Archive for category: General Information

Last Wednesday, April 20^th KMEA staff traveled to McPherson, Kansas. The City is centrally located and makes a great meeting
point for our members. The meetings were held at the McPherson Board of Public Utilities building.

The day started with a Finance Committee Meeting followed by KMEA and KMGA Executive Committee meetings. In all of three meetings Chester
Moye, auditor from RubinBrown, reviewed the Audit Report for the year of 2015. The Committees also reviewed and recommended several items that will be presented to the KMEA and KMGA Full Board of Directors for approval. The next Board of Directors meeting will be on May 4^th in Wichita, Kansas during the KMU Annual Conference.

We appreciate McPherson BPU for its hospitality and kindness in allowing KMEA to hold meetings in its beautiful facility.

Four EMP1 cities are one step closer to full participation in KMEA’s first renewable energy electricity resource, the new Marshall Wind Farm.  Located in northeast Kansas in Marshall County, the 72 MW facilities is comprised of thirty-six, 2 MW V110 Vestas turbines.

Earlier this week important milestones in the installation and testing at the site were achieved, including successful performance testing of at least five of the Wind Turbine Generators (WTG).  As a result, the Partial Commercial Operation Date was set at March 23, 2016.  Full Commercial Operation is expected by April 30, 2016.

KMEA is party to a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with Marshall Wind Energy, LLC and has Power Sales Agreements the EMP1 cities of Baldwin City (1 MW), Gardner (2.5 MW), Garnett (1 MW), Ottawa (2.5 MW).

KMEA is one of four project participants along with Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (20 MW), Kansas Power Pool (25 MW), and the City of Independence, MO (20 MW).

 

KMEA Executive Committee approved the formation of a new Committee at their December 16, 2015 meeting.  The Joint EMP Advisory Committee is composed of two members from each EMP. The representatives to serve on the Committee were appointed by each of their EMP groups.

EMP1 Representatives

Dennis Tharp -City Ottawa (Chair)

John Krievins- City of Gardner

EMP2 Representatives

Kenny Kreutzer- City of Pratt

Manny Milbers- City of Beloit

EMP3 Representatives

Bret Bauer- City of Holton (Vice Chair)

Lou Leone- City of Kiowa

 

The purpose of the Joint EMP Advisory Committee is to provide advice to the KMEA Executive Committee for matters that are common across all of the EMP groups.

The Joint EMP Advisory Committee received its first task from the KMEA Executive Committee on January 20, 2016 which was to draft and issue a Request-for-Proposal for energy management services for KMEA. The Committee met for the first time on February 9, 2016 in the City of Ottawa.

KMEA appreciates each member of the Joint Advisory Committee for their dedication and service on this newly formed Committee.

 

This week KMGA staff had an opportunity to visit the City of Burrton for new member orientation. We met with City Clerk, Kim Ryan, and Utility Director, Jon Roberts. During the orientation we reviewed the monthly invoicing process and walked them through the rate calculation spreadsheets created for Burrton. Additional items covered included load projecting, data KMGA will compile for Burrton, and an overview of the annual conference of member cities.

The City of Burrton will begin purchasing natural gas from KMGA on April 1st. We warmly welcome Burrton as the newest KMGA member and look forward to serving them well into the future.

We wanted to call your attention to a recent article published in APPA’s Public Power Daily titled Public power ranks high in J.D. Power customer satisfaction study. Most everyone is familiar with J.D. Power. It’s the most recognizable firm that conducts surveys of a wide range of customer satisfaction indicators in a number of different industries, ranging from automotive, cellphone, computer manufacturers, and yes, utilities, just to name a few.

For 17 years J.D. Power has conducted a customer satisfaction survey on U.S. electric utilities. APPA points out that four public power utilities are among the eight highest ranked utilities according to the J.D. Power report. These are midsize to large utilities, however, whatever the size of a utility, it’s an interesting read and may provide insights that all can glean about customer satisfaction in our industry.