Mar 09, 2020 Public Utilities Board on 2020-03-09 9:00 AM

Okay, it is nine o'clock and we do have a quorum, so let's call to order the March 9th, 2020 public utilities board meeting for the City of Denton. The first items are the consent agenda. Does any board member wish to pull one of the items of A through G? >> I'd like to look at item F. >> Item F, any other items? We have a motion to approve A through E and item G. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor, say aye. >> Aye. >> Okay, item F. >> Terry Gator, fleet superintendent. >> Yeah, Terry, first of all, I want you to know I intend to vote to approve this, but I wanted to call out a statement made in the write-up. It says the great all is nearing the end of its useful life, incurring excessive maintenance costs and increased downtime. To me, that statement is like saying it costs too much and it breaks down all the time. Therefore, give us a new one. That doesn't tell us much. Now, you made a very good presentation last time we were here. You have a method to assign a number to the severity of each piece of mobile equipment. I would recommend that we stop writing sentences like this in here, incurring excessive maintenance costs and increased downtime in this description. And instead maybe attach a one page, even a half page, it doesn't have to be a novel, a summary of your method of evaluating the status of each piece of mobile equipment. So that would tell us quantitatively where this thing stacks up instead of excessive maintenance and increased downtime. And also, in this particular case, you're buying a new piece of equipment that's got different design features than the old one. So there's some rationale for that also, so that's all I have. >> So you don't have a question? >> It was a statement. >> It was a statement, okay. >> And a suggestion. >> Okay, and a suggestion. >> Yes, that we get away from the practice of routinely saying, we need a new one because it costs too much and it breaks down all the time. That needs to be quantified better, and he has a way to do that. >> I know. >> Yeah. >> So is that direction from the board, is that what the consensus from the board is? >> Is that consensus from the board to have the criteria? >> I think it's a good idea to see if he helps explain things better. >> Because he did do the entire presentation last time, and it was, I mean, say, this falls in this category, and that's why we chose this, and it's just reliable. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Do we have a motion to approve this item? >> Second. >> All in favor, say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> [INAUDIBLE] Items for individual consideration. >> Consider the approval of the MINS from the February 24th, 2020 board meeting. Are there any changes or corrections? >> If none, I'll move approval. >> Do we have a motion to approve? Do we have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor, say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Any opposed? No. >> Assistance. >> Very quick. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Good morning, members of the board. In the ACM update, really the only thing to really cover with you all is the, environmentally preferable purchasing memo and resolution. I think Mr. Stowe had asked that at our last meeting, and so it's been included for your review. If you've got any questions, I believe there is someone for purchasing here, in the back, way in the back. And so we'll be happy to answer any questions we can if there are any. >> Do you have any questions? No? >> Yeah, I have a question. I went back and I actually looked up environmentally preferable purchasing in the handbook. The purchasing handbook that's online. And I was just wondering if there are any guidelines or specific areas that you all look at, I know that's a very broad question. But this is what the memorandum here with the actual ordinance really doesn't say anything about what the city's goals are in regard to environmentally preferential purchasing. And I don't know if this is going to be addressed in the update of the sustainable dentin plan that's coming in April. But I just wondered if now, if you all actually have codified set of criteria for determining whether or not something is environmentally, pardon me, preferable. >> Right now we're actually working with Catherine Barnett with sustainability to put together a policy for that. There are multiple policies already made within each department. Like Fleet has their own policy, and we're going to work to kind of put all that together here soon. >> Great, thank you. >> Yes. >> Nothing else to report. >> Nothing else to report, all right. Including items, does the board member wish to have anything on a future agenda or? >> I do. >> Yes, George. >> In early February, the city of Denton lost a rather substantial lawsuit involving wrongful termination and involving different utilities, employees. To the extent that it affects this group, I'm thinking that we should be briefed on the results of that lawsuit, the implications of that lawsuit, and that may need to be in closed session or open session. But I would like to see that happen. >> And Larry, that would be in closed session, correct? >> Yes. >> Personnel issue. >> Yeah. >> I thought that was still in appeal. We will need you in closed session. >> Yeah. >> Okay, yeah. >> All I know is what I read in the paper. >> That's why I worded it correctly, it was not good. >> Yeah. >> And then my second issue is a question. When will this group review financial statements for Denton Municipal Utilities next? >> Are you speaking about just the budget process? >> Yeah. >> I was talking about actual rather than- >> You mean the results, quarterly results. >> Quarterly results, yeah. >> Let me have David Gaines come up, because those are generated from finance, and those can be included in an upcoming report. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Well, there's multiple options where you'll see them. First being the quarterly reports that we submit to council into the PUB as we wrap up the quarterly financials, usually a couple months after the quarter end. So you'll see them there. Obviously, we're about to kick off the budget process. Those throughout the budget process will have detailed financials of what happened last year, where we are, year to date this year. As we talk about the decisions to make moving forward. With the DEC specifically, obviously, we have the DEC report that comes out. That'll be on the next PUB's ACM update. So, numerous steps along the way, but I guess as far as the actual financials of where we are, we have our quarterly report that we produce every quarter and that will come to PUB. >> Okay, I think I've been on the, pardon me. >> And that'll be April, right? The March 31st. >> Right, so we had to take a little bit of time to get ready as we close the votes, but yeah, following them. >> I guess my question is, I think I've been on this group for more than a quarter now and haven't seen one of those distributed yet to the PUB. >> Quarterly report. >> We've seen dashboards. >> Sure. >> But not the actual. >> Well, our quarter report is online right now and I believe we've brought it to PUB. We'll go back and check and make sure that it can. >> That is good to have, sure. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That's it? All right, then our next item is a work session. Receive a report and hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding DM&E's proposed electric vehicle charging infrastructure strategy. >> Good morning, PUB members. Chris Ludrick, the executive manager of energy services here to introduce a presentation we put together for you for some EV charging station options. In 2013, DM&E placed some charging stations, some blink charging stations at the North Lakes Library, North Lakes Park, South Lakes Library, South Lakes Park, a couple of DM&E, and I believe one other location, no other location, so. So anyway, so I'm here to introduce Chase. So Chase is kind of new to our group. He's our EV specialist, so he's been tasked with putting this presentation together and he'll give you some options for upgrading the chargers that we have. And the state that they're in, and kind of the justification for that. And finally, he'll end with a kind of looking forward. Electric vehicles are gonna be a big challenge for the utilities going forward. So you'll see some of the predictions as the adoption rate increases. They could put a strain on our distribution system that we have to be ready four years in advance. So we're not ready to tackle that issue today. The utilities are still trying to come up with some ideas about how to handle that potential electrical load in the future. And how do you get that to an off peak time? And how do you make sure that it doesn't break your distribution system or put too much stress on it? So with that, I'll introduce Chase Whitman and after that, after he's done, we'll stand for any questions you may have. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Good morning, PEB members. Like Mr. Lutrick mentioned, my name is Chase Whitman. I'm here with the DME Energy Services Team, presenting our electric vehicle strategy. The sustainability plan gives direction to develop an electric vehicle strategy to address short and long term infrastructure and charging needs as electric vehicle ownership expands. So in conjunction with the sustainability team, we have developed a four phase forward looking electric vehicle strategy to address those short term needs with regard to services that we provide and access to electric vehicle charging infrastructure. As well as look forward and address the long term infrastructure needs and risks that might come about with increased levels of electric vehicle adoption. Our financial premise moving forward is to provide all of these public charging services in a manner that recovers the cost of providing that service. The majority of the time, that will mean that the rate that is billed to customers using our publicly available charging infrastructure will be designed to both cover the ongoing cost of providing that service as well as within a reasonable time frame recover the capital expenditures necessary to implement that infrastructure. In the long term, our priority is to encourage charging behavior that won't compromise the distribution grid. Projections vary pretty widely on the subject since the industry of electric vehicles is quite young and changing very rapidly. But estimates from the Department of Energy find that medium to high levels of electric vehicle adoption, which in their projections are about 20 to 30% penetration by 2050, have the potential to increase residential electricity demand by 20 to 38% in the coming decades. Without incentives to do otherwise, most electric vehicle drivers plug their vehicle in immediately upon return home from work, coincident with our peak on the distribution system as it is. And such a dramatic increase in our peak electricity demand could have substantial impact to the distribution system that we want to plan for and mitigate. So our plan has four phases, as I mentioned a minute ago. The first three phases focus on the short to medium term issues of access to charging and services that we provide at DME through the upgrading of our existing chargers, establishing a rebate program to share the costs with the private sector to build out electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And to expand the city owned infrastructure where necessary. The fourth phase of our plan is that long term outlook regarding developing a program to encourage charging behaviors that will not compromise the distribution system and find a mutually beneficial arrangement to meet those needs for our customers that will want to drive electric vehicles. As well as take care of our infrastructure. So the first phase of our plan, the modernization of our existing charging infrastructure network. Primarily focuses on the upgrade to a modern charging platform of our existing blink stations that Chris mentioned. As well as looking at the possible installation of a DC fast charger for public use along I-35 located at our Pocker's Page substation. The Texas Emissions Reduction Plan underway from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality offers grants that can fund up to 50% of the cost of alternative fueling projects for vehicles with electric vehicle charging being one of the focuses there. So we are looking to take advantage of those funding opportunities. So as mentioned a couple minutes ago, our current charger locations that are available to the public are at North Lakes Park, North Branch Library, South Lakes Park, and South Branch Library. As it stands to date since 2013, the chargers at the North locations have accounted for approximately 85% of charger use over time. Due to the data limitations and the information that is provided to us on charger use, we can't really predict or make a determination what we think the cause of that is. So we're looking to continue gathering data and perhaps discern more about why that distribution settles the way that it does. >> Can I ask, so that means people are using it? >> Yes, people are using it. >> Okay, all right. >> When, in 2013 when the chargers were installed, usage was not very high and not very many people had electric vehicles. The charging utilization has been increasing pretty dramatically over time. But that being said, electric vehicles still account for less than 5% of vehicles. So the thing, there isn't a line around the block to use the things, but it's increased. So the installation of modern platform dual port charging infrastructure at each of those locations, so replacing the existing single port chargers that were installed in 2013 with one dual port charger on a modern platform to meet those charging needs and keep charging capabilities and capacity approximately the same, will cost approximately $15,600 between purchase of the new chargers and installation and then removal of the existing chargers. We have the possibility for 50% funding of that project through the TURP grants mentioned a minute ago. Those applications for the grant program are due in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we will hear back sometime in March or April as to the status of those. And then we'll come forward with hopes to gain authorization to use that grant funding to proceed with that project. In the short term, the rate that is charged for use of the chargers will remain the current rate that is being billed from the existing platform, just not to price shock anybody. It's four cents a minute right now. As it stands, that covers the ongoing costs of the infrastructure that was put in place and as usage is changing pretty rapidly with those, so we will gather some data, make some predictions and then determine on an ongoing basis. Yes sir. >> Four cents a minute, how did that equate to cost per kilowatt hour? >> So the rate of power flow into the batteries varies with the charge level of the battery. So ones that are quite close to full, it's less kilowatt hours flowing. The total charge time at the rate that these chargers charge is about four hours from completely empty to completely full. So that's about 10 kilowatt hours per hour, given the average size of an electric vehicle battery. So some math there, a sixth of a kilowatt hour per minute. But the billing structure is not set to bill by the kilowatt hours. I mentioned it bills on a per minute basis. >> But on average about a sixth of a kilowatt hour per minute. >> And we're charging four cents per minute to use the facility. >> Yes, and with the existing platform, we do not have control over the price that is billed that is set by the system operator, Blink, that installed them for us. That's one of the reasons that we're looking to move to a different platform that allows us to take some price control. That opens up a lot of opportunities, whether it's once we've recovered the capital cost of the chargers and there's only a need to cover ongoing costs, perhaps a price reduction or ensuring that we can cover our costs. There are some interesting programs that have been piloted by Austin Energy and CPS Energy in San Antonio, where customers can pay just a flat rate on their monthly bill for unlimited access to the public charging. That's something that if we determined we would like to look into or pilot, we'd have at least the flexibility with a new platform to look into. >> Do you know what that dollar amount is, that flat rate? >> At Austin Energy, I believe it is $60 a year. >> Okay. >> So as mentioned here, just a brief summary and overview of the four locations that we've got, as well as the cost per location, to perform those upgrades. As mentioned, that will be approximately $15,600 all in for the project. The TURP grant program does place special emphasis on the build out of DC fast charging infrastructure along the interstate corridors. They feel that that is one of the motivations to encourage electric vehicle adoption would be improved access, especially for people that are traveling longer distance to not have to take several hours to charge back up. So we do have one location of city owned property right along the interstate frontage at our Pockers Page substation that we are looking to build a DC fast charger to provide access there. That location at the substation provides convenient access to the electric infrastructure that would be needed to power a charger, as well as some city property to actually provide parking. With the project, total estimate cost for that would be about $75,000, with the possibility of 50% funding from the grant program. Our hope is that the rate there, if the project were to be implemented, since the test case here is that those interstate locations gain not only usage from the local community looking for a charge in a pinch, but also travelers passing through on the interstate there, we hope the thesis being tested there would be that spreading those costs across more people and transient chargers would allow to charge a lower rate per kilowatt hour per minute of charging. -Question, I know what a TURP grant is, but how it applies to this I don't understand. Is there an exchange other than the purchase of the equipment? Do you have to take something out? Because in the past TURP grants were, I'll shut down my 1985 diesel and replace it with a 2020 diesel, and then TURP funds a portion of that. -So the TURP program beginning this year for the alternative fueling facilities program funds not only the replacement of existing fossil fuel fueling facilities, but the development of new construction for those alternative fueling facilities. This is a project that would be highly dependent on the grant funding being awarded. So when we learn about the status of that in the next couple months, if we are awarded that grant money, we would build out a more comprehensive plan and come forward to get direction and make a determination to move forward with the project at that time. The second phase of our plan involves the establishment of a rebate program to share costs for the build out of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. When electric vehicle drivers are surveyed, the most common places that they cite a desire to have access to charging infrastructure are retail establishments, restaurants, entertainment venues, places where they spend their leisure time. Since perhaps intuitively most of those locations aren't owned by the city, we do not have much flexibility to provide charging infrastructure at that locations. So we feel that the most effective way to facilitate the development of that infrastructure would be to share some of the costs there. I understood that Cracker Barrel was putting them across the nation. Do we have some at the Cracker Barrel around here? I'm not aware of any at the Cracker Barrel. There are a couple of places that have put in chargers as provision, kind of as a complimentary service to their customers. Cinemark here in Denton is one that comes to mind. They just recently put in chargers. So this is a behavior that you're seeing in very limited amounts as it stands. The idea with a rebate or incentive program would be to further drive the expansion of those types of networks. Just a quick question. You have Tesla with four locations. I know there's six superchargers out just off 35. Is that what's included in these four? So that is each geographic address that holds chargers. So like Southlake and? So some of the Tesla locations, for example, included here would be the chargers located at Razor Ranch as well as the embassy suites, chargers. And there are a couple other two locations on I-35 that have Tesla chargers available. So this is just the physical addresses that have chargers present. It's not the number of chargers, it's the address of the chargers. OK, thank you. Yes, sir. So the focus here to attain cost recovery for this program, at least the thesis that would need proving out over time, would be that sharing those costs and providing that rebate, those funds would be recouped over time through electricity sales through the charger. These chargers have, at least with the advancement of the technology, about a five to 10-year useful lifespan before they become outdated. Based on the usages that we see from our publicly owned chargers, that is a sufficient time frame at those usage levels to recover those costs through the electricity sales. We plan to budget $20,000 for fiscal year 2021 to provide up to 10 rebates for the installation of those level two chargers, sharing that cost at a rate of up to $2,000. The average cost for a level two charger installation is anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000, so this would be in the 33% to 20% price range that we would cover with the private entity providing the charge and covering the balance. I just had a quick question. What's a level two charger as opposed to other kinds of chargers? So the electric vehicle charging infrastructure is ranked based on the power output of the chargers. So level one charging is considered to be a 120-volt kind of... If you were to plug charging into the standard wall outlet in your house, that takes about 16 hours for a full charge from empty. Level two charging is 240-volt charging, typically anywhere from 7 to 10 kilowatts of power that can charge a vehicle from empty to full, depending on the size of the vehicle's battery, anywhere from three to six hours. So is there a chance that level two is going to be obsolete in a year? That seems unlikely given the electrical infrastructure limitations. There is some build-out and was just mentioned previously regarding DC fast chargers. As it stands currently, those are about five to six times the cost of level two chargers as well as much more intense infrastructure requirements to provide the power that's needed to charge those. So at least given the data that we have over the last few years across the nation, level two build-out is occurring at a much, much higher level than DC fast charging. Chase, how fast is a fast charger? So I apologize, I meant to mention that in the last slide. A fast charger can charge a vehicle from empty to full typically in 30 to 45 minutes. So industry predictions, you know, kind of estimate that in the 30 to 40-year time frame for mass EV adoption, fast charging would be the kinds of charges that you see replacing gas stations on street corners. However, like I mentioned previously, the infrastructure limitations for those have not been dealt with yet. >> So Buc-E's would have a whole bank of-- >> Two or three hundred of them, I suppose. >> Just checking. >> Well, that would be a drain on our system. >> So phase three of our plan involves the expansion of the city's owned public charging network. After a couple years of providing those rebates and facilitating the development of privately-owned charging infrastructure, we will do some analysis, keep our eyes open and engage with the community regarding the areas that they feel are being underserved with that private investment if there is demand for electric vehicle charging that is not being met through private investment. That would be the types of situations that the city would look into building out our city-owned infrastructure network. A couple of places that come to mind are the public parking lots around the downtown square area or neighborhood parks distributed through Denton, particularly in areas with high renter populations if they don't feel that their apartment complexes, what have you, are providing the charging that they wish to have access to. So the grant opportunities for electric vehicles and electric vehicle infrastructure are expanding constantly, so we would always seek to leverage those whenever possible and share some of those costs to provide those services throughout the city at at least cost. Our target date to begin looking at where the rebate program has been successful and where expansion of the publicly-owned network is necessary would be in the 2022-2023 timeframe to see where those rebates have been utilized. The fourth phase of our program takes a longer-term approach regarding infrastructure risk that would arise with high levels of electric vehicle adoption. As mentioned earlier, most EV drivers just plug their car in upon return home from work without a second thought if they don't have an incentive to do otherwise, a coincidence with our electric system peak. In the event that even 20 or 30 percent of people begin driving, just on one street, begin driving electric vehicles and five people, neighbors all come in and plug in their car at the exact same time at 5 p.m., we'd be looking at risk of running into reliability issues and outages potentially. So as electric vehicle adoption increases and since we don't know the timeframe, it would kind of be on an ongoing basis knowing when we need to be prepared for that. But we plan to look at some of the methods that are being tested in the electric utilities industry in order to incentivize people to shift their charging behaviors in a way that isn't too inconvenient but also protects our infrastructure. Some of the methods that have been met with success in pilot so far around the country involve time of use charging rates, whether just for residential energy as a whole or for charging in particular. Since the cars have the ability to program a charge start time, folks can still plug in right when they get home from work but the car won't start charging until 10 p.m. say when their electricity gets cheaper and it won't strain our grid so much. There are other incentive programs that are being tested out to kind of meet those needs such as utilities might do the electrical upgrade or buy a home charger for somebody with the agreement that they won't charge say between 5 and 8 p.m. or other peak hours as determined. So as electrical vehicle adoption increases and we kind of foresee based on the trajectory of point where that might become a pertinent issue or consideration for us, we will kind of communicate that to you all and continue doing our research and begin testing perhaps a pilot program down the line if we deem it appropriate to see which one of these methods might best meet the needs of our community in a mutually beneficial manner. Yes sir. >> How would you deal with or have you thought about, I'm sure you have, what if a home has solar installation on it? >> So that would certainly impact their usage patterns and their demand patterns in a way. We haven't looked at that specific case as far as the electrical ramifications of pairing that at different times with electric vehicle charging. The concern there involves the decline in solar production in the evening as we reach our evening peak. So we distributed solar necessarily on an individual basis and we haven't done any data on it but we would have to determine whether that would reduce the peak at all and protect the distribution system. It's something to look at though. So in summary, given the direction of the sustainability plan to take these into consideration, our electric vehicle plan looking forward addresses the short term needs for charging access and infrastructure as well as looking forward with regards to the risk posed by high levels of electric vehicle adoption and ways to mitigate that possible risk to our distribution system. We hope that in the long term, as electric vehicle adoption does rise, we can find a mutually beneficial way for the utility to pair with our residents and avoid those risks without penalizing those that drive electric vehicles. So that's our plan. >> Ed, I'm surprised you don't have more questions. >> I have a question. Do you have any data on for any charging location what the use is compared to the installed electrical capacity for that station? >> We do not have any data really available regarding that. >> Oh, speaking of Ed, so the Tesla chargers are specific to Teslas and presumably the city would not be installing any of those. So if everybody who's buying new electric vehicles bought a Tesla, how would the city react to those charging needs? >> So the charging platforms that we plan to roll out, not Tesla brand, but they do have cross compatibility with Tesla chargers. So Tesla drivers could make use of those stations. Tesla does provide a pretty strong financial incentive to a lot of their drivers to use their charging stations. That is just something that, you know, plans would need to be adjusted as electric vehicle adoption increases. If 90% of people are getting Teslas and Tesla keeps building out stations, then our involvement might not necessitate developing as many stations. >> But they'd still be pulling from the grid. >> That is correct. >> Yeah. >> And that's where the role of the financial incentives and rate structures would come into play more so. I know with the Tesla that they provide an adapter so that as a Tesla driver, you can use a blinker anyplace else because of the adapter. So I wonder if there might be some leeway from the opposite side of that where a person-- a Tesla adapter could be-- a person could have a Tesla adapter so that even though they didn't have a Tesla, they could use a Tesla charging station. I don't know if that's getting into the weeds a little bit I guess. >> I'm not aware of any system that allows for that. Tesla is notoriously kind of protective regarding their charging network, but it's something that would theoretically technically be totally possible. >> Which is why we have to have non-Tesla charging stations because I mean that's proprietary for them. So, yeah. >> You know Steve Jobs on that? >> Yeah. Yes, they did. >> I have a Tesla and it took-- have taken a couple of trips, long trips and the network is incredible, the charging network. And I talked to some people there at a restaurant where they had a-- in Ardmore, Oklahoma. And they loved it because the people would put their cars on the charger and come in and have lunch, have, you know, get coffee and so there are other trickle down economic benefits to this too that I think is real important to stress. >> What do they think the adoption is going to be of the electric vehicles in the next-- let's just say decade now? >> So, in the next decade, it will rely pretty heavily on when that tipping point is reached that the upfront total cost of buying kind of a standard electric vehicle matches and then drops below that of a standard internal combustion engine vehicle. Most industry estimates suggest that that will happen sometime between now and 2025. But since virtually every automaker is at least rolling out one or two electric vehicle models in the next couple model years, it will depend where those price points fall. If in the next couple years, electric vehicles are cheaper than an ICE internal combustion engine car, we might see really dramatic short-term adoption. If it takes until 2025 or 2026 for them to get cheaper, we might be looking at lower levels of adoption within the decade. But a lot of those projections estimate that at least regarding new car sales by 2030, they're looking at somewhere near 10%. >> Oh, okay. >> I'm a big promoter of this stuff. What I found that the upfront cost for Tesla can be considerable depending on how many bells and whistles you have. But the savings in maintenance costs, it's like our last meeting talking about electric powered lawnmowers and how the maintenance costs were so drastically reduced that it made up for the cost. It's the same way with the Tesla. And if you go in price of an SUV, it's got, you know, cup warmers and nose blowers and everything possible. >> Use that a lot. >> I mean, your expenses are guaranteed to stay constant and probably go up your maintenance costs. So in the long run, an electric vehicle, especially now with the extended ranges that they're coming out with, it's just amazing. So that's my plug for it. Thank you. >> They just don't-- they don't rattle as much. I mean, it's true. >> They don't rattle? I have a-- >> They don't put a lot of terror on them. >> No, I have a thing on mine where I can actually-- >> Quiet. >> Push a button and it sounds like a Ferrari. [ Laughter ] >> I have a question about how we can quantify the actual number of electric vehicles here. And does DMV categorize when it comes time to renew your license? Does DMV ask if it's an electric vehicle? Is there anything in the registration process that ask you if it's an electric vehicle? >> I don't think so. And the reason I'm informed on that is because I keep up on transportation politics a lot. >> No. >> Yeah, right. So, you know, that's another concern is that how are they going to pay for the roads because right now we pay for our roads through fuel tax mostly and oil and gas taxes. So, you know, there's lots of talk about going to a mileage. So when you do register your vehicle at the DMV, you pay a fuel tax on your mileage if you drive an electric vehicle. >> Let's just taxi electrons. >> Yeah, right, taxi electrons. I mean, I don't know how they're going to do it. Because people are going to figure out a way to get around it. They always have. It's like selling your vehicle and saying, "Well, I've sold it for 1500 bucks." When you sold it for 5 grand. >> Charlie, did you have a question? >> I just had a comment. One, it sounds like some of your strategies are centered around having DMV being somewhat involved in the business of charging. It seems to me that we would serve the public better. The logical places for this are all in the private sector. Hotels, movie theaters, restaurants all seem to be really logical places that if that infrastructure is in place, it's good. And I would encourage you to consider rather than throwing rebates to the public sector or to the private sector, excuse me, that you just make it easy to implement the system. That there's a package in place and it has a minimum of approvals and details and zoning and building permits and things like that so that we've got those in parking places where it makes sense to charge as opposed to trying to get the city to do it in public places. The other benefit obviously being those places are paying or generating sales tax, property tax revenue and typically the private sector is going to do things much more efficiently than the public sector. So that would be my encouragement is to get that into existing businesses or new businesses rather than city parks and libraries and places that are exempt from those taxes. >> Yes, and that is something that some jurisdictions have been looking at. One of the hurdles to that development is our jurisdictional monopoly on the sale of electricity within our service territory. So that poses a lot of policy questions whether or not it is legal for private entities to put in their own charger and charge by the kilowatt hour for charging services. But that's something-- >> If they're buying it and then selling it, right? They still have to buy it from us. >> That is true and I'm not entirely versed on the policy aspects of that. Perhaps Mr. Littrick or Terry might be better able to speak to that but-- >> Yes, so we don't-- so in our service territory, we don't allow anyone to resell electricity. So for this-- for the public policy or the publicly accessible private chargers, all of those chargers that you go use are at no charge. So the businesses are using them to get people in there. So that power that we're selling them is their standard rate that their power is going through. They're not reselling that to their customers. >> Is there a conversation going forward about that issue? >> There could be but that's a can of worms that we have to think about before we open that up is allowing people to resell power in our service territory. >> What would be the can of worms with respect to fixing electric vehicle charging? >> Obviously reselling is a different matter but I'm just talking about the EV charging issue getting the city ordinance or-- is it a state ordinance or a city ordinance? >> I believe that would be a state ordinance. That'd be for the PUCT and that'd be a state law. >> Surely, it wouldn't be hard to get that fixed. >> That's the PUCT says we can't resell or people can't resell-- >> Correct, correct. That's a-- that's put in place to protect the utilities. And I don't think we want to do that. >> Yeah. >> I'm not talking about in general. I'm talking about public-- charging of public-- of electric vehicles. >> But then I think we'd be in a position where you would have maybe land some tenants, so some landowners or property owners that are, you know, paying electricity at a rate and then really jacking that rate up to their tenants. >> That's my-- that was my next question. I was about to say there are some all bills paid apartment complexes and-- >> Correct. >> -- technically they're selling-- >> That's how they get around that, yes, sir. Yes, sir. >> My caveat would be for the purposes of vehicle charging, that is a different-- >> In public places. >> I agree. We don't want to open that up. But for charging of vehicles, that's kind of a no-brainer. I can't envision any reason to oppose that part of resale. >> I think what we could probably do so there's some hardware issues there. So if we had all of these charging stations that were individually metered, we could easily set up a rate that would promote the EV charging. So that's something that we'll look into. The issue is a lot of these chargers aren't metered individually. So the power that we're selling them is flowing through their main meter on their business. There's not an individual meter on the charger itself. >> Why is that a problem? >> Well, then the rate we'd give them, we don't know if what the power is going to the building or is it going to the charger. So if we wanted to set up a-- >> Why do we need to have a special rate? >> If we wanted to set up a special rate, I thought that was your question. If you wanted to set up a special rate to encourage the-- these chargers-- >> No, to make it easier, the administrative hassle, the building permits, the zoning clearances, all the things that people fuss about city services. >> Oh, got you. Not on the rate side. >> Right side, I would discourage rebates and special prices. >> We can reach-- >> Our prices should be what our prices are. >> I'm sorry, I misunderstood you there. We can reach out to them. We haven't heard any pushback from installers like the Tesla stations and the larger stations do take some electrical infrastructure. But we really haven't heard a big pushback on-- from the development community on any hurdles they have on getting those installed. If it comes to us, which would have the big say in that, yeah, we can take the-- not the easy road, but we can make sure that there's not any hurdles to these businesses getting these chargers installed. >> I misunderstood you too. >> Yeah. >> Which probably means I misspoke. I apologize. >> It's a Monday morning after daylight savings time. >> That's right. We're all still tired. >> Any other questions? >> Other questions? All right. I guess one thing we do need is direction. So we are taking this on to the council. So just any recommendations you might have? >> So consensus, I-- >> Sounds like you guys are ahead of the game here. >> Yeah. >> I appreciate that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And I'm happy to see that it's being used. So if it wasn't being used, I'd have a different-- >> And with the new system, we'll have access to that so the-- we can start to gather the data that we're lacking. It's just the blink system is very proprietary to them. We're not able to see other than kilowatt hours used in a month. Once we get this new system, we'll be able to see the individual users. They can track them and then that's-- you asked about Austin and their flat rate and San Antonio's flat rate. They're doing that at a loss but they're getting the data. So that's why they're-- that's why they're-- >> They're promoting the program that way. >> The data is worth more to them than a little bit of electricity. >> One more question and this is regarding the TURP and it's just occurred to me that in the past we haven't used TURP for the city. Is the reason that we're able to use TURP is because it's DME and it's a public-- and it's a utility? >> I'll have to-- >> Because we were unable to-- it's my understanding that we were unable to use it as a city to buy equipment in the past, the TURP grants. >> Was that a draft? >> Yeah. [ Pause ] >> So I'm not necessarily familiar with the past history of the TURP program. Myself and one of the other analysts at the energy services team attended a TCEQ workshop on the TURP grant and it was very clear and made abundantly clear that public utilities as well as cities and municipalities themselves are eligible at least for the alternative fueling facilities. >> At least for the-- >> Sorry, this aspect of the TURP grants. >> The electrical part? >> Yes. >> Portion then, okay. All right. That's probably-- yeah, that's probably a question for fleet anyway. Thank you. >> One final comment, you outlined several alternatives there that were good and as you go forward, I would just encourage you to pursue all of those alternatives as you think this thing through and not get on one track necessarily because technology change is pretty quick in this area. >> Yes, sir. It's a very fast-moving industry. >> All right, so consensus is to move forward as presented. Is that correct? Okay. All right. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Chase. Well, that is the agenda. Do we have a motion to-- >> Adjourn, please. >> Thank you. [ Laughter ] Quit came to mind and I knew that wasn't right. [ Laughter ] >> That's fine.