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The Grand Marais PUC met on Wednesday, February 3, and greeted Tracy Benson as a new board member. The PUC Board is now made up of Ann Posis, Tracy Benson, and the city council liaison, Craig Schulte. Ann Posis was voted chair for 2021.
Sustainability Coordinator Shane Steele asked the board to approve a policy and rules update from Minnesota concerning cogeneration and small power plant facilities.
Steele said the material was developed with the help of the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association (MMUA). He noted that the Grand Marais Public utility processes and distributes energy resource interconnection requests through the NOVA Power Portal, which complies with the updated policy. In part, the resolution read, “Whereas, the purpose of this Distributed Energy Resource and Net Metering Policy is to establish the qualifications criteria and certain responsibilities for the delivery, interconnection, metering, and purchase of electricity from distributed generation facilities.”
This rule is essentially for people who produce solar power in the city and share that power on the Grand Marais grid, said City Administrator Mike Roth. “The net affect is that they buy more power than they make but if they make more power than they buy, this policy talks about how they will be reimbursed.”
Roth said the city might pay in the hundreds of dollars per year to individuals who produce solar power, but he added, “Generally we don’t pay people at all.”
Currently the city pays solar generation at the retail rate, but if 50 to 100 people start producing solar energy in the city, the policy will have to be re-addressed because the city’s current pay rate is too generous, Roth said.
The board agreed to approve Steel’s request.
City Administrator Mike Roth addressed the cities COVID-19 Late Fee and Shutoff Policy. Roth said one of the actions taken early in the COVID-19 pandemic was to stop charging late fees and shutting customers off for non-payment. He added that most utilities across the state voluntarily did the same thing rather than have the state create a rule.
Out of the city’s 1290 utility accounts, 24 have a past due balance above $1,000. Six have a balance above $3,000, and eleven have not made a payment since May.
When comparing last year’s overdue account to this year, Roth showed a graph with 2019 and 2020 figures. The December 2019 past due amount was $66,037.83. Roth noted that the April 2019 past due amount and 2020 April past due amount was almost identical, with each at about $42,000.
However, said Roth, at some point the PUC board will need to start charging late fees and shutting off customers for non-payment.
“A natural time to consider this, said Roth, would be for billing to end in April after the Cold Weather protection expires,” he said, and added, “the board could give customers some lead time if they intended to change anytime soon.” He then asked the board to consider the following:
Does the state of the pandemic emergency still call for late fees and shutoff relief?
“When late fees are reinstated, should the entire past due balance be charged?
“Should businesses be treated differently than residential customers?
“When is the right time to begin charging late fees and shutting off for non-payment?”
The board left the meeting with those thoughts and will decide on them at the next meeting.
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