Planned overtime that's a whole another piece of the equation and then we're changing the software platform that allows those upper items to happen which is the spry point system because we have this custom system that anyways it's got its own problems and and then the material tracking so this but in the middle there's your key4 by10 so that's something that we're going to and again we purposely put it in as anou it's not structured in so we could undo it at any point in time and we're looking at this right now to say hey we might need to make a change if you go back a slide yeah go ahead and and and we're looking at poll sets yeah so in seven months we set 17 polls and then last year and then this year we did 96 how many of those by contractors or internal Crews like like all these T is that total volume by everybody or total volume by contractors and attorne we have so we have four one over have one we have one over we have one contracted crew on the overhead and then we have two underground Crews you know it it just you know if a job gets bid out for a large job a large feeder job is that in there you know if you had a big poll set job a large is that would that be in that number yeah those are total numbers total projects total total projects yeah but okay and your Point's well taken but remember there's only one there's only one overhead crew in that mix so what what I'm what I'm saying is we're looking at total productivity for contractors and internals yet overtime is only based on the work that they do right so your productivity number is it coming a con those total numbers a contractor set whole sets and contractor tickets and like engines tickets services are there numbers in there because I can't imagine that our productivity has exploded that much in one year that that that that's you're presenting this in the context of an overtime explanation and it makes it seem like suddenly more productivity is coming from staff who are getting overtime but it's it's this is from contractors well no that's not from contractor so this is all in turn overall so the part of it is uh the Friday is is planned work so it'll be Capital work to be on projects like pole Replacements transform Replacements a capital type project so so this I think with a differences here like uh you see the poll transfers I think those are set in transfer and I think vers uh the 96 is a new set yeah and that you know because that that the other our capital budget was under spending correct UND our productivity and and these numbers are staying our Capital our Capital program is is over productive our capital budget is underspent but these numbers say that we're we're doing unbelievable right right now just remember so take a step back yeah um we are so we are con not concerned like um overtime is not in the level of control that we want it to be one of the things that we look at is so so what are we trying how are we trying to manage so there's things in the next step C that we're talking about what we're changing to manage so the 17 to the 96 remember the way the line Crews work and the majority of this cost is all line Pro it's driven by the tickets that the engineers set so you want to look at the total number not any individual lines because we might have so well clearly we only did 17 well have to go look at from January to August right of 2023 there's only 17 sets that doesn't mean that's all the PO sets we did but we did other projects as well the point being is that over overall we're getting more projects done that's all this is trying to say and that ties directly back to reliability and we're not throwing money away we're not getting people aren't just sitting around you know resting in their trucks not doing anything there's stuff that's happening that's all this is trying to say your point is right in terms of the 4 by10 right that 4 by10 there's pros and cons to it but from an overtime perspective it's a negative and that's why we're going back to say do we end that program I mean it's it's exactly the right I'm with you 100% Bob right because 4 by10 might not be the right scenario for the L question regarding these numbers now tickets they could be more than one poll on the ticket right a reconductoring job could be a th000 feet it could be 5,000 that's true too right right right so if you're going by number of tickets here for any of this whether it's Transformers polls um reconductoring jobs I mean 2023 they could have been larger AMS of work on one ticket and then in 2024 it there maybe smaller tickets less I mean you don't know the numbers all I'm saying is like these numbers don't necessarily indicate the amount of work that was done in verus directionally correct they're not yeah I can't I can't do ratio you're exactly right Jason because it just depends on the size of the job and the way how the workorder was written like certain Engineers Break Stuff up into smaller chunks other Engineers might break stuff into larger chunks I mean it's so the numbers are misleading it's not it this I don't know if you can drive a lot out of the numbers because tickets more than they is different the equipment's equipment so if you place it you didn't or you set it so the equipment's not ticket it's an actual piece of it's those on all tickets so for the polls and and the Transformers you can like but the reconductoring though I don't think you can because you don't know how long the reconductoring job was like is that spans because your reconductoring job is 154 but reconductoring could be 1,000 feet it could be 10,000 feet it could be 100 feet 17 polls in seven months question those are jobs right the engineers set so it's not like or jobs because that's I didn't do this I didn't actually do thise sheet but I think uh like this this how the numbers but I think the the tour two could be full replacement transfer and the 17 is actually new new new set like a secondary pole for or extension you didn't do the spreadsheet well I didn't draw these numbers Okay so I think what I'm seeing is highlighting in highlight yellow highight 13% more on tickets but tickets as Jason said could be everything from a tiny thing to a massive job so it doesn't really mean anything but it's presented as if it does mean something I don't I that's not what he's saying this one way this is one way to look at the data and if you have more detail you can break it down and provide more detail this is tell all I'd say here is this would drive the question of we really need to drive into that some more detail to build figure out if this actually is more or less I don't want to like which is what this is all about here presented as if it's is more but so yeah well I I can tell you chairman that there is more work done go ahead Mr Dave whatever I can tell you that more work is getting done but this is why we're trying to dig deeper into it so we can actually quantify and and work through and say so I'll tell you once again right overtime needs to be better managed these are the things we're doing differently um 4 by 10 as a piece of it the way we're doing the tickets the way we're coding it's all part of it it's an important piece ask just a question on that the what is the oversight process for over like who approves it how do you decide that that makes sense and and then following that was 4 by10 all going to be a trial and was it communicated as a trial or oh is Cle yeah it is it is a trial so and so when are we making the decision on assessing how it is performing and making either the decision to make it permanent or to change it we're not making it permanent so there's a there's so we work in the unionized environment um schedule is something that we are unlikely to put into a contract that's a that's a very strong statement that I just made schedule of what so the answer question um 4 by10 is on a trial basis right now and it's done through an mou for the line guys um it goes through the end of the year okay we can stop it at either party can end it at any point in time that's what's written in theou and it's specifically written not to be part of the contract so to answer your question we look at it on a regular basis in terms of well periodically look at and say how can we make it better and part of it is are we getting more work done or not um are we ba are we able to get the crews to come in when we need them to come in because back to Bob's point we need 247 coverage and there was a time when we had it was difficult to get people to come in and we would go through a call this two or three times not acceptable um and then there's the there's the cost of it as well so there's a so we're we're reeval so um we're coming to the end of the summer um and it's a perfect time to do a transition because we're about to start the school year literally um so the answer your question is it's a it's not permanent it's unlikely to I'll stop okay so first question then who is currently kind of approving or making decisions on when overtime is required how much it's it's a combination of the general line foreman and the chickets on the engineers each week so twice a week we go through a scheduling process and we decide what jobs need to be done depending upon the needs of the customer or whatever the other needs are so it's a weekly process in terms of what when's going to be overtime if it's not going to be overtime or how much have we get off that's that process so we know we know ahead of time how much it's going to cost before it happens on well you definitely like that's make up over the time the contract be system so so we know a couple days in advance because they have to give us a list who's available but time so work to be done one small question are we as an organization uh do you base yourself what's just they used the word taunting before or another thing that like they have 35 linemen and we have 40 linemen have3 23 is it all kind of are We underst staffed over staffed or based on uh we are more properly we used to be pretty under staffed yeah um we're we're more fully staffed right now online grp okay couple other drivers too was a control room with short-handed two guys that was always being filled by overtime and then um the other driver was um the the way the schedule is for the trou troubleshooters in the weekends the 24 hours of builting over time for coverage trou shoot as well that's a CL schedule you gotta get the bodies you gotta get you gotta get the bodies in yeah we gotta have coverage which which goes back couple things there right not really control you gotta get people you gotta get kind of out of the problem where like everything's in grouped into a bucket of plan with it's not necessarily that's not right the right term for it like the storm should be separated with storms like TR coverage should be separated a separate Pockets so like different line it little something we're gonna work on SP a little work to be done any else thank you mik next upop on yep meant to be a quick check in quick snapshot I'm gonna I'm gonna do this in five minutes I'm not gonna do big a big long one um so right now rmld we consider ourselves a winning team um we have very good external reputation first six months of the year the team was um engaged and motivated confident Etc um being part of a winning team is good and that includes the board as well the whole team under leadership of the GM is to focus on the mission the mission we talked about before reliable lowcost non-carbon we are doing a really good job in terms of fulfilling our mission as we talked about before reliability we have low outage occurrent lower numbers are good right better than Regional and national average our restoration is fast right better than Regional and national average um we are as we mentioned before trying to accelerate our reinforcement of our Network so that helps increase the reliability of our system so we are doing a very good job on reliability we uh we move to the D level of the rp3 um we uh we're getting good so customers are very pleased with the reliability low cost um we have very strong financials our income statement in our balance sheet we manage cash very carefully we look at it every week every month we uh we we look at our um power supply uh rates um specifically Fuel and ppct um we are able to Able this year because of the work that we've been doing so far this year to actually um dampen the increase of the August bills from what it normally would have been I checked with customer service there were very few complaints of high bills in August that's very common because a July the August bill is because of July low kilowatt hour sales are typically highest in July um we just received again S&P analysis we are double A minus um they are particularly interested in our cash management um aa's calculation is 90 between 90 and 100 days of cash on hand we're 120 S&P has us at 178 different calculations um our residential rates um are dramatically lower than IUS and we're mid- Fleet among the MLPs commercial industrial rates we are at the lowest third of the MLPs and we're dramatically less than the IUS so for from a low cost perspective we're doing very well 2024 the third mission is non-carbon and you guys remember the analysis that we did we're able to be 55% certificate retirement in 2024 where where that was enabled by our power supply portfolios you you know certificates is a key part of that portfolio and it has and it's several million dollars of impact in terms of reducing our fuel cost based on the way we structured that our non-carbon position is is well positioned all the way through the mid 2030s so big picture and we're doing very well as an organization um the goals this was a vertical sheet um just to make it easy I've split it into two pieces one two um you know I'll I'll I'll I won't spend too much time on it because I really want the feedback from you guys um we are I I tried to do uh two star one star two star three star um I think we're so Vision we continue to be very good we've so that item a and Item B um in the context of US changing our in territory um generation strategy we're going to update um uh the Strategic plan in terms of how we're looking at that between now and the end of the year um we were very successful and good in terms of engaging leg legislative we did a series U Back in January February March um of legislative meetings Zoom meetings Etc um well positioned there personel right we hired new Ops Mike sitting next to me um new ird director internal hire we actually brought her in early in the year as an assistant director and moved her to um the director of ird uh we made an internal promotion on the engineering side to fill that position so um again continuing to upgrade our leadership team um uh the intern program I'll put that you know one out of three stars I'll probably put that as a one um item e there negotiate Mutual beneficial unit contracts that process process has started um our goal there's a lot of work to be done on that uh contracts take time um you know complete the transition to the new work schedule um again that's mou based you know we're gonna we're goingon to refine how we do the line work um but it we have different groups and different departments in terms of how we're looking at those um testing the semiannual performance review that was meant to be for my team um not so I I have not succeeded on that one yet um you'll see in a minute that that's one of the areas that I'm saying I need to perform better on um in terms of the customer section um you know each one of these um I won't go through everyone individually I should say actually J revamping rld.dll she's hit the ground running so I'm confident that we'll get all of those customer items done by the end of the year I wish they were done now we mentioned the customer portal as well so all good stuff um recruiting large new customers um that's always in process some of our our customers that we thought were going to be bigger two years ago are finally ramping up one of the 3D printing companies is is expanding which is good um I I'll get feedback from you guys in a few minutes um platform selecting the new Ami vendor and establishing Milestones we're actually in the Contracting phase of that we did select a vendor um the top two actually because we aren't you know we're going to keep one in reserve in case we can't get the Contracting done that's uh that was a well-run procurement process which was great um land you guys know that I give you guys intermediate updates on land we can get more details at the right time um so that's going quite well um internal data analytics it's going well in terms of load forecast um we haven't been as successful yet in terms of uh uh making applying that to operations some of the things we talked about on the overtime we focus on that piece funding um we we had looked we specifically when we put this together at the early part of the year we anticipating doing some significant debt funding um we won't need that right now um however we did map out and we took initial steps relative to bond meeting with both the town um and mck on several occasions um and again think as you mentioned as you remember from the last meeting we uh we've got our first grant we've did we've done $48 million of submissions but we got the first one back or open other ones will come through as well power supply um right there's a strategy to uh you know rld owned and territory Generation Um we've talked about that and we're actually implementing that um theou for inter territory uh load generation asset that was a carbon capture fuel cell we've paused that purposely so that's U has paused um V the in territory generation projects for the various schools I met with uh the town manager and the assistant Town manager in Reading relative to two of the projects I'll be meeting with the uh uh the head of the school committee on the next couple of weeks on that one so that moves forward nicely and then uh W is U the long duration storage projects those are on scheduled to be U installed at the end or first half of next year so that's a quick summary in terms of goals I'm feeling confident that we're going to hit all these goals in terms of areas for improvement so this is my feedback on me um establish key metrics beyond the basic uh actual versus budget dollars per megawatt hour um need to create a you know we we we haven't finished this yet but I need to make sure by the end of the year if not before then uh a management team dashboard um data analytics again this business is increasingly data Centric um and part of both of those is you know what are the cost Trends p and I talked about this last year when we first got started but cost Trends acrost all different categories and make it easier for uh when you guys look at the warrant approval to see that um I am committed to create some smart goals for both my direct reports and myself um these are broad goals purposely but we'll put in place you know financial goals Etc as we go forward into next year um the other element is Project schedules one of the things we learned by doing the carbon capture fuel cell project a lot of work was done on schedules and Analysis Etc um but schedules budgets and Milestones is part of that program going to try and apply that to the other projects that we have as well and then the last element is U not something for me but more timely formal reviews to my reports and specifically the reports that are reported to me uh in my acting role so when I was acting director of of operations before you got here engineering so I am not F I have not got through all of those reviews so I'm behind on that so that's another element um that I need to finish up so that's areas of improvement for me that's a quick snapshot big picture rmld is doing extremely well um we're meeting the goals that we set out the GM goals um but I've got work to do in terms of my performance and I've got some specific things so I'd love to hear your feedback so that's my report so I'll transition to take feedback from you for intermediate um back in terms of the general manager's performance my performance specific I got a couple I go you so I we talk about reliability yeah reading hasn't been hit by a storm and a significant I don't know how it hops over our territory but it hops over Hills it goes up to RC Valley pounds North End over and then moves out but reliability is um something to be taken with the with luck right that storm hit Micro Burst hits here you know that that our reliability numbers are great because we haven't been hit in years right that that that's part of it right part of it storm hardening is a portion of it that's part of it um kind of just you know just going back to um a couple of items you know um we we always talk about low carbon and our our our projects that we have going on and and we had mentioned at the beginning just make sure that you have to stay focused on the ones it's there's a lot of stuff out there yeah but we got to stay the ones that you have I think we we went to big picture right I I I believe that you know we paused the carbon capture fuel so we had to do that and we have a lot of other items that are out there that just aren't progressing and and and I don't I don't I don't think they're going to progress you know some some of them because I just the projects we need to focus on are the ones the substation yep and Ami right let's get those done let's get let's get those projects done let's complete those you know those are the status reports that we need how we doing with the vendor where's the implementation where you know that stuff was two years old right and two years later but we're not that progressed on a lot of those projects seemingly because we don't we don't know we'll give you reports good but I'm just I'm just saying you know the substation is a huge reliability portion of of this network and don't don't see it don't I don't have any clue to Ami that's the key to time of use right yep where's that now we're talking 2025 so I think that's part of it as well um we we talk Personnel Personnel that's that's bad right there's been 20 people that have left in here and retirements and terminations resignations there's been 20 people that have left since I let's just call it two years right eight of those were basically Senior Management folks high level high level people right some of them were terminations some of them were resignations right huge amount of turn turnover right in in in here now right that's massive that's you know qut of the organization the institutional knowledge that was he here is gone right we've been without a an engineering operations director for a long time um that institutional knowledge Lo walked out the door right that that hasn't been replaced that's key to making sure maintenance programs get staying on track you know whatever they are you know the all the programs that were in place that were running I don't know where they are what they are so HED came in sometimes there was quite boring sometimes but it was effective because you knew it was happening right now we have no clue what's going on I don't even know what's going on with those those projects you know so I don't know what's we don't know what's happening with those um but I just think that there's a lot of room right there that the the Personnel thing is is is the biggest one you know that that that it's it's that brought you in to change the culture right that was one of the big items right and there's a mass Exodus out the door maybe not all related to you know there's people taking opportunities but there's a lot of changes going on and that that has to stop the um shoe doesn't fit don't throw it away right sometimes I think there was some some better ways to handle things that that could have maybe not ended up in terminations or or or resting but there's a lot of stuff that that um quite the feedback that I get from ex employees it it it it's just not comfortable sometimes hearing it right that that's that's real right and know I just want to put that on the table you know it's just not something that's that's been acceptable you know it's a I'm trying of I don't want to put some air out of a balloon but I just I want to just back up that that one point of like the end of the day like and I think I've heard commissioner Porter say it too the place is as good as its employees and and how the employees feel about where they work and how how comfortable it is for them in the work environment and there's a lot of indications that the work environment is is difficult for a lot of people and I think the the the the word is Exodus of these numbers for a for a a stable public company with great union jobs that doesn't typically have a lot of turnover the numbers of Departures are dramatic at rmld over the last couple years and Mo and a good half of them are people who resign you know and so I just want to Echo what Bob said you know that's the that's the most important thing and it feels like that's not like he said that we wanted a culture change and if anything it seems to have taken a turn you know to the worst and and that didn't come up anywhere in your uh self-report of of that of that turnover and what your take is on it but it's a big concern of mine so I just want to Echo that particular part of what I have other things but I just wanted to back that one up sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you no thank you um my my comment separate from from that input um the schools and and the projects the Solar volic projects the electric projects that are happening um I was at the last couple of meetings uh appreciate that Molly was there um I I think through Molly or or uh certainly rmld whatever presence that takes um there's still a lot of people on the building committee and and in town that are bound to be fossil fuel generating facility um even though the consultant comes back and says a electric facility is long-term economically viable and I think what the town needs to hear and see and is the is a real physical presence again through mly or through whoever um that rmld is behind that um those options and can really deliver um for the town on that aspect of it uh so my encouragement um to you and and giving Molly the support and producing the the kind of proposals that the School Board needs to see that um no this is this is not abstract this is not high in the sky we we can deliver on this if you want us to own it we can do it if you want us to uh you just go some other route we'll do that but I encourage a a more proactive um presentation on that there's still people who love propane generators and we can do better with batteries if we uh let them know that that's the way to go good I still uh for the board I will still maintain a role on the sustainability committee and and interact with those those committees um but that's the feedback on that I think we need a stronger presence there I'll fully agree with that um I'll just in in general the what I had a hard time with this um Greg was understanding kind of there's a lot of work happening on these um and you mentioned the one two three star I I I don't I don't think you went through individually on each of them but I just was taking notes as you were talking about it it's a lot of meetings engagement in process I guess what I try to look for is where are the results and I know we're not at the end of the year but um there's a lot that is to say we're on track for all of these goals there's a I did I don't see a lot that are like that's done check you know and usually at this time of year if you've got a list of 25 goals you've got over half of them done um that that's what I would expect in kind of you know my outside of this room life um so I guess I I I have a little bit of concern about what we're actually going to hit all these goals um the other thing I think about is uh kind of customer Obsession and and just making sure that we're constantly thinking about the customer and I was really concerned about the fact that we had you know one resource Gap that led to you know your comment that you know most of the things underneath customer were not uh were delayed because we didn't we didn't have a Communications person we didn't um the ability to communicate or expand whether it's our website or our customer communication we know we have gaps in our customer communication um I think it's great that we're starting to think about it and we heard about it earlier um in terms of you know rethinking some of those programs but again I hear a lot of we're doing analysis we're looking at it we're going to make changes you know we need to start actually making some decisions and and uh making those changes versus just analyzing them so I I definitely some I definitely have concern that we're we're we're not going to meet some of these goals and I guess I'd want to understand kind of I guess we need to think more about where we're really at risk of missing for this year thank you anything you want to add Phil I have a few things one to reserve comments I agree with some of the things some of the people have said but I'm GNA Reserve comments at this point I don't have any particular comments okay um so I have a few things um I guess and just kind of set the stage I mean some of the things we're talking about are things that you know we didn't know at the beginning of the year or the result of data or information that really have only come through recently that that caused some concerns so um you know one is um I I do think that it was a good conversation earlier I know it was a little awkward to have an next employee in the room I think it was a good conversation to have and I did hear the gentleman from Bob as he walked out said you know those numbers were approximately right so what it means is that those in the beginning of this year that there was a a selling of a loss of power that armaly had bought of 136 Grand in January maybe a little off 50 in February 420,000 in March 371,000 in April and 163,000 in May and even if those are a little off I mean that's that's a million more than a million most of which was in the spring so I continue to be concerned that the wire wind was promoted and encouraged for a 5 vote in that context and that the defense you give in terms of a financial analysis is that it's less than the Ford price curve but that's not the point point was that we had sold a lot of power at a loss just this past spring that should have informed a diff I think had it be considered and brought to us would have resulted in a different decision so I consider that a very fundamental you know problem um and again the numbers could tweak a little bit but the the the discussion didn't leave me any different than where I started to be honest with you um so the you know the Exodus of employees I think is really overarching I think the O the overtime discussion I think we saw a $300,000 overage that we've uh once you got through your presentation the real reason was four10 which is a thing that was known for a long time and but the presentation made it seem like it was from storms or something or extra tickets and I think the presentation was was a little misleading and I I think the conversation uh resulted in more of what the real issue was um so now and on a on um it's it's sort of a minor note but um in in another way it's not a minor note is the how our Peak awareness program of the summer sort of fell apart and on Janu on June 20th and okay there can be a glitch with an invoice it happens right but June 20th we had a meeting and I had emailed you three days earlier saying it's going to be 100 degrees give us a report on on what you did for demand response and and notification and those mass emails that we spent a lot of time uh assembling to notify people of the the dip and they take action is a is a key part of what we do and it didn't go out and it's okay mistakes can happen and you said something about it being a password problem or an it problem it was six more weeks until it was it somehow surfaced that it was just an unpaid invoice that in a day could have been could have been fixed J June 21 and it wasn't until August 2 that another Peak email came out because the invoice little tiny small dollar invoice got paid and we if if it you know it's okay for an error to happen but the whole board's sitting here telling you on June 20th six weeks go by till you fix it and in the whole summer of one of the the hottest Summers with all these hot days so that to me is like that can't get done even though the board told you what does it say about bigger things and I think so that that was that was a kind of a red flag for me about how things are run um I think overall you know we didn't talk a lot about the the big the big the how much time was spent on this carbon captured fuel cell a wonderful idea but how much effort went into it when there was not land there was not a approvals for for land there was not a a hint of regulatory approval being in the offing and I mean and then not even anything on the I don't think on the carbon capture side of that there really being a market that there was like none of these legs of the stool were there it wasn't like one of them like none of them were there it was like a straight 40 vote against this and it was like it's not that we don't like or that I don't like big ideas but the level of effort relative to how speculative it was is a again for me a concern so that these are some of my concerns and they're pretty serious and I don't know if anybody else shares or has a sense of how deep those these types of concerns and the ones you guys mentioned are are they you know but I do have questions about you know the leadership of rml right based on all that and I don't know what what any of you guys do you guys have more fundamental you know do you have a or not I mean it's it it it right now Greg I um honestly I think with the the Personnel changes I think that um you know what we're seeing for what we should be seeing for performance I I believe that that that right now I'm I'm troubled with the leadership that's going on here I am I make a public yes please I know you you're talking to a lot of former employees but I think it might be beneficial to talk to some current employees from what I hear and I'm not just saying this as you know rist and I hear this from people who are unaected they think you know some of those terminations have been positive or that leadership is doing a good job so it's great to have those opinions but maybe open it up to some other people too I'm not saying me I'm saying it in or come come in and see how the days go yep y chairman ch board member our yeah I'd be very open to them take a commissioner to work day love to well I mean I I guess I wonder kind of a sense of the board of how how serious do you guys you know we had a lot of serious concerns and how how you know I I I I don't know where you're going with how serious those are concerns certainly we have the right to ask the questions here we have an obligation to ask those questions and get answers um I I'm reluctant to make quick judgments in terms of leadership I think we need to work through those those questions and and get um guidance on on how to do it if it means more Management training or more HR training or or whatever other skill training we want to do I I think there's a myth that oh things aren't going well I'm not getting the answer to the questions fast enough therefore we've got to make some major change I I'm very cautious about reaching that conclusion too quickly I'm on the same it's fine it's fine to say um you have some questions or issues you didn't get a a response quick enough but that's be careful how far we take that that's we have a process right part of our contract L right it's a process I yeah appreciate that we're okay we're reviewing goals we're giving feedback I was asked by the chairman where am I headed I think I'm only expressing we don't rush to a judgment or or reach a hasty conclusion that's not the direction I'd be heading in this so I I just part part of our contract with Greg is a very defined stepping process right so I think it we we either enter into that or we don't enter into that part of that process right because because that's that's that's the only way we could and have these discussions basically like any one of us being put on performance Improvement plan you know at our place of employment you know if we want to see certain things or hear certain things I think that that's that's what we're going to have to ask for right I I I I just I think my my again my huge concern is Personnel turnover right it's it's just I I I it you can't build if you can't hold right and you can't build if the people that are here are leaving right and and I just think that that is a again it's a huge element and to me it's a it's a it's a flag you know just things come up and again you make a great Point Erica you know I I'm I am getting one point of view right I just I am just I'm I'm I'm stuck where I am you know and I would just add to that is I think you know 75 people 75 different opinions right on on what's Happening an attrition number is a pretty clear metric of how engaged are the employees and that that number of 20 is really surprising to me especially because I I vividly recall my first meeting as a commissioner hearing that the only turnover is retirement and if we've gone from that to 20 people only two of those at retire E I think in a year two yeah that that's a really surprising concerning number well for me I I wasn't sure what the conversation would be like um at this but based on this you know I I have prepared a motion to uh to take action and and would would you all like to see it and look at it and consider it yeah so this is and you could we could do with it you want but this is an action where you have at times Greg taken you know decisive action very rapidly right and sometimes we need to do the same and that's what this motion would allow us to do so okay so I'll pass this out and this would allow us to you read first well read first why you take a look at it yeah so this this is this basically takes steps under your contract pass them down to um to take action to which would be what Ray has indicated he doesn't want to do but if you guys want to take action we can do it with this motion so the question is has anybody I I'm not ready to do this Mr chair Hest I think this is this is premature you know sing this on us at this point in the evening I'm just I'm not I I don't agree with this completely I think you know we need to Greg has got the the feedback We need he needs to respond to the feedback and then I think maybe something like this may be appropriate if we we judging from the feedback we get I just don't think it's appropriate at this point I guess I just have a question on process so two pieces one is you ask for us to read it do we need to read it given not everyone is well if there's a if somebody wants to read the motion and second it then it's a vote if it isn't it isn't we need to read it just to have a discussion about it right yeah um the second piece is and I'm still learning all of the processes here but um can we actually have discussions about something like this without formally entering into a process session should be a discussion we're we're talking we're talking no it's performance related I guess I'm just trying to understand how um how do we have a uh disc question about this particular issue without going into the I I would recommend that we we talk to Legal coun you talk to legal counsel as process should be but right how can gotta be some legal counsil somewhere that could we we had this discussion the other day that we're not capable of of doing that right we're not allowed to hire legal coun hire talk to anybody because it's not we don't have the power as a board to do that I guess that's that's I guess that's where my question is going is you know uh whether this is the direction that we ultimately want to take or not is is there a way for us to continue to assess these concerns without this process I like like I said I think it should be the general manager has heard our our concerns we should ask him to give us feedback back on those concerns and then we go from there I mean I didn't question whether we can even do this because this is not on the agenda well the agenda does have the agenda does have uh response and AC potential AC not I question whether this is even legal okay so this question you know because it's not on the agenda right so why don't we take five Health break whatever you call we or we adjourn and we go to executive session yeah I I think you either it's a performance-based action it is it is what it is I'm gonna offer something up as a as a potential motion right and um in accordance with Section 7.1 of break's contract right we um are going to look into Greg's performance right at at this time um and I think that I got I got a word I'm trying to word this um in a certain way that gives us the ability to have a discussion with you about about your about your performance as general man managing right and that's according to our right in this of section 7.1 of the contract that that would be my proposed agenda item for uh meeting to be determined and I think the next item on that um actually we can't because it's not an executive session oh we're not in executive session what repeat again what your are you reading the motion I'm going to read the board of commission directs the chair to prepar um um a review of the general manager um in accordance with Section 7.1 of the general manager contract right I I I think you want can I yeah do you want me to just read what I think I think Bob's motion is the motion that should be made I I I'm he I'm he heing Phil right here right I I am I I I you know I I've been through a termination of general manager it's a legal process it's a legal process my tet I've been through it is a legal process yeah and it's the motion sets the motion would set forth the precise process that is laid out in Greg's contract it exactly comes from his contract it is totally but I think Bob's motion would be the one we should vote on not this one here I'm just I'm not sure what the difference is sorry well I I think it doesn't it doesn't get into U like the definitive I I fail to understand the motion that Bob's trying to craft which is a discussion of the goals that the general manager is trying to meet and he put forward what the goals are we gave him feedback I don't see why that isn't the discussion that we're asking to have I we don't need a motion to achieve that right right and that's I think you that's what I'm saying I say Greg has got the our our Fe our concerns he needs to come back and and respond to that I don't think this is motion is even appropriate at this time I did the the issue that we have is not we can't ever get traction we can't ever go forward when we go into our executive sessions we can't we can't get out of them we can't get through either either read it or or don't read it is my view if you don't want to read it and you don't want to do it then okay but yeah either do it or don't do it I I think we're going down a a very bad Road right now and this is something we're going to regret later on this Mo and okay I'm in indecision at this point um so um at this point maybe the CB should consider a journey and that we would move into executive session I make the motion to move into executive session um I I I would just ask if we want to take action or not if you don't want to take action yet I don't I don't want to take action I don't want to take action it's a very bad road to go down to this point in time and the spring this on at whatever time it is right now I just I don't think it's appropriate he this was not in the agenda it was not not in not in advance presented to us well you know you're asking for a snap decision you know and I'm not ready to make any kind of snap decision on this I ask that the cab you know move toour their session and then I'm going to read the motion to go in executive session okay I we're prepared so want to read the motion yeah um how many current employees have been um spoken to about um okay okay we're not doing the public session we're not doing public comment right now I'm sorry Zer zero so no nobody's reading the motion yeah okay go ahead you got move at the citizens Advisory Board adour regular session second sorry second Frank Board of commission going executive session presum to master general laws chapter 164 section 47b exemption from the public records and open meeting requirements certain instes to discuss strategy with expect the collective bargain or litigation if an open open meeting may have detrimental effect on the or litigating position of the public body of the TFO desires to discuss reputation character physical condition or mental health rather than professional confidence of a individual which discuss the discipline or dismissal of or complaints of charges brought against a public officer employee staff member or individual and for the approval of meeting minutes and to return to regular session for the sole purpose of joury favor Mr B yes all good e e e e e e e e e e e e for