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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 Public Services Commission (PSC) April 8, 2025 · 0.9 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/1nsckqd2rE8 Status This is NOT the official transcript. 3 V.I.C. § 884 requires the agency itself to make a verbatim record of its proceedings and reduce it to a transcript within sixty days. This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of the proceeding, offered as a finding aid. Transcribed by VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person. Reliability Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. 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All right, so I'm on switch, okay, so that's which we should be able to set some time. 0:00:00 good morning again we're back in regular session the commission was an executive session where we discussed legal issues personal issues and proprietary information no decisions were made or votes taken so now we're back on our agenda for 8 8 2025. next item on the agenda is the consent agenda who speaks to that matter good morning brenda connor accounts for maintenance officer um today we would like to enter an assessment on the following docket 669 broadband vi in the amount of 1330.47 6. good morning i'll start out um mr chair and commissioners um i'm gonna ask and request that we table the um staff the psc staff report on the rate case simply because we are in fact still working on the details of um contracting the hearing examiner and consultants uh we are working we are in the process of uh reviewing all of our um um submittals we have in fact um identified uh proposed um hearing examiner for that case but we are still working on um finalizing the agreements and the scope so um we request that this matter be the report from the psc staff be table until our next meeting are there any objections to that there is none it is so ordered I don't know if you realize you're a doctor. I have a thank you. You can ask students. Walk on the back, reach out to that. 0:00:58 Who speaks to that? please raise their right hands to be sworn in please solemnly affirm that the testimony and evidence you're about to give us the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so thank you please state your full name for the record carl knight ceo executive director of water and power authority um not much to um proceed with here mr chairman um i guess i'll i'll wait for the question staff or the commission may have we have executed um we have one battery contract um if that is what the commission is referring to at the petronella site we have the energy uh storage agreement with the irapsy that operates the petronella solar farm on the island of St. Croix. That battery agreement is a lease where we lease the batteries and we pay five and a half cents per kilowatt hour when the batteries are discharged. 0:03:23 the typical function for that um that uh battery is to smooth out fluctuations in in uh the energy production from the farm in the course of the day so as cloud cover haze uh dust um interferes with the access to sunlight um those batteries sort of smooth out those fluctuations and in the evenings that the any excess power is discharged onto the grid which allows us to sort of shift that power generation from daytime resource into the early evening hours like i said once it's discharging if 0:04:47 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 1 of 7 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 any power comes off the battery at five and a half cents a kilowatt hour um i don't know if there are specific questions um related to this particular item that the commissioner of the staff may have. Mr. Hughes, do you have any questions? Yeah, I got a couple. Thank you, Director Knight. I tried to read through that contract a couple nights ago and got a thought and understanding of the economic terms. You have a lease payment, could that easily just kind of be viewed as a capital lease obligation, like 25 years of leasing? I presume so. We do have a long-term lease of long-term arrangement for the lease of those batteries that runs concurrent with the PPA. Okay. No, no escalation in that lease. I didn't, it didn't seem to be. Okay. The, the power that goes into that battery, you have a PPA, you pay 10.8 cents or thereabouts a kilowatt for everything you take directly off the field uh and directly onto onto your transmission system the stuff that you bypass the direct interconnect and and instead uh direct into the batteries you don't you don't pay for that power at the 10.8 to put it in the batteries do you no we do not okay so you pay when you take it back out at 5.5 ish that's correct okay um and those those facilities are under your direct control so you get to determine the schedule of how how much you want to put in how much you want to take out when you want to do it that's correct does that pretty much sum up the economic terms of the battery side of this you got the pba on one side and you got the battery with the lease payment and the i guess the discharge pricing that is that it in terms of money changing hands yes essentially that is the um the structure of the payment terms with uh by rapsi for the uh petronella solar farm there's a meter that meters the discharge from the solar farm so we're built for the megawatt hours coming off the solar farm there's a meter that meters the discharge from the batteries and so so on the solar farm we are billed at 10.9 cents a kilowatt hour coming off the batteries were filled at five and a half cents per kilowatt hour and that's a separate meter and then there is the uh the monthly lease um to for for the batteries that's how many three components of their uh of the cost structure i i would imagine that we'll pretty quickly evolve into a steady state where WAPA knows how it wants to use those batteries on a monthly basis, 0:06:04 the dispatch of them, if you will. I'm very interested in how much power we're taking off on a monthly basis under the PPA and how much power we're taking off under that 5.5 so that we can kind of figure out what our net cost of solar is in the territory. How long do you think it'll be until you guys have kind of evolved into a steady state of how you're going to use those two facilities i think we're almost there not the two facilities i think we're almost there at petronella hugginsburg is still i was i was referring to the petronella ppa versus the petronella battery contract so oh yeah um we're pretty much um rounding into what i would consider to be um a steady state we um we experimented with some different operating conditions uh over the last uh couple months um i think we we have an idea of the best way of discharging um both facilities um and uh having an understanding of what we can expect particularly on the battery side so we've been able to get fairly consistent 10 megawatts of power from the solar farm um the batteries and what's available for discharge uh i think we have a good understanding of what that looks like and um we've also we also have a good understanding of how much support those batteries can provide during during uh the daytime um when we have club cover events so i think uh the operational staff has enough uh hours under their belt with professional farm to kind of have a understanding of how how it's uh how it's working um of course this is um seasonal so as we head into the summer months the days are a little bit longer um you know so we'll make those adjustments for more solar resource as we head into the longer days we've been operating so far on some of the shorter days of the year and so that that's just 0:08:19 a minor tweak um but i think we have a good idea of how to forecast that good so the uh we're about to bring Hogan's Borg online of course a little larger field different battery configuration will the structure of the battery con I didn't read that one I figured it was very similar in structure just differences in probably the lease payment and and perhaps how you use it because it it has better capabilities for you in terms of discharge so yeah the structure is going to be fairly identical to what we did with Petronella we from my experience that has um although that was negotiated just prior to my onboarding my experience with it it's working the way I would need it to work and so the Hugginsburg agreement is going to be patterned off of what we've done with Petronella um so with very minor tweaks but the pricing is the same etc um when we get the projects in st thomas we might uh try and find a way to maybe ultimately i'd like to incorporate those into the power purchase agreement um instead of having it standing out by itself but that's something that we can do after the fact retracted okay so these being metered um metered capacities i would really like that in your monthly meetings with our staff that you'd be able to report um those numbers to them um i think it's a really useful number because it helps us uh determine the exact cost per kilowatt of of renewables in the territory uh because those as those come forward instead of having to wait for liac every three months we can we can have our staff tracking um the outputs of those facilities um we haven't really ever designed with you you're still very new we haven't really designed a kpi or a a waterfall uh report between you and the commission but this is certainly one piece of what we'd love to see 0:10:24 together with monthly sales data monthly generation data that type of thing sure no problem thank you thanks chair yes good morning mr knight are you uh are you making timely payments on those um solar providers yes um we are making timely payments to our arrangements with inter energy as you know should know vmr energy did sell their interest to 0:12:32 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 7 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 inter energy um we are staying current there was some arrearage that had been accumulated previously but we are staying current with our payments to um uh new owners enter energy and we are also current with uh the rapsi on the petronella so far so that includes everybody yes everybody mr knight who owns the arrearage inner energy or vmr that's still to be worked out as far as i know I know it's BMR. Should I mean we're still gonna get a check with POC? I endeavor to do so. Certainly I had hopes to come in with some good news this morning, but not quite there. But yes, we are going to, as I think I committed to last month, do our best to make our obligations. We'll have our concerns. There's still some discussions perhaps better suited for off the record, but certainly we will do our best to keep up with the obligations as we can. I have a question, and I don't know who's best to answer this, but we'll provide it with, attorney Spade, three contracts, correct? Is that what you sent us? Two contracts and I think a side letter was what the third document was. Are you referring to the addendum, the amendment as a side letter? I believe so. Well, let me tell you what my concern and question is. I saw two agreements for Petronella and Hugginsburg signed with VIE Electron. Yes. 0:13:52 And then there was this amendment that was between Petronella Solar LLC and WAPA. And I wasn't sure what was the connection because that's the one with Petronella Solar LLC is making reference to on the line agreement, but I haven't seen that. So I wasn't sure where Petronella Solar came into the picture. And I would also know that there's no year that addendum. So I'm not, it's not a material issue, but I just noted that as I was reading the document. So I'm trying to figure out what is the connection between Petronella Solar LLC and VIE Electron and this on-the-line contract that this addendum is making reference to. 0:14:56 so as with um as with the solar farm uh industry so duno was originally land coast then it was nrg then it was bmr and it was inter energy um developer of the project was vi electron my understanding i think the next assignment was to a non-profit called vi rapsi and then there was an assignment to what i believe was being referred to as pensionella solar swap but there's been a couple of seconds of um transfer the assets to to other entities so the electric electron is no longer the um the owner of the farm they have assigned their interest in the farm to i believe most recent owners is the question of their absolute it's catching but as an entity that we should inform from here on until it's assigned to somebody else and I think a similar similar assignments were done with Hugginsburg so um I try to be careful it's no longer via Electron it's now Hugginsburg Solar LLC or whatever the name it is similar principles uh the no the similar principles of VI Rapsi so VI Rapsi is a is a non-profit entity um that now owns as far as i understand they own petronella solar and hogginsburg solar which is different principles than the original um developer vi electron i guess that's a better question for mr loranger but it's unclear to me as the developer for the project what he's gotten out of it because i'm pretty sure he didn't get paid to make that transfer that's a question for for the principles it's not okay we just buy the power good 0:15:47 and our relationship is working well yes um we have found that to be a productive relationship especially as it relates to interconnection agreements which could be a difficult negotiation um how how is cost shared how is it born um you know our preferences as far as points of connection things that could have unraveled our ability to really engage with this power purchase agreement um i found that our negotiations with the developer have been very fruitful and they have been very uh supportive of our um the challenges that we would have and have met us halfway with So I'm pleased with how that has gone, and I hope I can send that signal that as we negotiate the other interconnection agreements for St. Thomas and St. John, hopefully we can keep that same cordiality amongst our entities. Thank you, sir. Any other questions from Mr. Knight? Yes. What percentage of your total production is provided by solar? 0:17:50 That's a number I need to have, I don't know if Mrs. Lavernier has an answer. What I can tell you is right now at peak we're producing 14 megawatts of solar on St. Roy with a peak of about 41 megawatts at peak. And then on St. Thomas we still have 5 megawatts out of a peak of about 63 megawatts. I haven't, I don't have handy with me megawatt, megawatt hour comparison as to total generation versus that, but I can certainly put that in a report as we compile the megawatt hour data at Michelle Hughes' request, we can certainly start to break down those numbers. 0:19:00 Would you provide us with that information for the last two months? Last two months? Sure. total total output and then the output from solar all right we move to the next item walker fuel contract no we requested them and they provided the two extension agreements following our last meeting we forwarded those to you that was all i was going to say we uh we're about to execute on the um fuel contract with fearless oil we've um come to terms with them and they're substantially completed with the drafting of the contract So we should have that executed, I'd say within five business days, and we are, we finalize our procurement for the replacement to the VTOL contract that finalized that yesterday and we should start publicly advertising that this upcoming Monday. These contracts have taken into consideration of the beginning of the hurricane season and made provisions for... 0:19:41 Yeah, so our dependency on diesel is much reduced. And I actually think we'll be able to build some inventory in our tanks as a result. As long as we don't have hiccups in a propane system that requires to burn diesel, we should start to slowly build some inventory as we head into hurricane season. On the LPG side, one of the final insertions into the 0:21:18 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 3 of 7 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 document since we last spoke was a criterion that spoke to sourcing fuel i think 70 000 barrels within a 72-hour sale of the u.s virgin islands trying to have storage someplace in close proximity that we can access in an emergency and that was in in consideration for disruptions that might be caused by storms or whatever else that might confront us so we're asking for providing additional scoring points to proposals that can offer a storage solution within a 72-hour sale for merchandise commissioner hughes you have any questions i'd like to see the rfq um at least concurrent with when it goes public um the rfp just to see you know what we're asking people to bid on and how it's being how it's being qualified all right is that it yeah you uh i'm sorry didn't have a great transmission uh mr knight of your your first statement you're negotiating uh a consultancy agreement what's the did you end up did you end up uh engaging a fuel consultant yes we have a fuel consultant um we've had that have that on board for last uh two three months uh what i the earlier statement was we're finalizing our contract with peerless oil on the diesel the fuel oil number two side of the of the inventory so that arrangement is being finalized um and then i spoke to procurement for the lpg contract we've had some discussion about the fuel consultant and whether or not the psc needs to engage their own i think we had agreed that to the extent that we could live vicariously off of your uh relationship that we we wouldn't need to do that i still am unclear whether or not we need to do that who is your consultant caribbean utility uh corporation caribbean utility services local company uh international company which tell us about them a little bit It's a regional, regional company. It's a regional company. The principals have former relationships with Wartzilla, with Karolek, but they've been in the oil and gas business in the region for going on probably over 20 years or so, as far as I can tell. Are there any, I mean, any individuals related to this consultancy that are former, current or former employees of the authority? No, not that I'm aware of. None of the principals that I've met are employed or former employees of the authority, and I'm pretty sure that that's the case. Okay, thank you. 0:23:50 I'm sorry, the name again of the company? Rebaribian Utility Corp or Services? Services. How'd you find them, by the way? Questions? There, we had a, I'll call it an incident, but we had a point last, last fall where we had a shortage One of the vessels that VTOL provides was going into dry dock for repairs. 0:25:18 We had a period of time when we thought we would not be able to supply LPG to our plants. As you know, we no longer have an exclusive arrangement, VTOL, to provide fuel. So we took the opportunity to try to source fuel through other potential providers. company was one that did ultimately respond trying to align us with a propane supplier they we ultimately were able to get the vessel turned and didn't have to pull the trigger but through that relationship and conversations i became familiar there was a prior consultant that i think prior management had sought to engage that consultant chose not to take the engagement before this uh for this contract and so plan b we approached uh caribbean utility services to um uh see if they were interested in providing support and they were this is different than carolac uh caribbean association of electric service this is not this is not carolac um but the uh the principal of the company i think served as an executive director or board member of carolick for many years where they headquartered they're out of uh is it trinidad You concluded, Commissioner Hughes? Nothing further, Chair. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Knight. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is Dr. 620, advanced quality status update. Is Mr. Hart on the line? 0:25:56 Go ahead. You're right there. Do you solemnly affirm that the testimony and evidence you're about to give us is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you God? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Please state your full name for the record. good morning commissioners just wanted to give you an update as requested today uh wanted to talk just briefly for a minute in the last few weeks we've had a substantial conversation regarding the interconnection study with a number of the including Sergeant Mundy, WAPA, Mike Wynn, and the NREL folks as well as our own. There's been discussion about mostly in technical nature has to do with the EMT modeling data and the software that's suitable for that. There were discussion about grid requirements, grid codes, also the certifications that are needed for the turbines and so forth most of that that was for the engineers and mostly in a technical nature so I just wanted to mention that I know that's not listed on the agenda I do want to turn to the 0:28:06 agenda now we're talking about financing and permitting we are working with a number of underwriters both private and public one of the underwriters we've been working with is the U.S. Department of Energy, their Title 17 Clean Energy Program, Category 1706. We have been engaged with them for well over a year now. We're making good progress. The project has been received very positively with the DOE officials. It's a two-step process. 0:29:55 have uh we are in the second half of the process uh but we're in under what they refer as the technical review process uh we've provided all the uh documentation that's been required uh that that deals with uh just what it says the technical matters they also look at uh other things with uh greenhouse gas reduction they look at the current uh power generation mix and a number of items already existing and what role that the that the wind turbines will play in that we also in working through the part two step that basically consists of the underwriters reviewing the project once it meets review requirements then we would go to term sheet negotiations my formal commitment a couple of reasons that we're dealing 0:30:32 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 4 of 7 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 with the doe is that they have long-term funding but mostly they have a very competitive rate for interest for the project because of the pass-through feature that we have and the transparency under the ppa agreement uh that uh that brings significant savings to the to the u.s uh community rate payers and so uh you know we are talking about probably an estimated time frame to finish that process i would estimate six to nine months but we're working with them to accelerate that we're looking at other the possibilities to to increase the uh the shortened the time frame uh there are some challenges that we're facing with all the lending uh and i'll just uh touch on it at a high level uh obviously everyone is aware of the challenges that wapa presents from a uh based on their payment history uh the earnest the recent earnest and young report was uh not particularly helpful but it didn't really change our position or the underwriters it did share some details that were not necessarily known before but it also brought out the fact of the importance of getting the project that we're working on and done in the role that it plays to to be part of the solution pardon me as a part of that strategy that was ongoing and working with our underwriters has been to de-risk the project from a financial and insurance standpoint frankly uh i will talk a little bit more about the de-risking of the uh financing part but uh there's a number of items that we're working on or strategies to de-risk it to provide payment assurance for the project because underwriters it doesn't matter whether it's the private or the or the doe or the government underwriters they're all asking for uh a strategy that we can provide assurance for payment they don't want to come in and provide capital for the project and not have timely payments so there's a number of things that we're working on they're not necessarily something uh today that i could share in a public forum i'm happy to visit with commission in closed session or privately one-on-one we certainly will need the support of the psc as we move forward with some of these strategies not all of them would be some that may be suitable some of them uh so i want to i also want to mention that part of the conditions that we're facing i was in washington back in december met with the doe officials at that time it wasn't entirely clear with the transition that we have with the current presidential administration obviously there's been a lot of heartburn if you will in washington dc from a federal agency standpoint i know that the president announced an energy emergency on day one for january 20th the doe and our contacts have remained steadfast they continue to encourage us to move forward with the project they like the project so we're confident that we're going to move forward we're not asking for a giveaway or grant we're talking about a project that they understand delivers real savings and value to the uh to the community and so it's viable in that sense so the other thing i want to touch on right quick is the fact that we have been also we've been working on some areas of the permitting we're not as far along on that as i would like to be our focus has been on the underwriting side but we have done some preliminary permitting we're also working with some of the local stakeholders bioimpact and others as we move forward in that direction so we just know that we continue to work every day and the focus is to get the project completed on time and and sooner rather than later so be happy to address any questions or uh comments that you might have uh you did eventually get your your lease through 0:32:44 the senate right that's all done yes sir we did i'm sorry i didn't mention that yes we did we have the site leases for both uh st croix and and st thomas yes sir do you have current zoning issues with with the sites that have to be submitted back through no sir so the the current properties that you have are properly zoned you just have to get through the permitting process per se yes sir yes sir thank you thank you mr hart appreciate it oh um could you maybe just describe it's not clear to me how doe is involved because you mentioned in the same comment that you you were talking with, I want to say, private third-party lenders on a DOE program. Is this a loan guarantee, a loan forgiveness? How does this work? No, it's not a loan forgiveness. 0:35:47 What we're working with, obviously, there are loan-to-cost ratios for the DOE, and part of the private lenders that we're working with, we're basically talking about bridge lending, utilizing leveraging the investment tax credits or the ITC to meet that requirement so that we can qualify for the DOE portion of it. We have lenders that have committed for that portion of it, but they want to make certain that the DOE is there and available for takeout or backstop. We can't actually monetize the investment tax credits till the project reaches a commercial operation date after after completion so we have to have that portion that interim portion handled by the private sector and thank you chair nothing further before I go to Commissioner McGrath I wanted to follow up on the zoning question Azar when you first went to the legislature with the lease wasn't there zoning issue not that I'm aware of I know that at one time and I'm trying to I don't recall the gentleman's name, the head of the DPNR. There was a issue, but that was, we worked through it. And I'm sorry, I don't have my notes in front of me, but my understanding is that they had approved the zoning for the purpose intended. 0:36:40 All right. Attorney Spreen, do you remember that? Wasn't there an issue that ex-official Joseph that indicated that there was still a zoning issue with this. There was a question regarding a portion of the property. Yes, there was a question and I was intended to follow up with them on that one. I don't know the answer to the question. It was a question about the zoning on a part of the property, not being clear that it permitted wind generation activity. so yes i'll follow up with mr hart make sure that it is addressed well i mean it's hard to say that it isn't a zoning issue so maybe it's been rectified but i was always under the impression that you still have to get some sort of rezoning or variance or something like that but if 0:38:09 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 7 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 you feel you don't need it i assume that's up to you and your legal team but you may want to double check that issue we will we certainly we certainly want to be in compliance with any any requirements for sure i know that dpnr has been going through a lot of steps with their comprehensive land use planning and that may be addressing the concern that we had when the lease was pending so we'll verify those two documents as well all right i have nothing further thank you mr hart staff do you have any questions no not for mr hart i think we will follow up with mr hart regarding that that question uh thank you for your presentation your excuse next item is ast clean tech good morning mr chairman commissioners this is jason here thank you for the invite to update you um on the status of the saint john energy from waste can you hold up hold a minute please you have to be sworn good morning please raise your right hand do you solemnly affirm that the testimony and evidence you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so hope you got i do thank you please state your full name for the record full name is jason levescont thank you you may proceed sir thank you mr chairman um item a in the status update for the land lease agreement uh we're currently finalizing the application uh sincerely appreciate the help from the public services commission particularly mr sprain for uh putting us in touch with the right uh persons in within the property and procurement department particularly assistant commissioner Richards and Ms. Dalam Singh. 0:40:19 So we hope to submit that application within by the end of the week. On the, I'll switch to item C, which is WAPA status progress. We had a meeting in person in St. Thomas on the 26th of March with Mr. Carl Knight the c-suite team that we're just currently uh presenting in summary of that meeting uh mr knight and the c-suite team are very much in full support of the project um they committed to progressing the ppa uh with that respect however um mr knight mentioned that uh he wanted to see a true reflection on the cost per kilowatt for the project in the value that it created and that was basically pending a tripartite meeting between ourselves uh wapa and waste management authority such that the actual value created by not having to transport waste off of the island is truly reflected in ultimately the cost per kilowatt But that's important in terms of understanding as we scale once we embark on the project on St. Thomas and then ultimately on St. Croix. So I've had a discussion with Mr. Griffith. 0:41:12 He has committed to a discussion with Mr. Knight prior to a meeting that was arranged next week but it's just been pushed to uh the 25th of april uh to conclude that and and that also entails uh item b uh which is also pending the discussion with uh waste management authority as far as the supply agreement is concerned so that will all be entailed uh within that discussion with that i open it to any questions you mentioned the scaling of the project um assuming we can get this going to st john you'd like to to address uh some of our issues in st thomas and st croix um the commission's likely to have an opinion on where you go first um since we do regulate both the waste management authority and the power authority and are well aware of the issues that we're trying to solve for both of them on both islands so just just keep in mind that i don't know that the assumption would be that you go first to st thomas who has a new generation system and a functioning landfill that uh that isn't under consent to close uh as opposed to st croix that has a landfill that is full has to close and has old generation that that needs supplementation um i would like you to be aware that this process of getting through property procurement on the best day seems to take forever um any any lease that goes through property procurement has to eventually be signed by the governor the attorney general and the president of the senate and whereas it seems like it would be simple to execute a simple land lease mr hart just spent two years trying to get that done um with the full support of the governor so mr richards was the principal involved in that exercise and it could take you a fair amount of time to get that done sir just be aware it's not a simple process here in the territory 0:42:50 As much as we tried to help and expedite that process, we still were not successful at the PSE in getting it done in what anyone thought was a reasonable time frame. You mentioned that your triparty discussion with waste management and the power authority somewhat hinges on the transportation costs of waste off of the island. That sounds to me like tipping fee which is fine but but in our prior conversations we weren't really all that concerned with the economic consideration at waste management so much as just a simple ppa with for the power at the power and power authority that has changed i wouldn't say that it it has changed ultimately the the strategy behind st john is it's significantly small scale that um neither the tipping fee uh nor the sales of kilowatts are appreciable but it is an opportunity to gather data um and to be able to model what a scaled up version would look like um but i i think mr knight has a good point um in terms of there's a parameter that isn't adequately assessed in this which is a unique situation of st john which is just a transfer site moving waste off of the islands that is costing somewhere in the region of 2.8 million dollars uh that he would like to see captured somewhere so your um your economic model has both the the ppa for power and presumably a tipping fee which i'm fine with it makes sense you're you're diverting um you're diverting municipal solid waste off of our landfill and that typically justifies some recovery by you of the costs that you save us um we regulate both utilities independently and you're going to need to get both that ppa and any revenue arrangement you make with waste management approved by this commission not a tough process but we're not i think going to want to encumber mr knight with costs um we we 0:45:03 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 7 Public Services Commission (PSC) · PSC Regular Meeting - Tuesday, April 08, 2025 we tend to like these things to be standalone so you know what whatever it makes sense for mr knight to pay you for the power is a function of mr knight's business not not waste management's business it's it's good that you need to know those for your own internal business model but we're we're probably not interested at the psc and having you co co-mingle those those revenue streams um because we we've got an answer to two different ratepayer bases here so if you can keep the economics of that directed in the direction of the utility you're dealing with mr knight can decide what he wants to pay you for the power and he can come to the psc and see if we agree or we can set the rate which we did in in the ppa agreements for solar and wind um it really is a rate consideration mr knight should be answering the technical and interconnection questions and the psc should be answering the rate question so you might want to involve attorney sprain or our staff members in that discussion i i don't know why wapa thinks that that it should determine that rate um because we wait we make rates in the territory they don't um so i'd like our people to be on that on that discussion um because ultimately we have to agree that they can recover that through the liac same with waste management appreciate that commissioner hughes and uh i'm joined with uh dan levine who's also on the call i don't know dan if you have anything to add to that and no i don't thank you how are you doing with the local st john community um so we did meet um with um the community um mrs megan um excuse me uh uh forgotten her last name uh love city strong and uh very supportive of the the whole concept of what we were doing um of course we would have follow-up meetings closer to the project uh execution um with them to keep them abreast of uh everything that we're doing and we did also meet with the recycling uh folks adjacent to the intended uh facility site which is just to the north of the waste management authority transfer site um they had a lot of questions uh we answered those questions haven't had any feedback uh from those folks but there's a lot of um symbiotic relationship that can be had between uh their activities in this recycling area and also the waste management authority transfer area of course i would imagine and speculate that you'll find out if you have any real local issues when you try and get this lease through the senate approval process that's when that will surface for you the true resistance to the project if there is any um so good luck thank you thank you chair nothing nothing further johnny spain um good 0:48:51 Good morning, Mr. Leviscount, Floyd Sprayne here. I apologize that when you were on island a few months ago, I was off island that we didn't get a chance to meet, but I did want to invite you to contact me and we can set up a call, preferably before your next meeting with Waste Management and WAPA. I would like to have the opportunity to discuss a few of those issues on pricing and rate structure with you with both Waste Management and WAPA. I hope I can offer some useful insights to you and help move this process along. Thank you, I much appreciate your support, Mr. Sprain. We're also supported by Ms. Munro as well, who is following all of the journey that we have to go through to get all of these pieces in place. Okay, that was my only comment, I look forward to speaking with you soon. 0:50:57 all right thank you for your presentation and good luck thank you that brings us to you thank you sir good to see you guys hopefully briefly maybe in may all right 0:51:56 People named in this transcript SUSPECTED, and a finding aid only. Names were matched by machine against the spellings used across all 426 of our transcripts, and the title is the one used in the room. Being named here is NOT evidence that a person attended or spoke · only that the name was said. Speech recognition mishears names, so a spelling may be wrong even where no alternative is offered. 2x Commissioner Clement McGrath heard in this transcript as: McGrath 2x Commissioner David Hughes heard in this transcript as: Hughes Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 7