Generation

PLEASE INVEST IN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Nebraska Interfaith Power & Light understands the need for new generation to meet projected growth. We appreciate the fact that the majority of the proposed new generation will be wind and solar, but we are very concerned that the new generation will result in rate increases of approximately 10 % over several years, in addition to other rate increases.

These rate increases will fall particularly hard on low-income customers, many of whom are already dealing with many other burdens, including inflation, substandard housing, pollution and social justice challenges. These concerns are magnified by the fact that most of the new generation will be used to power commercial and industrial development, particularly data centers for mega corporations like Google and Facebook.
OPPD’s customers in the North Omaha area have the highest percentage of people with the worst energy burden. The energy burden they face is due to multiple factors including lower average incomes and poorly insulated housing with inefficient heating and cooling systems. That area also has the highest percentage of people with asthma and numerous other health challenges which are aggravated by air pollution from the North Omaha coal plant and other environmental contaminants. The challenges facing the North Omaha community are also evidence of the shameful legacy of racial policies that Black residents have confronted for generations.

On the other hand, OPPD has stated an intention to address the energy burden faced by thousands of its lower income customers because of the high percentage of household income needed to pay utility bills. In an attempt to address this issue, OPPD has begun a pilot program that provides $30-40 per month to customers who have a high energy burden. However, that program has only reached a fraction of the low-income customers it was supposed to reach.

We believe that OPPD has an opportunity to address these environmental justice issues by making investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy in communities with a high energy burden such as North and South Omaha. Funds from OPPD could be used to leverage funds from the federal Inflation Reduction Act and economic development funds from the state to reduce energy consumption, lower people’s utility bills and make their homes safer and more comfortable. Such investments would help OPPD meet several of their goals, including reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, addressing energy burdens of their low-income customers, and creating jobs and economic opportunities for the community. It would be a win for OPPD, for the people of these communities and the environment.

Instead of only investing in utility scale generation, please also invest in environmental justice.

I am grateful for the Board and staff leadership making big changes to energy generation. It is essential that we all do our part. Unprecedented fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and rising sea levels, all partially caused by burning fossil fuel need immediate, not delayed response. Commitment to PWP helps. I suggest establishing specific goals to cut emissions currently and on, before 2050 when it is too late. Incentives and more efforts should be done to reduce demand-side consumption. Increased energy efficiency and conservation are called for as the cheapest and best options for further implementation. Yes, implement geothermal, but not from gas or oil sources. Increase the battery storage component. Address the coal burning harm to North Omaha residents faster. Do not further harm low income customers, like the current administrative fees already do and assign it high priority. Shifting costs of higher rates to residential low income people, for new generation to power high usage data centers, seems unjust. Thank you for addressing the challenges you face in caring out these tasks. Thank you for the opportunity to express my views.

This proposal needs more consideration. The large anticipated increase in generation demand and consequent infrastructure costs from previous estimates is being driven foremost by data centers. These, in turn, are being pushed by more cloud services, and especially by generative AI. I have read in several publications that computational demand to train and support the AI is increasing exponentially with a doubling rate of under four months. Even if this is an overestimate, it greatly exceeds Moore's Law. Such growth, if supported by OPPD, will quickly swamp any other goal the utility has. The companies whose business model is to provide rapidly expanding cloud and generative AI service at a nominal cost should fund this through their own borrowing. The burden should not be allowed to fall on OPPD ratepayers, since the services these companies provide will largely be exported to other users. The OPPD board and management should look out for their already established users, and protect lower income ratepayers in particular.

I think that any new generation required by data center expansion should be tied to the actual costs accrued from generation capacity expansion by OPPD. This should be done by establishing a demand-based tariff that applies to new data center capacity. Planning for increased generation demand should only proceed once such a tariff has been established. Otherwise, OPPD will be in a hopeless race to provide new capacity for an insatiable demand, at the expense of the rest of the system. Let the driver for new capacity pay the cost for that capacity.

“The demand for more power” is the central concern. Taking the longer view it seems that the demand must be for less power. Really using less power in general. More conservation. Prioritizing what we consider essential and figuring out how to get by with less. Decentralizing. Preparing ourselves for power interruptions as we learn to live with less need for generated power.
We can think about what we are willing to sacrifice or we can wait and be surprised.
If we keep to the current plan, more people and other species will be harmed, perhaps irrevocably. Ever expanding dependence on electricity as fossil fuels are phased out can still lead to environmental disasters. The alternative we need most is the alternative of using less power.

I appreciate the efforts of OPPD's employees and Board members during the extremely complex process of transitioning to clean, renewable, and affordable energy.

Please consider the evidence that the rate of natural gas and oil production in the U.S. will inevitably peak on a date yet unknown, and then begin a terminal decline. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report

Like diamonds, anyone will always be able to buy as much fuel as they can afford. OPPD can always pass along its fuel costs to customers, so I hope that OPPD will greatly expand its subsidies for energy efficiency improvements at customer sites whenever doing so reduces OPPD's expenses more than it increases OPPD's investments in subsidies. Consider implementing an On-Bill Financing program for energy efficiency improvements. Doing so will help OPPD customers to be able to continue paying their OPPD bills, and help to assure that OPPD's supply of electrical energy from renewable energy systems ramps up as fast as affordable natural gas and oil supplies ramp down.

OPPD board: Vote NO on the near-term generation recommendation!

The answer to FAQs No. 4: “How much of this growth is driven by data centers?”, doesn’t answer the question asked other than: “OPPD is seeing growth in all customer classes, including a sizable increase in data centers.”

The rest of the answer is: “Our service territory is thriving with new residents and businesses of all sizes being added all the time. Data centers are increasingly necessary to power our lives every day. Each time you save something to ‘the cloud,’ buy something online or check social media, a data center is making that possible. We anticipate this trend of increasing load will continue as electricity becomes an even more integral part of people’s lives.”

A “sizable increase in data centers” … that’s it? How about a number, like data centers represent (or will represent) ... a quarter of the anticipated growth? Or one-third of the growth? Or is it half? Two-thirds? Seventy-five percent? Ninety percent? What is it? OPPD is a political subdivision of the State of Nebraska. As such, more transparency, candor and openness than this is expected of government.

OPPD has different classes of customers, including residential, commercial and industrial. The justification, taken from OPPD’s website (https://www.oppd.com/business/business-rates/), is: “Different customer classes have different needs. The costs for OPPD to serve customers varies based on electrical needs and consumption. As a result, OPPD has several business rates.”

If Google and Facebook demand net zero carbon power (needs), and are such large customers (consumption), OPPD’s own reasoning justifies a different rate structure for them that accounts for their needs and consumption. So don’t shift data center needs and consumption onto other OPPD ratepayers, especially residential, and don’t use the reasoning of everyone saves things to the cloud, shops online and uses social media. “Everyone” also uses many of the products and services of OPPD commercial and industrial ratepayers as well so why is that being cited here in this context?

And do not spend tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on public relations/advertising campaigns and other initiatives undertaken to change public opinion on the issue or engineer consent.

OPPD board: Vote NO on the near-term generation recommendation.

No on investing in Wind/Solar! The manufacturing of materials for the panels is Incredibly damaging to the environment (mining, processing - the US stopped it which is why all the materials now come form China) and only puts us more reliant on china for the metals required (china laughing all the way ot the bank and we are paying and paying). And the manufacturing of the wind blades is equally damaging - and the business case (if you would not use taxpaayer dollars which you sem to think are infinite) could never be made. We have abundance of natural,clean burning natural gas yet we are not investing in that to meet our growing needs - why? That business case can easilty be made - the cost is significantly less that solar/wind. Just raise our rates and you can buy anything - do a business case study vice letting the environmentalists drive our housohold budgets into the grounds and make us as a country less self sufficint. Tired of paying more for less - electicty cost keeps going up. Please, be better stewards than this proposal of our dollars.

I strongly oppose the Near Term Generation recommendation and urge Board members to vote NO. First, OPPD clearly has known about this for months and obviously has been in discussions with data centers who are looking to build here for months. OPPD management has been discussing this with board members (behind closed doors) for months. Yet they give the public less than a month to respond to a DRAFT resolution. The final resolution won’t be made public till Tuesday, giving the public ONE DAY to read, comprehend, and contact their board representative. No public hearings, meetings (credit to Director Williams for holding one, but he was the ONLY one), not even a public zoom call. Once again, OPPD has demonstrated their complete and total lack of public engagement. Next time, engage the public at least three months before a board vote. There is No reason a vote is needed in June. It can wait till August or even September. If OPPD truly wants to add 2.5GW of power, then they need to devote the same level of public engagement as they did with power with purpose, pathway to decarbonization, and the last IRP combined.

With the VERY limited information OPPD has shared with the public, it appears that vast majority of growth is in the “industrial” sector, i.e. new data centers. I have no issue with new renewable energy generation (i.e. wind or solar) being added to the OPPD generation fleet to power these data centers, but the cost of new generation should be paid for by the new data centers not the general public or other OPPD customer-owners. Secondly, the opportunity to purchase renewable energy should go to both the high energy consumers (i.e. data centers) and all other OPPD customer-owners. Third, if any new generation is built that harms the environment or environmental quality of the district, i.e. any fossil fuel generation, then emission mitigation strategies must be implemented and approved by the board of directors. Energy burden communities, and economically disadvantaged communities must not be stuck with the negative impacts of OPPD’s increase in fleet generation as they have been in both the recent and long-term past.

In addition, before any new generation is to be considered, contracted, or even release for proposal, the remaining 519 MW of solar energy promised under the Power with a Purchase must be built or at least under construction. Furthermore, the 300 MW of demand management, also promised under PwP, must also be realized. OPPD management has a long history of not living up to their promises.

I'm frustrated that OPPD closed an incredible reliable nuclear power plant recently. You brag about your forecasting efforts yet caution us about blackouts should e-vehicles place significant demand on an obsolete grid. Stop with the green energy nonsense. Drill baby, drill. Build nuclear power, build.

I feel many of the parts of the Near Term Generation is not good for Omaha, the environment, or the safety of the nation. I am asking for a No vote on the Near Term Recommendation.

The environmental aspects of the slide show do not present the total impact on the environment. To produce many of the components of solar and wind requires many minerals that need to be mined. Much of this mining is being done outside of the United States (mostly China) that have much less restrictive practices than the United States. Much of this mining is strip mining, taking away much vegetation. The energy used to mine these minerals is not clean either, which produces much carbon. The pollutants generated from the mining, export, and recycling would outweigh the pollutants generated from the clean coal and natural gas plants we have in the United States.

Another environmental aspect not considered is the waste of used turbine blades and solar panels. Much of the chemicals in solar components are very difficult to separate. It's like trying to unscramble an egg. Any recycling processes currently in use are very cost prohibitive to be useful. Thus, many of the turbine blades and solar panels would be landfilled. This would also produce an environmental hazard. Many chemicals in solar panels are heavy metals, such as lead. The parts of a clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear plant are much more recyclable at a much lower cost.

Economic factors would include the amount of land wind and solar farms would take. Here in Nebraska, it could take away many valuable tillable acres to raise food for the world. Wind and solar are very inefficient for the amount of power generated and weather issues. Under many different weather conditions, wind and / or solar would be unusable. A coal, natural gas, or nuclear generator would produce much more power, under almost ANY conditions.

Many of the components for solar are mined in other countries, such as China. While we have many mineral deposits in the United States, the Government has prevented this mining. Therefore, we would rely much more on foreign countries for the minerals we would need. Many of these countries are not allies of with United States and cannot be relied upon.

Economically, environmentally, reliability, and sustainability options all lead to nuclear. It has been proven to be clean and safe. Wind and solar truly hurt the environment more than it improves, when ALL of the factors are taken into consideration for production and disposal.

OPPD has constantly raised our rates for a lot of years. You do not need another reason to raise them further. Vote No on the Near Term Recommendation. Find ways to keep from constantly raising our rates. Electric bill for almost any other community in Iowa are not near as high as Omaha.

Most, if not all, climate models and predictions have not been accurate. I would hope that OPPD is not using these inaccurate models and virtue signaling data centers to make energy policy for our future energy needs. If these data centers are driving your decisions about our future needs, then those companies should pay, not the residential customer.

Wind and solar are expensive and unreliable. If OPPD truly wants reliable net zero energy production, then nuclear power should be a part of our energy generation.

Please vote No on the Near Term Recommendation. Thank you mrjensen

I see in the questions that you are still studying nuclear. That is good. 5th generation modular units or similar (reactors that use spent fuel would be great). If we are really serious about net zero, nuclear is really the only reliable, power dense solution currently available. Wind and solar take a lot of area for the energy produced and are not 24/7, 365. I have seen the wind turbines in Iowa not spinning at all on a spring day. Converting existing coal plants to gas is a good initial approach. Closing plants does not make sense.

For all the talk about how solar is clean and renewable, solar panels in their current state last 7-10 years. Over time, they get damaged, pitted, and less efficient meaning you have to replace them constantly. Does this mean that we're going to get gouged for a 10% hike every 7 years so they can start replacing the lagging panels? And it requires very specialized technicians to work on these. Where are we going to find those people? Tell me this isn't crazy: a hailstorm comes through and damages a ton of panels, of course, they are covered by insurance, but then the insurance rates for those are going to go up, and oh the deductible! More rate hikes! Vote No on this never-ending spiral of higher rates and not that renewable energy. Where do all the broken panels go?

If google and Facebook and other energy sucking oligarchs are using too much electricty to power your electric grid and you need to build more plants to generate electricity why would you make the long standing good customers pay for there electricity usage? It seems like a very socialist way for you to make additions to your massive portfolio. Please ask google and the other oligarchs to pay for the expantion and dont ask 11% from me and my community. Also stop closing your electricity producing plants you do have to make different electricity generating plants. You spent a Billion dollars

Since this is Omaha PUBLIC Power District, I'm just wondering which part of the public is asking for this. I'm not necessarily against other ways to generate power, but to raise everyone's rates by 10% is outrageous. We don't get a choice on our power provider so it's not like I can go somewhere else. I don't need my rates raised and I don't need unreliable solar or wind. Put your efforts into expanding nuclear power which has proven time and again that it is the cleanest and most reliable way to generate power. Take a look at California and all of its requirements to be "Net Zero" to see how this is going to go. Rolling blackouts and outrageously high prices. I don't know how anyone can afford to live there.

No one asked for this here, no one needs this, and I think it's time for some local people to get positions on OPPD's board. Why do we have all these West and East Coast people making the decisions for us? Nothing here represents Nebraska values and nothing here helps people in Nebraska in any way. Vote No on this and vote No on any idea that just burdens the people with higher prices to make us look greener. The green we care about is the green in our fields and the green in our wallets. I say again, vote No.

I oppose any plan which results in a rate increase because of subsidies for wind and solar energy. OPPD should never have gotten rid of nuclear energy and should continue to promote natural gas. Mark Heavrin

I strongly oppose the Near Term Generation recommendation and urge Board members to vote NO.

As many, many people have already pointed out, a majority of the projected demand is from data centers. Since the centers’ parent companies claim they are/will be fully powered by renewable energy,
the recommended amount of new fossil fuel generation is incommensurate with the projected demand.

Additionally, the Board Committee Meeting slides do not show how this recommendation is congruent with OPPD’s existing commitment to reach net zero carbon by 2050. On slide 29, emissions drop between 2026-2027 but then plateau through the final projection in 2032—there is no evidence to indicate that emissions under the recommendation will reach net zero between 2032-2050. Slide 28 says, “Modeling output indicates that renewables will continue serving an increasing portion of new energy requirements (>90%),” but there does not appear to be any corresponding data that substantiates this claim. I realize this recommendation is only for Near Term Generation, but OPPD has not shown clear congruence with the requirement to reach net zero by 2050.

I appreciate the need to balance multiple and complicated considerations. However, the bottom line is that any projects must clearly demonstrate adherence to the science-based requirement for OPPD to be net zero by 2050. This recommendation fails to meet that standard and should therefore be rejected.

While my previous comments posted on the Community Connects forum still stand, I have been able to have many conversations that have deepened my understanding of the complex issue of increased electrification and how to meet the demand, and I would like to add a request that the resolution put forth at next week's Board meeting include date specific timelines and resource milestones for renewables (and storage). I believe this provision will help instill public confidence that renewables will be built, and give the Board a metric that will allow them to carry out the Board's "duty of oversight".

I still would like to see at least one interim metric for emissions reductions between now and 2050, preferably some time in the mid 2030's. While I understand setting this goal (similar to the NOS goal), may be difficult at this time, perhaps adding a statement to the resolution that an additional interim metric for the reduction of emissions will be added to SD-7 by 2026 would move the conversation in the right direction. Thank you. Katherine Finnegan

OPPD Policy SD-2 states:

1 Maintain fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory rates as required by Neb. Rev. Stat. section 70-655; and

2. *Equitably* assign costs across and within all customer classes.

As I see it, 90% of the costs of solar and wind energy should be assigned to the data centers and not to residential customers.

David D. Begley
Customer-owner

At an absolute bare minimum, OPPD's customer-owners must be informed if this proposed 10% rate increase is for all three classes of customers. I see no evidence that the majority of OPPD's residential customers are demanding high cost and unreliable solar and wind power. We better get this information at the June 15, 2023 Board meeting. Isn't transparency a goal of OPPD?

BTW, the Antarctic ice shelves are growing and Artic ice is also growing. So why does OPPD want to spend $2b plus on a non-existent problem?

David D. Begley
Customer-owner