News

Staying Lit

When a storm knocks out power to Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) customers, the last thing OPPD wants is to lose power at the command center of its power restoration efforts. Today, OPPD Directors took a step in making sure that didn’t happen. In a vote to make certain the lights stay on at its Energy Control Center, the OPPD Board of Directed awarded a $1.4 million ($1,426,770) contract to Commonwealth Electric Company of Omaha. The contract will upgrade 23-year-old equipment at the control center, giving it a high degree of reliability.

Currently, the control center is fed by circuits that automatically back each other up in case of a failure. It also has a stand-by generator to function in case both circuits are taken out of action. But some power outages over the last several years have pointed out the effects of aging on the equipment. The new contract would modernize the power equipment to enable smoother transitions between circuits or when the generator turns on.

A number of other improvements are included in the contract.

In other action, the board:

• approved a revision to the District’s contract with Offutt Air Force Base to reflect increasing costs of buying and transmitting electricity from the Western Area Power Administration to the base.
• rejected all bids for high voltage circuit breakers as technically or legally non-responsive and authorized management to negotiate and enter into a contract for the breakers.
• approved the 2010 Board Meeting Schedule (which follows).

2010 Board Meeting Schedule

Fort Calhoun Station Begins Refueling Outage

The Omaha Public Power District’s nuclear power plant, Fort Calhoun Station, was taken off line this past weekend, November 1, 2009, for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. A nuclear plant such as Fort Calhoun shuts down approximately every 18 months to refuel.

During the outage, about one third of the fuel assemblies in the reactor core will be replaced with new fuel, which will remain in the reactor for approximately four and a half years.

Plant personnel and numerous other OPPD employees will perform hundreds of activities with supplemental workers from outside companies assisting. In all, an estimated 1,200 workers will take part in nearly 8,700 activities and tasks during the outage.

Besides refueling the plant, workers will conduct numerous tests and perform preventive maintenance on plant equipment and instrumentation to ensure the plant continues to perform safely at peak efficiency. Other activities will include repairing or replacing special equipment where determined necessary.

When operating, Fort Calhoun Station generates approximately 500 million watts of emission-free power.

The Omaha Public Power District serves more than 340-thousand retail customers, the most of any utility in Nebraska.

Sustainability To Be A Big Part Of New OPPD Service Center

A new service center for the Omaha Public Power District will feature some of the latest environmental and sustainability practices. The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) has agreed to pay most of the costs of constructing the new service center, which will move to an area near Eppley Airfield, so that UNMC can expand its research facilities. UNMC will take over the current OPPD property at 601 South Saddle Creek Road.

The NU Board of Regents recently approved bond financing to pay for the bulk of the construction costs. The university’s share would total around $11.3 million dollars. OPPD will pay the remaining $2.5 million to expand the size of the new center by 12,000 square feet over the existing center and to make the new building more environmentally sustainable.

OPPD hopes to have the new facility conform to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, which set benchmarks for environmentally sustainable construction. These standards apply to the design, construction and operation of high-performance “green” buildings. The benchmarks concentrate on improving a building’s performance in energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, material selection, water savings and sustainable site development.

Various sustainable features planned for the new center include solar photovoltaic panels, thermal solar heating, advanced lighting, operational windows, special roofing materials, energy- efficient fixtures and a number of other features.

The agreement with UNMC and university officials calls for OPPD to manage construction of the new facility.

OPPD Adopts Revised Standards on Future Power Policy

The Omaha Public Power District’s Board of Directors today formally adopted five new energy standards developed to provide future direction in its power policies. The standards deal with issues ranging from investing in “Smart Grid” systems to designing customer rates that would best promote energy efficiency. Today’s adoption comes after asking for and receiving input on the standards while keeping electricity reliable and affordable.

The new standards approved today also call for continued use of Integrated Resource Planning which maps the type of generation that OPPD would use in the future and what type of incentives might be provided to better utilize energy in the industrial sector.

Consideration and approval of the new standards were required by a 2007 federal law. The law was intended to encourage conservation of energy supplied by electric utilities to customers; to promote the optimal efficiency of electric utility facilities and resources; and to promote the establishment of equitable rates for electric consumers.

In other action, the board also:In other action, the board also:

• approved a contract for a new system at Nebraska City Station Unit 1 in order to comply with federal rules on regional haze. The contract will be with Fuel Tech, Inc., of Warrenville, Illinois, for $12,650,185.
• approved entering into a contract for uranium enrichment services for Fort Calhoun Station for 2014 – 2024. The contract goes to LES/Urenco for a total of $167,473,000 over those ten years.

OPPD Announces Appointment

The Omaha Public Power District has announced the following appointment:

Richard M. Miller has been appointed to the position of Field Supervisor T&D Distribution Services, Transmission and Distribution Operations Division effective October 4. Mr. Miller began his career with OPPD in 1985. He most recently served as a Working Line Crew Leader.

OPPD Costs Cuts Mean Closings

The Omaha Public Power District will be cutting costs by closing some of its offices. Beginning in January 2010, its customer offices in Bellevue and west Omaha will close and the customer and clerical activities in the North Bend office will move to other OPPD offices, with some of those positions to be lost through attrition. OPPD line crews will continue to work out of the North Bend office.

The Bellevue and west Omaha branches are the least-used of OPPD’s five metro area offices. The majority of the business transacted there is in the form of bank cards and checks, which OPPD can process through other, more cost-efficient channels. The closings will take effect at the end of business on December 31, 2009. OPPD has seen activity in most of its branch offices decline as more customers take advantage of conducting business with the utility over the Internet.

The Bellevue office is located at 1103 Galvin Road South and the west Omaha branch is located at 741 North 114th Street in Omaha. The actions are expected to save the District a significant amount in operating expenses yearly.

The changes at North Bend will also take place December 31, 2009.

“The decision to make these changes was not easy,” said OPPD President Gary Gates.

“Like other businesses, we are subject to increases in the costs of operating. We have already seen steep increases when it comes to fuel, transportation, and materials such as steel. We have promised our customer–owners that we would do everything possible to control spending and cut costs where possible.”

OPPD officials have tracked how more customers conduct their business online and fewer transact business in person. The District is working to provide more opportunities for customers to work with them online. It already has numerous payment options for customers, including the recently introduced “MyAccount” option.

Other metro area branch offices remain open, including one at the District’s corporate downtown headquarters in Energy Plaza at 444 South 16th Street Mall Omaha, the South Omaha office at 3319 L Street, and one at 2950 Ames Avenue in North Omaha.

Starting January 1, the downtown office will remain open until 8 pm on weekdays to help accommodate customers and will open on Saturdays from 9 am until noon. The South Omaha and North Omaha offices will not be open on Saturdays, beginning January 1.

Educational Initiative to Boost Energy Efficiency Efforts

One of the major challenges for anyone who owns, manages or holds properties for investment in today’s business environment is energy management.

The Omaha Public Power District has joined with the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Building Owners and Manager Association of Omaha (BOMA Omaha) to offer a unique training program for more than a dozen students. During the fall 2009 semester, the university has added ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Training to the curriculum of its Real Estate Management course.

Portfolio Manager is an online interactive management tool which is part of the ENERGY STAR program. Portfolio Manager tracks and assesses energy and water consumption. It is designed to help individuals set investment priorities, identify under-performing buildings, verify efficiency improvements and receive ENERGY STAR/Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognition for superior energy performance in building properties.

The undergraduate students participating in the course being offered at UNO will learn the basic principles of benchmarking. Each student will be assigned several buildings selected by members of BOMA Omaha and will then collect and analyze data from those buildings concerning energy usage and building characteristics. The data will then be entered into the Portfolio Manager. Any building that receives a Portfolio Manager rating of 75 or above will be reported to OPPD which will then provide the necessary engineering review, including evaluation of indoor air quality and lighting levels. If all criteria are met OPPD will submit the application for the building to become recognized as ENERGY STAR labeled.

Costs associated with the ENERGY STAR label application process will be shared by OPPD and the building owner.

Once a building has been benchmarked and reviewed, the Portfolio Manager account associated with that building will be transferred to the BOMA Omaha members involved.

OPPD hopes the collaboration with the university students will encourage BOMA Omaha members to continue to update their buildings’ energy usage and to enter additional buildings in Portfolio Manager not included in the course. BOMA initially submitted 60 buildings for benchmarking. For students involved, the experience will allow them to leave class with a marketable skill and additional knowledge about energy efficiency as they enter into the workforce.

OPPD to Put $100,000 Grant in the Field(s)

The Omaha Public Power District will be plowing a $100,000 USDA grant into finding ways to help farmers operate more energy-efficiently. The funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be used primarily to conduct energy audits for agricultural irrigation and grain-drying operations in the OPPD’s 13-county service territory.

The district plans to conduct approximately 200 audits over the next two years. The audits will provide producers with valuable information on how they can reduce their energy consumption and analyze various energy-efficiency changes.

Among other things, the funds will cover 75 percent of the cost of auditing irrigation pump conversions from diesel to electric, and the cost of audits of efficiency changes to grain-drying equipment. An audit is required by the USDA for the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), through which agricultural producers apply for grants to cover up to 25 percent of their project cost for efficiency upgrades.

The grant awarded to OPPD allows the district to target a specific segment of agricultural producers in an area where resources have been limited in the past. The funds are a portion of the $13 million in loans and grants being made available by the federal government for 233 renewable energy projects in 38 states. The program was authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill. The funds are not part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress to spur the nation’s economy.

OPPD Collects Ninth Consecutive J.D. Power Award

Some things never become old hat, like getting a pat on the back when someone thinks you are doing a good job. That is especially true when that someone happens to be your customers. The Omaha Public Power District today officially accepted once such pat on the back, the 2009 J.D. Power Award for residential customer satisfaction.

The award was presented to the District during the September monthly meeting of the OPPD Board of Directors. Accepting on behalf of the Board was Chairman Fred J. Ulrich and W. Gary Gates, OPPD President and CEO.

This is the ninth consecutive year that OPPD has earned honors for receiving the highest ranking for residential customer satisfaction in its category. The rankings are based on an independent survey of customers served by the nation’s 121 largest utilities. The survey is conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, a global marketing and information services firm based in California. The study measures customer satisfaction with their electric utilities in six main areas. The areas include price, power quality and reliability, billing and payment, corporate citizenship, customer communications and customer service.

Mid-sized utilities are those serving between 125,000 and 499,999 residential customers. OPPD serves more than 340,000 customers. This is the second time this year that J.D. Power has honored OPPD. In May of this year, a similar study of business customers also ranked OPPD first when it comes to satisfaction of business customers in the Midwest region.

“We truly appreciate the continuing recognition from our customers and from J.D. Power and Associates as we accept this award on behalf of all the OPPD employees who work so hard to make this happen,” said OPPD President Gary Gates.

“It is especially meaningful at a time when we like so many other utilities are faced with challenging economic times as we work to continue to achieve our goals to exceed our customers’ expectations, provide them with a personal touch and assure them that our product is reliable and affordable,” Mr. Gates said.

The award was presented by Chris Oberle, a vice president of J.D. Power and Associates. This is the eleventh year for the national survey conducted by the California-based firm.

In other action, the board also:

• approved awarding a contract to Probst Electric Inc. of Heber City, Utah, for $1,020,285.98 to rebuild a transmission line running from the substation line at 108th and Blondo to 138th and State Streets.
• approved awarding a contract to Probst Electric Inc. of Heber City, Utah, for $1,020,285.98 to rebuild a transmission line running from the substation line at 108th and Blondo to 138th and State Streets.