The Nebraska Public Power District held its September 12-13, 2007, Board of Directors’ meeting in Columbus, Neb. The next Board of Directors’ meeting will be held Wednesday and Thursday, October 10-11, 2007, in Columbus.
Guests at the meeting included Jim Marlin of Fulbright & Jaworski, Sylvain Mansier of UBS Investment Bank, and Jack Tamagni of Castleton Partners.
The Board approved one capital project for the procurement of a spare turbine generator moisture separator valve at Cooper Nuclear Station (CNS) for $200,000. A contract was also awarded to Carolina Energy Solutions, Inc., for welding and rigging services for the feedwater heaters at CNS for $2,098,950. Another contract for the refueling outage and maintenance and modification support services (craft personnel) at CNS was awarded to The Atlantic Group for a base bid of $16,040,438.
The following engineer certificates for CNS were approved: the procurement of digital control system for the main turbines; turbine generator maintenance parts and labor; spare moisture separator relief valve; and spare motor operated valve actuators. A contract was also awarded to Team One, LLC, for an estimated amount of $1,699,990 to provide for the rental of scaffolding material and equipment at CNS; an amendment with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP for an estimated amount of $127,000 to provide for legal services for the licensing department at CNS, an agreement with Conco Systems, Inc., for an estimated amount of $394,917 for condenser tube and eddy current testing, inspection and cleaning services at CNS; and an agreement with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency for support of the CNS Emergency Response Plan for an estimated amount of $158,000.
Bids were rejected for a one-year maintenance contract at the Ainsworth Wind Energy Facility. A resolution was approved to proceed with negotiations with landowners for the procurement of Right-of-Way easements which will be used to construct the pipeline that will discharge process wastewater and cooling water from the Sheldon Station to the Big Blue River. An agreement with Colorado State University was approved for an estimated amount of $137,200 for the development of a physical scale model of the Sutherland Reservoir outlet gates to investigate the issue of water flow turbulence. Also approved was a Domestic Energy Research and Application Initiative Project for a compressed air pilot project that will estimate system wide potential and program costs and benefits for savings in an industrial plant’s utility costs.
The Board accepted NPPD’s July 2007 financial statements. Traci Bender, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, reported that the District ended July with a surplus of $5.8 million. The year-to-date surplus through July is $11.3 million. The Board authorized management to issue approximately $311 million of General Revenue Bonds to be used for the purpose of financing various 2007 capital projects for generation and transmission needs and to refinance, at a savings of $10.8 million, over $200 million of debt originally issued in 1998.
The following capital project were approved: construction of a new 115 kV line at Columbus-ADM for $2,444,535; the purchase of a bucket truck at Lexington for $150,000; a transmission digger derrick for Lincoln/Norfolk for $440,000; a digger derrick at South Sioux City for $269,000; the replacement of a bucket truck/aerial device at Scottsbluff for $147,227; replacement of a bucket truck/aerial device at Norfolk for $147,227; transmission semi-tractor replacement at York for $147,000; replacement of a four drum puller at York for $171,000; the replacement of the existing T2 transformer at North Platte for $166,200; the addition of a second transformer bay at Pine Ridge for $456,225; the addition of a third feeder at Pine Ridge for $685,331; and a subtransmission line addition at Pine Ridge for $163,120.
The Board rejected bids to purchase a pre-fabricated substation control building with associated control panels, and management was authorized to negotiate with bidders who meet the technical requirements. A contract was awarded to Tiede’s Line Construction for a base bid of $685,039 for the Pine Ridge substation rebuild, distribution feeder construction and 34.5 kV sub-transmission line construction. Also approved was a contract for the purchase of 6,233 electricity meters. This contract was awarded in seven parts as follows: Part I to Kriz Davis for $7,488; Part II to Dutton-Lainson for $479,063, Part III to Graybar Electric Company for $29,931; Part IV to Kriz-Davis Company in the amount of $5,600; Part V to Graybar Electric Company for $12,276.36; Part VI to Graybar Electric Company in the amount of $112,456.26; and Part VII to Dutton-Lainson Company for $42,029.12.
A contract was awarded to Power Consulting Associates to provide for construction inspection staff augmentation services in the amount of $840,000, and a resolution was approved for the sale of an office building in downtown Aurora to Thomas G. Cornwell and Elizabeth R. Cornwell in the amount of $49,000. Also approved were Employee Benefit Program changes for 2008.
The Board recognized the retirements of Harry E. Heath, Senior Contract & Analysis Specialist at the York Operations Center, and Gerald “Steve” McClure, Business Advisor at the Columbus General Office.
