We’re LIVE! at Danville City Hall for the first meeting of the Steering Committee for the Electric Services Assessment. This committee is to “determine how best to cost-effectively serve current and future needs of Danville Utilities electric customers and the City of Danville and maintain progress in transforming the area’s economic base.”
We’re not sure what will happen, but we’ll be covering it LIVE! Be sure to refresh the page often for the latest happenings, commentary and photos. The meeting will start at 4:00 PM.
Fred Shanks, John Gilstrap and Gary Miller are the three members from Danville City Council.
Interim Director of Utilities Jason Grey, and City Manager Joe King.
This committee will meet 8 times up until February. Some options could be privatizing some or all of the electric division, adding generation capability or changing the service territory.
165 employees in Danville Utilities. Danville Utilities is the largest of all Virginia municipal-owned utilities. Danville Utilities also makes a $2 million payment to the city for administrative services.
Utility Chairman Phillip Smith, members Mike Nicholas and Bill Donohue are also members of this committee. 52% of Danville Utilities revenue comes from customers.
$4.3 million a month from residential, $2.1 million from commercial & $1 million from industrial is the average monthly revenue for Danville Utilities.
Phillip Smith seems to understand the utilty business. The other two members of the utility commission didn’t seem to understand how electricity makes its way goes from power plant to the customers. This presentation should be presented to the Utility Commission yearly.
We’re learning about the power plants that Danville partially owns through American Municipal Power. I’ll add more on this in the editing process.
I know a lot about energy costs, purchasing and transmission because of learning it from a previous job but I’m really surprised that the two other members of the utility commission don’t know this stuff. I do give them for asking questions, though.
Back to rate discussion. Danville is higher than AEP or Dominion for now, but their rates will be going up soon. Residential complaints have a lot to do with energy efficiency of Danville homes.
We wrap up this “All About Danville Utilities” meeting and I’m not really sure why this committee was formed. Today’s presentation was something that I expected all utility commission members to know and quite frankly, City Council members should know this too. Especially since it brings $12 million into the city’s general fund.
I don’t want people to think I’m being too hard on Mike Nicholas and Bill Donohue. I guess I’m being too optimistic thinking that they should have been fully knowledgeable of today’s presentation.
Here’s the problem that I’ve got with this. We’re going to superpower three city council and three utility commission members with all this information while a consulting firm is going to be doing their own thing. In February, they’ll sit down and tell the Utility Commission what they think is the right thing to do.
The committee is “going in with an open mind” and that’s good… but they’re still going to be highly influenced by the consulting firm’s recommendation. And let’s face it, that consulting firm will know a hell of a lot more than anybody else will.
I’m looking forward to seven more lessons or what this process is all about, but I don’t feel that these committee meetings are going to have anything to do with the final decision.
Based on the mission statement in the first paragraph, sounds like there should be two committees rather than one. The second half of the mission statement “maintain progress in transforming the area’s economic base” needs a committee of it’s own.
Will there ever be a conversation about generating our own electricity from the Dan River? That is free energy, right here. We even have a dam in place…few cities can boast those advantages.
It has been discussed several times. The Dan River isn’t strong enough to generate any meaningful amount of power. We have a facility further up the river in Patrick County and it generates enough power for about 2% of demand. It would be great if we could use the river but it’s just not cost effective. Getting power from a plant on our side of the grid would be ideal. That would cut down on the congestion fees and transfer costs we currently incur by getting our power from Ohio and the Northeast. But ALL options will be looked at, which is the point of the study.
Blueridge has a point, these things could be developed if a priority was placed on it. At least a real consideration to alternate methods. Leave it to Vogler to chime in with the pinpoint data. Can we trust anything you say at this point? If this topic turns controversial he will disappear like the ice bucket challenge, or throw his fellow councilman under the bus.
He’s on target with this one. Not enough water volume to make the numbers work.
“Straight Shooter”, what’s your real name? I have enough guts to stand by what I say. Do you? Just another keyboard warrior.
Why do you want my real name? Why do you even care? It has nothing to do with your lack of prowess as a politician. Blueridge gave wonderful additional insight, why don’t you take that information and research it. You don’t get to be a authority on matters just because you are a politician. Especially since you are just representing info that was “given to you”. Now as it relates to guts, You know you don’t have any, where were your guts when you flipped on the flag issue? Put your guts on display for this wonderful blog, It deserves it especially since you have time to comment on topics. What is your opinion on it? Should it stay or go inside? Put your guts on line the line and answer that. We know you wont though. It could get in the way of your future political aspirations. If the population among whites and black were not so close we would already have your answer. Keyboard Warrior signing off….
WATER POWER IN DANVILLE
Water power is not new, and put Danville on the map, with textile industry…it is clean, and we are missing millions of electrical watts that wash down the river, daily. Water power, they told me in Geology 101, can be generated every 20 feet of ”fall” in elevation.
Water power is clean, renewable energy…to ignore that PURCHASE power from Ohio and the Northeast seems to be stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime. How long can we ignore the elephant in the room?
I am glad that the issue is being ”studied”…but ask any hydraulic engineer, and you will find that the subject was pretty lined out in the 1890’s..there is little more understood and unchangeable than the immense power of water on Earth.
One source I looked up on the net today said: “Modern hydro turbines can convert as much as 90% of the available energy into electricity. The best fossil fuel plants are only about 50% efficient. In the US , hydropower is produced for an average of 0.7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). This is about one-third the cost of using fossil fuel or nuclear and one-sixth the cost of using natural gas,” as long as the costs for removing the dam and the silt it traps are not included. Efficiency could be further increased by refurbishing hydroelectric equipment. An improvement of only 1% would supply electricity to an additional 300,000 households.”
I believe that you are seriously in error about water power not being ”cost effective”…
Let us look again at the river that put Danville on the map in the first place.
Blueridge
Again, these aren’t my opinions. They are what was told to me. But as I mentioned, ALL options are being studied.
Nothing in his response refutes the facts presented to you that the Dan isn’t powerful enough. He’s spouting off about how great hydro power is, and I agree, IF we had a river capable of powering the hydro turbines.
[…] Hall for the third Utilities Steering Committee meeting today at 4 PM. We’ve had coverage of Meeting #1 and Meeting #2 as we covered them LIVE! Today’s meeting will feature a presentation from […]