KMEA 2024 Award Recipients

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This award was established in honor of Max Embree, of Colby Kansas who played a leading role in the early years of KMEA.  The award honors his memory and is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and devoted service to both KMEA and Public Power.

This year’s recipient of the Max Embree Distinguished Service Award was Jon Quinday, the City Manager for the City of Russell. Jon has served in many positions within his community, starting as a police officer and over the years working his way up to city manager. For 12 years, he managed a full-service municipality with over 90 employees and an annual budget exceeding $30 million, and encompassing electric, water, wastewater, sewer, and sanitation utilities, along with county-wide 911 communications. Through all his various roles including former school board president and board member for both Kansas Municipal Utilities and Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, and President of the KMEA Executive Committee, he’s gained firsthand insight into the complexities of municipal governance.

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KMEA/KMGA Board of Directors meetings

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The KMEA and  KMGA Board of Directors meetings are just around the corner. The meetings will be held in conjunction with KMEA/KMGA Annual Conference on October 23rd in Wichita, KS.

We encourage you to sign up for your attendance by following the link below whether you plan to attend in person or virtually.  This helps us ensure we will have quorum for both the KMGA and the KMEA board of directors meetings.

Thank you for your dedication to the agency and support of all of the membership.

We look forward to seeing you all in Wichita

Celebrating Public Natural Gas Week: October 6-12, 2024

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In 2024, Public Natural Gas Week is celebrated from October 6-12. This nationwide event organized by the American Public Gas Association (APGA) aims to generate enthusiasm and awareness about the advantages of public natural gas systems. These systems are locally owned and operated, ensuring that the benefits of natural gas such as affordability, reliability, and efficiency are directly passed on to the community.

We wanted to use this annual observance as an opportunity to highlight the numerous benefits of public natural gas systems and to recognize the hard work of the local utilities that provide this essential service.

Happy Public Natural Gas Week!

Three Mile Island is reopening and selling its power to Microsoft

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Three Mile Island, the site of worst nuclear disaster in the United States, is reopening and will exclusively sell the power to Microsoft as the company searches for energy sources to fuel its AI ambitions.

Constellation Energy announced Friday that its Unit 1 reactor, which closed five years ago, is expected to be revived in 2028, dependent on Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval. Microsoft will purchase the carbon-free energy produced from it to power its data centers to support artificial intelligence.

Financial terms of the 20-year agreement, which Constellation called its largest ever, weren’t disclosed.

“Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” said Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez in a press release.

Clean energy advocates and businesses alike are looking towards nuclear energy as a source of zero-carbon power that is a reliable baseload source. A big pro is that nuclear is able to stay on at all times of the day and night, unlike wind and solar.

However, nuclear has drawn criticism for environmental groups for decades for its waste. The US still has no permanent repository for that waste, instead storing it at over 70 operating and shuttered plants around the nation.

Reopening of the Unit 1 reactor will add 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and add more than 800 megawatts of electricity to the grid, according to Constellation. It’s also expected to add $16 billion to Pennsylvania’s GDP, where the plant is located.

Shares of Constellation (CEG) soared more than 16% in midday trading.

Three Mile Island, located near Harrisburg, is best known for being the most serious accident at a commercial nuclear power plant in US history when it experienced the partial meltdown of one of its two reactors. Unit 2 reactor, which is adjacent to Unit 1, has remained closed since 1979 following the disaster.

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Annual Gathering of KMEA and KMGA Executive Committees

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Today, the KMEA office in Overland Park hosted the annual gathering of the KMEA Executive Committee, the KMGA Executive Committee, and the Joint Board for Administration. The KMGA Executive Committee, led by President Gus Collins from the City of Winfield, consists of 7 dedicated members. The KMEA Executive Committee, with 9 members, is currently presided over by Jon Quinday.

We at KMEA and KMGA extend our gratitude to all Executive Committee members for their dedication and commitment to the municipal world. Your efforts are truly appreciated!

Ottawa’s STAG unit was designated as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by ASME

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On September 13, 2024 the City of Ottawa held a designation ceremony at the city’s auditorium. Their combined cycle turbine was designated as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) recognizing its pivotal role in the evolution of combined cycle power plants.

The combined cycle was the world’s first pre-engineered gas-turbine to enter service. It was the first of only two STAG 103s (steam and gas) made by GE. The second was installed by the City of Hutchinson, Minnesota in 1971. Ottawa logged only about 11,000 operating hours after hitting its 100,000-hr milestone at the end of 1993. This industry icon was retired in place in 2020, after spending two decades in standby service. It was started periodically for training and equipment-preservation purposes. Hutchinson’s STAG 103 was taken out of service in 2019 and now is being dismantled.

The ceremony was well attended and afterwards a tour of the power plant was provided where everyone got to see the STAG unit.

2024 Annual Conference is coming up

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The registration for KMEA/KMGA  annual conference is open. The conference will be held on October 23rd and 24th at the Drury Plaza Hotel Broadview in Wichita, KS. This event is a fantastic opportunity for networking, learning, and sharing best practices with fellow members.

Important Dates:

  • Conference Dates: October 23-24
  • Registration Deadline: September 20th

Please click on the link below for more information and to register.

We look forward to seeing you in Wichita!

Click HERE to register today!

KMEA members generate during Energy Emergency Alert 1 event

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On August 26th, effective at 12:30 p.m., the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) announced an Energy Emergency Alert Level 1 (EEA 1) due to the forecast of high peak loads caused by high temperatures, an increase in resource outages, and low output from wind and other variable energy resources (also known as a low VER forecast) leading into the peak hours for the day. An EEA 1 declaration does not require the public to conserve energy and does not indicate that SPP will be directing controlled service outages. Instead, an EEA 1 is an indication that while SPP has enough generation available to meet demand and fulfill its reserve obligations, conditions exist that could put reserves at risk if they worsen.

Once notified, the KMEA 24-hour Operations group relayed the grid condition to all KMEA cities via email and additionally began contacting by phone all cities with non-registered generation to make them aware of the possibilities of dispatches. All of our registered generation was either online or dispatched for future hours of the day.

According to KMEA Operations Director Tom Saitta, “All our member cities asked to run did not hesitate, and all others stood ready to help. Our cities’ generation performed great with over 100 MW of generation at peak.”

SPP ended the EEA event at 3:00 p.m. with no non-registered generation being dispatched. In total, KMEA member cities generated approximately 503 MWh with a peak generation of 101 MW.

The City of Morrill Powers Up the New Substation

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On August 14th, the city of Morrill successfully transitioned to its new substation. For the past few years, Morrill had been operating on an old substation purchased from Evergy. Due to the age and disrepair of the facility, Evergy had planned to replace it.

After thoroughly evaluating the costs associated with Evergy replacing the old substation, the city decided to invest in purchasing the old substation and constructing a new one. This decision was driven by the potential rise in wholesale distribution service charges if Evergy proceeded with the replacement.

KMEA/Mid-States provided comprehensive engineering and construction services for the new substation. This included a full steel structure, a new transformer, regulators, reclosers, and all other necessary equipment to ensure a safe and reliable substation for Morrill.

Congratulations to the city of Morrill on a very successful project!

SPP board approves new planning reserve margins to protect against higher energy use in winter and summer

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LITTLE ROCK, ARK. — At their August 5-6 meetings, Southwest Power Pool’s (SPP) Regional State Committee and Board of Directors approved increases to the planning reserve margins (PRM) member utilities are required to maintain in support of regional grid reliability. PRM represents the amount of back-up power utilities must have to guard against unplanned conditions or events on the regional power grid.

SPP’s action will further help the region prepare for extreme weather events and other circumstances that lead to higher-than-usual demand for electricity. Such episodes have become increasingly common in recent years, such as with Winter Storm Uri in 2021 and Winter Storm Elliott in 2022.

SPP’s Regional State Committee and board approved minimum requirements of a 36% winter-season PRM and a 16% summer-season PRM, effective beginning summer 2026 and winter 2026/27. This means that load responsible entities in SPP’s region must have access to enough generating capacity to serve their peak consumption with at least 36% margin during the winter season and at least 16% margin during the summer.

This action marks the first time a winter PRM requirement has been defined separately from SPP’s summer PRM requirement and was taken to ensure member utilities appropriately acquire enough generating capacity for both seasons. The current 15% summer PRM requirement was previously applied to the winter season also. The new requirements support SPP’s efforts to reliably and continuously meet the region-wide demand for electricity from residents, commercial centers and industries throughout the SPP footprint.

The board also received a report detailing the challenges SPP and its members face with the increasing risk of having inadequate electricity supply to meet demand. The report, titled Our Generational Challenge: A Reliable Future for Electricity, is a comprehensive summary of SPP’s work to leverage diverse energy resources to meet the ever-rising demand for electricity. It calls for increased engagement, collaboration and consensus among government energy regulators, elected policymakers, utilities, regional transmission organizations and customers.

“As the real-time grid operator and transmission planner for a 14-state region, our job is to ensure electric reliability for millions of consumers. We’ve been successfully doing this work since 1941. But we can’t do it alone. A concerted, collective effort is needed to ensure we have a reliable power grid today and in the future,” said SPP Chief Executive Officer Barbara Sugg in the report’s opening statement. The report and an infographic are available at spp.org/ourchallenge. Sugg further pointed out that SPP is increasingly forced to issue grid advisories in winter and summer due to the heightened risk of inadequate power supplies during those times. She said harnessing enough energy to meet demand has become more and more complicated due to the rapidly evolving power grid. “Demand for electricity is outpacing supply from our generation fleet,” Sugg said. “While SPP always focuses on affordability, we need continued investment to add the generating and transmission facilities needed to mitigate risks and keep the lights on.”

About SPP: Southwest Power Pool, Inc. is a regional transmission organization: a not-for-profit corporation mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure and competitive wholesale electricity prices on behalf of its members in 14 states. SPP ensures electric reliability across a region spanning parts of the central and western U.S., provides energy services on a contract basis to customers in both the Eastern and Western Interconnections, and is expanding its RTO and developing a day-ahead energy market in the west. The company’s headquarters are in Little Rock, Arkansas. Learn more at SPP.org