From: Sam Berndt
To: cityclerk
Subject: MSC Public Comment 4/8/25, Agenda Item 2: Feasible Plans to Achieve Carbon Free Electricity by 2030 & Issues with Cost Data
Date: Tuesday, April 8, 2025 12:08:12 PM
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Hello,
My name is Sam Berndt, a Technical Advisory Panel member for the Optimized Strategic Plan.
E3 has modeled scenarios that show that the resource portfolios needed to achieve the goals of Resolution 9977 are in fact feasible under two of the groupings of scenarios displayed: 1) under normal operating conditions, where Glenarm is retained in the case the Goodrich n-1 contingency comes into play, and 2) by replacing Glenarm with solar and storage.
The first of which should be seen as a salient political milestone, achieving our goal under normal operating conditions, while we then continue to deploy solar and storage to mitigate Glenarm out of existence.
Drawing attention now to the cost figures displayed on slide 20. During the Integrated Resource Plan, the cost data came from a publicly available source, the National Renewable Energy Lab’s Annual Technology Baseline.
If we compare the latest NREL ATB data
for our region to the cost provided by E3, we find
the following discrepancies:
Resource Type E3 Average
Estimated Cost
($/MWh)
NREL Average
Levelized Cost of
Electricity ($/MWh)
Percent Increase
Compared NREL
Residential Solar $140 - $180 ($160) $72 - $124 ($98) 63% Non-Residential
Solar
$100 - $122 ($110) $48 - $84 ($66) 67%
Utility Scale Solar $30 - $50 ($40) $24 - $43 ($33.5) 19% In-State Wind $50 - $80 ($60) $21 - $72 ($46.5) 29%
On average, E3’s cost data is 44% higher than NREL’s highly regarded public database.
Please keep in mind this additional cost sensitivity when regarding the financial feasibility of these plans.
Thank you, Sam Berndt