The City of Kiowa is the newest member city of KMEA as well as the EMP3 group. Kiowa was first accepted as a member of the EMP3 group at the September 4th EMP3 meeting and then became an official member of KMEA on October 9th.
Kiowa has a population of 1,026 and is located in Barber County, Kansas in the south-central part of the state, about 90 miles southwest of Wichita. Please join us in congratulating and welcoming the City of Kiowa to KMEA and the EMP3 group.
In conjunction with the November 5th KMEA Annual Conference and Board of Directors meetings, KMGA staff will host a breakout session for KMGA cities. The purpose of this session is to discuss the management of your city’s natural gas distribution system. Topics to be addressed include: reviewing KMGA invoices, calculating rates for end-use customers, tracking and reporting data, and management fees. If there are other topics pertaining to your natural gas distribution system that would be of interest to you, please contact Dixie Riedel at Riedel@kmea.com or 913-660-0230. The KMGA breakout session will be held from 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 5th at the DoubleTree by Hilton located at 2098 S. Airport Road in Wichita, Kansas.
The future looks bright for Osawatomie’s electric utility with the city council’s recent approval to issue $6.8 million in electric utility revenue bonds. The bonds will be used to finance upgrades to the energy generation and distribution system.
The upgrades will really strengthen Osawatomie’s electric utility. The improvements include the purchase of seven two-megawatt diesel-engine generators, construction of a substation as well as a shop building, and repairing and overhauling generators. These improvements will increase Osawatomie’s generation capabilities, generate surplus energy and is expected to bring in additional revenue to the tune of $100,000 to $200,000. It’s always good to see cities like Osawatomie investing in their electric utility.
The KMEA November 5 -6, 2015 Annual Conference is just around the corner. It’s not too late to register! We are kicking off the conference with the KMGA and KMEA Board of Directors meetings, which start on Thursday, November 5th at 10:00 a.m. Registration will run from 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
We are excited to bring you some great speakers presenting topics you won’t want to miss. Additionally, our keynote speaker this year is decorated combat pilot, Lt. Colonel Kevin Sweeney, the only pilot to successfully land a plane after two of the four engines were completely ripped off the plane while on a combat mission in Desert Storm. This event was recognized as the finest piece of airmanship in the entire Gulf War.
There is still time to register, however, to meet hotel deadlines and finalize conference materials, please be sure to register no later than Friday, October 23rd. You can register by going to the Events tab on the kmea.com website or simply click here to go directly to the conference site, which includes the registration form, conference program and more. We hope to see as many of you as possible, as this year’s conference promises to be a great event.
Every month KMEA participates in the Energy Management Project Group meetings for EMP 1, EMP 2, and EMP 3, however, last week KMEA hosted a Joint EMP meeting, bringing all three EMPs together in Kansas City. The joint meeting was well attended and included a full agenda.
KMEA kicked off the meeting with market report presentations, followed by a congestion and transmission hedging activity presentation. KMEA went on to share the status of several projects that are in progress for the EMPs. The meeting also included a KMEA website demonstration of the recently launched Sharfile system, which provides a virtual file cabinet to all KMEA member cities.
The joint meeting concluded with status updates from EMP 1 Chairman, Bob Mills, EMP 2 Chairman, Jeff Scott, and EMP 3 Chairman, Matt Rehder. The Joint EMP meeting offered a great opportunity to provide topical demonstrations and presentations and allowed for information exchange between the EMPs. We would like to thank everyone who took time out to attend the joint meeting, particularly those who drove a great distance to attend.
Wednesday was a momentous day for Coffeyville Municipal Light and Power (CMP&L) as local leaders, utility officials and dignitaries held a groundbreaking ceremony for Generation Facility No.2. Construction will officially begin October 12th and the new plant, located in the Coffeyville Industrial Park, is expected to be in operation by January 1, 2017.
The construction of the $58, 000,000 plant is the result of a power purchase and sale agreement with the Grand River Dam Authority. The contract led to an agreement to purchase and install 3 – 18.7 MW Wärtsilä generating units, which adds an additional 56 MW of generating capacity. Burns & McDonnell is the engineering firm for the project.
One of the significant benefits of the plant is the quick start capability of the new generators. Should Coffeyville experience a power loss, the new generators could be up and running, and restoring power to the city within 10 minutes. This is an exciting step forward for CMP&L, which has grown into one of the largest municipally owned utilities in Kansas, servicing over 60 square miles and over 6,300 customers. Construction of Generation Facility No.2, just adds to the rich legacy of CMP&L, which has been providing power since 1901.
Public Power Week is just around the corner, celebrated the first full week in October every year. This year Public Power week is October 4 -10, 2015. This is an opportunity for public power utilities to remind their communities of the value and distinct advantages that public power offers. Public power has a rich history in the United States. Locally owned public power utilities have been around for over 100 years and the number of utilities has grown rapidly. Today, 49 States (all but Hawaii) have a public power system and comprise a collection of more than 2000 community-owned electric utilities, serving over 45 million people.
First and foremost, we at KMEA want to thank you, our member cities, for all the hard work you do day in and day out to further the cause of public power and joint action for the betterment of your communities. On the KMEA website “Events “ tab, Click here you will find Public Power Week APPA links that provide great templates and other resources that you may find useful. Among the resources you will find are sample letters, which also provide great talking points to express your appreciation to your public utilities team. Everyone should share in the recognition and appreciation. Once more, all should feel proud to be a part of such and honorable profession. Thank you for all do!
With the 2013 Annual Conference, KMEA started what has now become a popular tradition – recognizing member cities’ capital improvements. Last year, we were honored to recognize Baldwin City’s city-wide water and electric meter upgrades, Garden City’s completion of several major projects, including construction of the Jameson Energy Center, Oberlin’s progress with their ongoing electrical infrastructure improvement plan, Garnett’s replacement of 100 city street lights with new, more efficient, LED lights, along with celebrating 100 years of generating electricity. We also had the privilege of recognizing Pratt’s project of overhauling their steam unit, and Russell’s retro-fitting three generating units and beginning a multi-year project to upgrade and improve reliability of their electrical distribution system.
KMEA is aware that many of you are continuously making improvements to your municipal systems and we would like to recognize those of you who have made capital improvements to the electric or gas utilities in your communities at our November 5-6 Annual Conference. Whether the capital improvements are new improvements just underway, project updates since last year or progress toward a multi-year project, we want to shine the light on you. Please help us by sending photographs and a clear description of your improvements to Patrick Ryan at ryan@kmea.com by October 12th
KMEA recently attended an SPP presentation where it was announced that a vastly improved version of the SPP website is on the way with a go live date targeted for October 31st. The project is touted as a major overhaul of the SPP website, and has been in testing for many months.
The primary purpose of SPP’s “Website Replacement Project” is to enhance the website’s content management, information architecture, functionality, search capability, aesthetics and overall end user experience. The enhanced site will offer user profile and log in capabilities that will provide access to a number of resources and multiple Org Group Pages, which offer Org Group email exploder lists. Additionally, the redesign will result in a comprehensive “clean up” of website content so accurate and current content is a couple of clicks away, and historical information is appropriately archived. All content will follow a common folder system and a standard document naming convention, which will result in a more intuitive environment for end users.
Interestingly, a news clipping about Solar Energy, preserved as a keepsake during the days of the Korean War, was recently shared with KMEA. Note the caption of the article from the Tuesday, April 7, 1953 Pacific Stars & Stripes publication, titled “Solar Energy Switch Hailed by Scientists.” Back in 1953, the solar energy conversion efficiency was very low, however, the concluding sentence of the article makes a rather prophetic statement: “The new method (solar energy) converts about 1 percent of the sunlight absorbed into chemical energy. But there is no obvious reason why the efficiency cannot be increased to such an extent that the method may become of economic importance.”
Today, the conversion rate is in the neighborhood of 25% and new technologies continue to emerge that could harvest more of the sun’s energy. The industry has been considering solar energy for decades and is still dealing with the “economic importance” issue. We are thrilled to have APPA’s Paul Zummo as one of our featured speakers at the KMEA Annual Conference, who will be giving a solar presentation.
