By Mark Fritsch, General Manager
During the first week in February, I attended my first Winter Legislative Conference with representatives from the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association (MMUA). I was impressed by the coordination and access we had with our local and state wide legislative leaders. Our main purpose was to give them information about key legislative issues that could negatively affect our ability to provide high quality, low cost service to our customers.
Having representatives from many of the over 100 Minnesota cities that benefit from having locally owned and locally operated municipal utilities at this event, gave us the clout needed to get access to key representatives including the Majority Leader, David Senjem and the Speaker of the House, Kurt Zellers.
There were several key issues brought to their attention, of which two could have a significant negative affect on Owatonna if enacted:
Net Metering: There are proposals being considered that would expand net metering requirements for utilities, thus increasing their costs. Under current net metering laws, a utility is required to purchase energy produced, but not used, by a renewable energy system that produces 40 kilowatts (KW), or less, at retail rates. The new proposals would require utilities to purchase renewable energy at retail rates from projects up to 2 megawatts (MW) in size. Most of Minnesota’s 125 municipal utilities have an annual peak load of 6 MW with a third having a total load of 3 MW or less. This proposed requirement would require smaller utilities to purchase the majority of their energy at retail rates (versus wholesale rates), which imposes significant new costs on small utilities like ours. Small electrical systems can’t handle that amount of intermittent renewable energy load, let alone pass on financially devastating cost increases to our customers.
Private Well Drilling within City Limits:Cities and municipal utilities are responsible for protecting the local water supply. Legislation being proposed would allow private well drillers to drill wells without approval from the city. Allowing large users of water to circumvent the use of city water systems, by drilling their own wells, would cause serious problems on two levels.
First, the capital debt and system operations and maintenance expenses associated with maintaining the city’s water system would have to be paid by the remaining customers, potentially causing rate increases.
Second, private wells can pose risks to drinking water quality, and cause localized over- use of aquifers, especially during drought periods. Public water systems need to be able to protect the resources they draw upon to provide water to their communities.
Fortunately, it now appears neither of these two proposals will become law this year. You can be confident OPU will continue to stay on top of these, and any other, issues that can negatively impact you, our customer.