'SWEEPING THE ASHES" serena ryder

"WAPAKONETA"
Painesville electric power users may find this article interesting, if for no other reason get ready for "what's coming down the road", or wire.

http://www.wapakdailynews.com/content/view/333097/1/


New plant powers talks
Tuesday, 19 April 2011

By WILLIAM LANEY
Managing Editor
A natural gas-powered electric plant set to be operational in December may replace power purchased by the city from a coal-fired plant that was to produce electricitylater this decade. Wapakoneta City Council members heard Monday the first reading of an ordinance to purchase 3 megawatts of power hourly from the Fremont Energy Center, a natural gas-powered electric plant which could be purchased by American Municipal Power (AMP) if contracts can be negotiated to purchase power the plant produces.
This would provide the city of Wapakoneta with electric power, less expensive than purchasing the power on the open market, and would replace a portion of the power the city promised to purchase from the AMP-GS plant, which likely will never be operational.
“This AMP proposal does two things — one is they went out and contracted for power which was supposed to be supplied by AMP-GS so no one was short of power and second the Fremont Energy Center provides two positives for subscribers,” Councilor-at-large and Utilities Committee Chair Steve Walter said after Monday’s council meeting. “It should provide AMP with electric power production that should be at a better price than the power they have been purchasing off the open market and there is to be a factor in the electric rate as per this contract that will cover the costs for AMP-GS.
“This gives us a payment plan to service some of the debt we will assume from AMP-GS,” he said. “It is going to give us lower cost power and a lower cost mechanism to pay our debt service for AMP-GS.”
Walter said city administrators are waiting on legal counsel to approve the wording of the contract.
He also said this deal with AMP will be the focus of a Utilities Committee meeting set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Wapakoneta City Administration Building.
Walter said this contract should not affect the city’s average cost of power and thus should not affect any consumer’s electric rate. He explained the city receives power from a number of different sources with expiration of the contracts staggered so rate increases do not hit consumers all at one time.
He was referring to when electric rates doubled from 2.7 cents per kilowatt hour to approximately 6.375 cents per kilowatt hour.
Several councilors including 1st Ward Councilor Jim Neumeier and 3rd Ward Councilor Bonnie Wurst wanted more information about the terms of the contract and regarding the status of Fremont Energy Center, a plant built in the past decade but never brought on-line because of natural gas costs in the middle of the past decade. The Fremont plant was once owned by FirstEnergy.
AMP is attempting to contract the sale of 707 megawatts of power produced by the Fremont Energy Center, selling the power to AMP members and non-members. Columbus was expected to purchase 100 megawatts, but that deal may have fallen apart thus jeopardizing the purchase and operation of the center.
If contracts are not reached to purchase enough power from the plant, the city likely would not owe anything through this contract.
The Fremont Energy Center replaces the AMP-GS plant, a coal-fired plant, which ran into cost overruns and permit problems early in construction.
Safety-Service Director Bill Rains said AMP officials tried to sell the city of Wapakoneta 17 megawatts of power, but city administrators balked. AMP tried to sell the city 13 megawatts, then 7 megawatts before settling on 3 megawatts of power.
The city uses approximately 30-32 megawatts of power an hour during a typical day and peaks at 38 megawatts per hour during a peak period in the summer.
Rains explained the city is paying on the AMP-GS project because land was purchased, engineering for the project was completed and for legal fees because of a civil lawsuit with the contractor.
Rains said buying from the natural gas plant fits into the city’s plan.
“We have to maintain an appropriate portfolio and sometimes, just like with AMP-GS, it is a gamble,” Rains said. “If that plant would have went on line, we would have had a coal-fired plant producing 20 to 30 percent of our power.
“We need to have some intermediate peaking power and this new plant is a good way to do that,” he said. “We are still going to look at alternatives that may not be as conventional to what we have done in the past.”
Similar to Walter’s thinking, Mayor Rodney Metz said having several different providers with different lengths of contracts better serves Wapakoneta consumers.
“Just like you at home with your investments, you try to stay as diversified as much as you can to receive the highest return,” Metz said. “In regard to electricity, we try to be as diversified as we can to get the best price.”
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 April 2011 )

Well Councilman Flock this will be the mechanism that will pay Painesvilles 2.7 million owned on AMP-GS.
"This gives us a payment plan to service some of the debt we will assume from AMP-GS."
"It is going to give us lower cost for power and a lower cost mechanism to pay our debt service for AMP-GS.

Wonder what the cost of power would be if "debt-service" wasn't included? This is how Painesville will SWEEP the Meigs County debacle under the rug.
One small problem AMP seems to have presently. They are having a hard time selling this project to other AMP "communities." [ you don't have to wonder why,do you?] This plant produces over 700 megawatts of power, and recently Columbus that had signed on for 100 megawatts, may have balked on the deal and it seems to have fallen apart.