City of Lake Worth vs. FMPA

Comment Up
Today is the day that the City of Lake Worth meets with FMPA (on their turf) to discuss the law suit filed against them on April 15, 2011 by Lake Worth. Click here to read the Agenda that begins at 11am.

What triggered this law suit by the City was the day that we gave notice to exit All Requirements FMPA in December 2008. At that point, FMPA retaliated and said that they were no longer going to pay us the $60,000+ a month for the natural gas pipeline that we had built. This resulted in a law suit. The Contract required that we purchase power from FMPA for five years after giving notice to exit.

Sue Hersey, owner of Energy Advantage Consulting, was retained by the City and signed a contract for $413,400 to advise us and write an RFP to find a traditional power supplier. It was said that ending the FMPA power-supply agreement would save the city about $11 million annually and would reduce power bills by at least 15 percent for the utility's 25,000 customers.

At the time, Ms. Hersey said that since we own our asset and that all was in good condition because it has been maintained, the best plan of action is to maintain local generation for reliability, exit FMPA, run our transmission studies, do an RFP for long-term capacity and energy purchases and highly consider a Stand Alone operation with the LM6000.

The objectives are as follows:

1. Maintain retail electric rates below the average cost of all providers in Florida
2. Provide stable electric rates and continue to offer programs to help customers useelectricity efficiently
   
3. Promote limited use of renewable energy resources into power supply plans without causing electric rates to increase by more than 10%
4. Achieve the best value for the City of Lake Worth by acceptance of diverse term limit proposals (3, 5, 10, 20 yrs) that allow responders the latitude to develop creative submittals that coordinate submitter assets and City needs.
5. Provide additional service for City of Lake Worth customers through the consideration of value added services offered with bid submittals. Value added services could include additional audit programs, marketing, key account assistance, rate analysis services, etc.
   
6. Mitigate rate volatility by seeking power supply offers that include a diverse fuel supply mix including nuclear, coal, gas and oil, with limited coal exposure not greater than current level from Stanton I ownership
   
7. Ensure maximum bid participation by allowing responders a wide range of response options, to include but not be limited to submittals for asset ownership, purchase power agreements, and partnership proposals
8. Improve the reliability of the City of Lake Worth system and enhance network transmission service from FPL by seeking an additional interconnection location (tie-line)
9. Obtain a power supply that meets operating flexibility requirements of FPL NetworkTransmission tariffs
   
10. Maintain control of Lake Worth Electric

On another note, Mary Lindsey, someone who has taken a keen interest over the years to become very informed on our Utility and probably knows more about it than any "lay" person in this City, is a first-class example for dispelling the notion that those working in certain professions (so called qualified people) are the only ones who are capable in rendering good, solid opinions as volunteers on the Planning & Zoning board. She has spoken for professionals relative to that board but recently advocated for a citizens volunteer Utility Board without the requirement of professional qualifications. She organized a bus load of citizens who traveled to Orlando at 7am to listen to the law suit discussions at the FMPA headquarters.