Chris Foster, Manager, Resource Planning and Integration, the City of Georgetown
Neil F. McAndrews, Senior Principal, Enterprise Risk Consulting, LLC
Larry G. Lawrence, President, Enterprise Risk Consulting, LLC

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series by the City of Georgetown's Chris Foster and consultants Larry Lawrence and Neil McAndrews examining how Georgetown, Texas became a 100 percent renewable city while pursuing least-cost economic goals. This post was originally published by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation.

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Georgetown Utility Systems (GUS), can serve as the basis for a sustainable power supply solution.

In part two of our series on how Georgetown, Texas became a 100 percent renewable city, we examine how market opportunities and the supply portfolio decisions of Georgetown’s municipal utility, Georgetown Utility Systems (GUS), can serve as the basis for a sustainable power supply solution. Georgetown’s renewable power supply helped the city in a surprising way, as it has engendered new thinking about the city’s future. Georgetown now embraces a longer term planning vision, and being a 100 percent renewable city underpins more dynamic marketing and branding opportunities.    

We focus first on Georgetown’s local market, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and then on opportunities in other markets throughout the U.S.

The ERCOT Market Structure

Two important aspects of the ERCOT market structure allowed GUS to make the switch to a 100 percent renewable supply of power.

First, ERCOT operates an electric grid where wholesale generators are in open competition and consumers like GUS have access to this market. Generators are rewarded only if they produce energy (as opposed to other markets, where generation, some of it noncompetitive, is also rewarded simply to be available). 

This allows a simpler path to introducing competitive new technologies like renewables because old technologies are not rewarded on a legacy basis.

The second aspect is that ERCOT operates a very reliable transmission grid.  The state of Texas directed ERCOT to invest billions in transmission lines to connect wind and solar farms from optimal sites in west Texas. ERCOT routinely conducts economic analyses to determine whether building new generation or building new transmission is more efficient. The ERCOT grid allows renewables to be a large part of the future energy supply in Texas.

Portfolio Management Opportunities

GUS was free to shop around ERCOT for resources, considering any kind of generation resource connected to the ERCOT grid, with market tools available to efficiently manage a renewable supply portfolio.

GUS’ power supply evaluation framework considers power prices along with related direct and indirect costs. As an example, the intermittency of renewable power resources is a challenge because of the cost of dealing with inherent production uncertainty.  This cost was considered in GUS’s evaluation process.

To manage this uncertainty, GUS developed a daily process using tools available within the ERCOT market.  For wind, GUS needed to purchase power when wind is limited and sell excess production when the wind is stronger.

Fortunately, ERCOT provides real time and day-ahead markets to help manage short-term supply imbalances.  Although this adds operational complexity, the exercise is a more solvable challenge compared to that of managing short-term fossil fuel supply imbalances and price uncertainty, as well as the environmental impacts and regulation associated with fossil fuel power resources.  

Renewables Reduce Fossil Fuel Supply Cost and Operational Risks

Renewable energy reduces the large risk and cost exposures of a traditional fossil fuel supply contract.

Traditional power supplies and resource planning studies include an extensive fuel supply analysis.  These studies (will) include location (basis) exposure, transportation costs, price forecasts and environmental impacts. 

It’s crucial to match the type of supply required to the output characteristics of the power resource.  For example, for a natural gas fired power plant, purchasing natural gas supply from a producer must also be done in conjunction with a gas transportation contract. The gas contract will have provisions for how much volumetric change is allowed each day, and the related cost impacts (including substantial penalties). The contract is also likely to include natural gas storage, which is a seasonal asset requiring management of excess capacity during non-seasonal demand periods (in order to reduce the overall cost impact).

GUS experienced fossil fuel delivery problems in its former power supply contract.  Natural gas had been interrupted due to severe winter weather in February 2011. Outages at over seventy power plants caused power to be rationed statewide. 

GUS was also exposed to delivery shortages from its long term coal contract:  railroads faced floods in the Midwest during the early 1990s, a merger caused shortages in the late 1990s, and competition with higher value deliveries produced shortages during this decade.  

Renewable energy avoids virtually all of these expensive complications.   

Another cost saving aspect is that the planning process is minimized with renewables because there is no fuel infrastructure to develop and maintain.  Delivery cost adders include all sorts of fuel infrastructure costs like railcar maintenance and pipeline annual outages.

Unlike fossil fuel contracts, there were no cost escalators in many of the renewable energy contracts offered to GUS. And, minimal regulatory compliance costs are required with renewable energy— important to Georgetown’s goal of minimizing administrative costs.

Avoiding Water Consumption

Water was the most important sustainability-related issue for GUS.  During the historic drought of 2011, many power plants were in danger of shutting down because their cooling lakes’s water levels were too low. GUS placed significant emphasis on power that does not require additional water use and water rights. Texas is a growing state that has increasing need for water resources and a history of conflicts related to water rights. GUS wanted a solution that took this into consideration.  

Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Development and Branding

The Texas economy has been dependent on oil for most of the 20th century. Georgetown’s leadership was concerned that the city needed to diversify in order to maintain a vibrant economy.

Georgetown found that a 100 percent green message offered a significant benefit in its efforts to attract tech sector and innovative research and development-skewed businesses, along with highly educated professionals. The brand value of the Georgetown’s subsequent media attention hasn’t been quantified by an independent third-party, however, the city estimates the decision to go green has generated positive impressions equal to a multi-million dollar worldwide advertising and public relations campaign, a figure that continues to grow.

Applications in Other Markets

How do others replicate Georgetown’s success? 

First, consumers and producers need to be involved in making the transmission grid work.  Renewables need to be cost competitive with fossil fuel generation resources.  Finally, a solid set of plans and procedures are needed for proper integration and management of renewables in supply portfolios. 

GUS’ story can do a lot to break down theoretical, cultural, and even political barriers within some institutions and municipalities in regard to the viability of renewable sources of power, although each utility will continue have it own unique challenges. Not all will be able to cost effectively integrate renewable technologies, or to go 100 percent renewable; however, many should be able to take significant elements of GUS' model and approach and replicate them while successfully increasing both the proportion of renewables in their supply portfolios and the efficiency of these portfolios.

© Copyright 2016 Enterprise Risk Consulting, LLC

Chris Foster, Manager, Resource Planning and Integration, the City of Georgetown
Neil F. McAndrews, Senior Principal, Enterprise Risk Consulting, LLC
Larry G. Lawrence, President, Enterprise Risk Consulting, LLC

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series by the City of Georgetown's Chris Foster and consultants Larry Lawrence and Neil McAndrews examining how Georgetown, Texas became a 100 percent renewable city while pursuing least-cost economic goals. Up next: a look at how Georgetown Utility Systems renewable supply portfolio can serve as a model for a sustainable solution.

This post was originally published by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation.

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In 2017, Georgetown (Texas) Utility Systems (“GUS”) will become the largest municipally owned electric utility to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy resources. 

Significantly, it wasn’t Georgetown’s intention to become the first city in the U.S. to commit to 100 percent renewable energy.  The city’s leadership simply set out to purchase the lowest cost, most secure, environmentally friendly, and easiest-to-manage supply of electric power, period.

Yet the most interesting aspect of the city’s purchase effort is that renewable resources met all of these goals. 

After GUS acquired solar and wind supplies, Georgetown embraced clean power as a symbol of its fast growing, modern city.  Now, other cities are looking to Georgetown as a model for developing sustainable and cost-effective supplies of renewable power. 

GUS’s path to a renewable portfolio utilized elements of sustainability science, a framework of decision-making that had several iterations, with an approach that examined and solved problems related to the interrelationship of environment and economic development.

The City of Georgetown laid the groundwork for a clean power portfolio by using planning goals and affording their staff the freedom to review a broad range of solutions. Business-focused local leaders asked the utility to pursue a path of cost certainty and risk mitigation when considering power supplies.  The City Council issued the following objectives for acquiring power supplies to the GUS staff:

1. Secure low cost power sources
2. Secure long term fixed cost power sources
3. Mitigate as much risk as possible, both financial and regulatory
4. Achieve at least a 30% renewable energy portfolio by 2030

In the state of Texas, many cities have opted into electric competition, where the consumer can purchase their own power from third party providers. Georgetown, however, decided not to opt in because they understood competition places too much financial risk on the consumer and because third-party suppliers offer only short-term contracts. GUS chose to continue managing its own long term power supply portfolio.

In 2012, GUS decided to exit a long term power supply arrangement that was backed almost entirely by fossil fuel resources.  This decision left GUS with the challenge of replacing power supplies for one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. 

The United States Census Bureau estimates that as of 2014, Georgetown’s population had grown by almost 25 percent since 2010.  If this rate of growth were to continue, the city would double in size every 10 years.  GUS’ power supply management staff knew they needed substantial supplies to cover the city’s exposure for both the near- and long-term.

Fortunately, GUS already had experience in power supply resource planning and portfolio management because it had been purchasing power in the market for more than a decade.  GUS had staff, and employed consultants and legal counsel, who were fully acquainted with the intricacies of the modern Independent System Operator market, and who were familiar with the economics of the Texas power market.  

GUS issued Request for Proposals (RFP) in 2013 for all types of possible power generation.  Based on Georgetown City Council’s objectives, GUS specifically asked for long-term arrangements and received dozens of responses from coal, natural gas, solar, and wind organizations, including one nuclear energy proposal. 

GUS maintained a disciplined strategy of evaluating the proposals first by lowest overall costs, including adjustments for projected transmission congestion risks, and including the potential cost impact of carbon and other regulatory risks.  An important part of the process was the review of potential environmental liabilities. For example, power producers using coal as a fuel were very insistent in having GUS assume future environmental liabilities.

In the end, wind providers, who were facing expiring tax breaks in 2013, offered the lowest power prices in an attempt to secure project financing prior to federal tax benefit deadlines.  GUS selected a wind farm based in the Texas Panhandle.  The wind farm’s output would cover GUS’ load in the overnight hours during most months, but did not cover all of the daytime hours.  GUS entered into a 20-year contract at one of the lowest price-points available in the market over the past 25 years.

A second supply contract was needed to cover the remainder of GUS’ load: the highest peak daytime hours, especially during late summer.

In 2014, GUS launched a second RFP aimed at proposals to cover those peak power needs.  At that time, GUS was entering a market where solar modules were rapidly falling in cost, dropping prices to historically low levels.  GUS found that both solar and natural gas producers offered equitable pricing, but GUS opted for a solar contract based on its fixed price certainty, and based on the additional benefit of regulatory risk mitigation.

Another crucial attribute for GUS was that both solar and wind resources avoid the consumption of large amounts of water that are required by fossil fuel generation.   

Solar and wind resources are an incredibly complementary match.  Daytime hours, which comprise the strongest period for solar production, are the weakest period for wind production, whereas wind production starts to increase during the late afternoon and keeps increasing late into the night.  And, importantly, this combination of complementary production supply profiles matches the load demand profile in Texas.

The outcome of GUS’ resource planning and purchase process is that solar and wind supplies proved to be the least expensive available, with the added bonuses of avoiding substantial water consumption and avoiding potential cost risks from carbon, particulates, and mercury regulations.  

The City of Georgetown opted for contract solutions that will be 100 percent renewable starting in 2017; solutions that are energy effective, cost efficient, and green -- better for the city's and its taxpayers' bottom line, and better for the environment.

© Copyright 2016 Enterprise Risk Consulting, LLC