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Boulder report finds city could dramatically reduce greenhouse gases, keep rates flat, by £.. Page 2 of 3 The November 2011 ballot measures set limiting requirements in the city charter that must be met • before City Council could proceed. These included provisions related to rates, revenue sufficiency and reliability, as well as plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase renewable sources of energy. A summer 2011 telephone survey found that Boulder voters supported creation of a city-owned electric utility by a wide margin and that residents overwhelmingly wanted a reduction in carbon emissions. Seventy -one percent of survey respondents said they supported municipalization and said they thought the city would be better than Xcel Energy at offering renewable sources of energy and at reducing carbon emissions. In its latest study, city staff looked at six different scenarios: 1. A baseline option that keeps Xcel as the city's supplier, using current rates; 2. A phased -in approach to municipal power, using a five -year purchased power agreement with Xcel, then allowing the city to enter agreements with other suppliers; 3. A low -cost option that would have 25 percent of the mix be coal -fired power in 2017; 4. A second low -cost generation option that excludes coal; 5. A low - greenhouse -gas option based on power supply purchases; and 6. A low- greenhouse -gas option that would include investment in local energy - efficiency efforts. One of the surprising findings is that in four of the six scenarios, the city is projected to exceed the greenhouse gas reduction goals set by the Kyoto treaty, said Jonathan Koehn, regional sustainability coordinator. A fifth scenario met and exceeded the Kyoto goals in year five, he told the Feb. 26 City Council work session. The only scenario that failed to meet the Kyoto greenhouse gas emission goals • was the "status quo" option that assumes that the city keeps Xcel Energy as its supplier (with no change in that company's power supply plans). Even under the low -cost option, "we got a surprising amount of greenhouse gas reduction," said Koehn. "It is astounding to see how much we could reduce emissions." The city said that under some of the options analyzed, a municipal electric utility would meet the charter metrics and have a high likelihood of being able to: • Offer all three major customer classes (residential, commercial and industrial) lower rates than what they would pay Xcel, not just on day one, as required by the city charter, but on average over 20 years; • Maintain or exceed current levels of system reliability and emergency response; • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 percent from current levels and exceed the Kyoto Protocol target in year one; • Obtain 54 percent or more of its electricity from renewable resources; and • Create "a model public electric utility with leading -edge innovations in reliability, energy efficiency, renewable energy, related economic development and customer service." The report also examines the impact that a variety of stranded cost and acquisition cost rulings could have on rates and revenue requirements over 20 years. "Boulderites always have walked their own path," the city says on its website. "Paddled their own • kayak. Marched to the their own music. And they're known for doing it skillfully. Why should it be any different with our electricity supply ?" http: / /www.naylometwork.com/ app -ppd /articles /print- V2.asp ?aid= 208951 3/6/2013