ECA To Host 15th Annual Legislative Meet & Greet

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1 Volume XIV, Issue 1 January 2014 ECA To Host 15th Annual Legislative Meet & Greet While the Alabama State Legislature is in full swing, Electric Cities of Alabama (ECA) is preparing for the 15th Annual Legislative Meeting and Greet Reception next week, February 4, in Montgomery, Ala. With a host of statewide and local elected officials expected to attend, ECA has set the stage for an informational afternoon and entertaining evening IN THIS ISSUE ECA to Host 15th Annual Legislative Meet & Greet...1 Frosty Conditions Leave Utility Workers to Restore Power to Impacted Areas...2 Athens and Guntersville Win Quality of Life Awards City of Fairhope City Council President Jack Burrell (L) with Fairhope Mayor Tim Kant, Governor Robert Bentley, and Fairhope Public Utilities Electric Superintendent Scott Sligh at ECA s 2013 Legislative Meet and Greet. do, said ECA Executive Director, Jonathan Hand. The reception will take place from 5-6:30 p.m. at the RSA Plaza Terrace located at 770 Washington Ave. Invited elected officials include Alabama s Legislature, State Constitutional Officers and Judiciary Officials. ECA would like to encourage its member cities to make every effort to participate in the day s activities as it is extremely important to communicate with members of the Alabama Legislature. ECA to Distribute 2014 Membership Directory...3 ECA Trivia Grid...3 TVA Sets Single Day Record for Electricity Demand...4 Cantor Lays Out January Legislative Agenda...4 ECA Executive Director Jonathan Hand with Lt. Governor Kay Ivey at ECA s 2013 Meet & Greet Reception. for all who attend. This Montgomery Board Meeting and Legislative Meet and Greet Receptions is a great way to show our elected officials how supportive we are for all they ECA members attend the Board of Directors meeting prior to the 2013 Legislative Meet & Greet Reception.

2 Frosty Conditions Leave Utility Workers to Restore Power to Impacted Areas Fairhope street crews spread sand over an icy Fels Avenue on Wednesday, Jan. 29, (Marc D. Anderson/ Source: Theresa Seiger, al.com Power crews, dealing with downed lines and high demand for electricity, have restored power to more than 10,000 customers after outages were reported across southwest Alabama on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. At 2 p.m., Alabama Power was still dealing with approximately 30 outages concentrated in the Atmore area, said spokeswoman Beth Thomas. The company spent most of Wednesday morning dealing with issues at a substation and repairing downed power lines, Thomas said. The company has responded to reports of outages affected Member News approximately 14,000 customers in the Mobile area, marking the area as the hardest hit by cold weather outages. We ve certainly had issues with ice, Thomas said. We ve had to make repairs to some of the power lines because of that. A majority of the company s outages across the state have been reported in Mobile in the wake of an icy winter storm, according to numbers from Alabama Power. Around 7:40 a.m., Mobile saw it s largest reported blackout with 9,600 customers in the midtown and downtown areas without power for approximately 45 minutes, Thomas said. Power was restored in those areas by about 8:30 a.m., Thomas said. It was transmission problem at one of our substations, Thomas said. The substation was not the same one effected in the last round of cold weather to hit Mobile in early January, she said. Throughout the day there could be additional outages with power lines going down and other issues, Thomas said. We know people are looking at the snow -- you know, there re kids out -- and we remind them to stay away from downed lines. Thomas joined area authorities in asking drivers to stay off the icy roads. It s a lot easier for us to navigate when there aren t accidents (on the roads), Thomas said. In Baldwin County, Riviera Utilities is dealing with downed lines in Bon Secour. Around 8:50 a.m., the utility reported 311 were without power in the area after a pole and a wire went down in the town. Hampered by the cold weather conditions, crews were able to restore power to a majority of customers in that area around 10:30 a.m., according to the company. According to numbers from Alabama Power, 13,600 of the utility s customers statewide were without power on Wednesday morning. The majority of the outages were reported in the Mobile area. Athens and Guntersville Win Quality of Life Awards By Steve Doyle, al.com The cities of Athens and Guntersville are the winners of the 2013 Quality of Life awards from the Alabama League of Municipalities. The awards, which will be handed out during the organization s annual convention in Mobile this spring, recognize successful, innovative local government projects that improve the quality of life in Alabama s towns and cities. Athens won in the big-city category (population over 12,001) for retrofitting garbage trucks and some other municipal vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, Continued on next page... January 2014 Electric Cities Connected Page 2

3 ECA to Distribute 2014 Directory Uniting Alabama s Electric Cities 2014 Directory ECA is excited to release this year s Membership Directory. We will begin distributing the 2014 Membership Directory as early as mid February, with everyone receiving their directory by early March. If you would like additional copies of the directory, they can be purchased for $45.00 by contacting the ECA office at (334) or by ing Andrea Salvador at asalvador@ electriccities.org. You can also request an electronic version for your desktop. Athens and Guntersville Win Quality of Life Awards (Continued) which costs less than gasoline and is also better for the environment. Athens says it has saved more than $76,000 in fuel costs so far by using CNG in three garbage trucks, three Dodge pick-up trucks, a Honda civic and five Chevorlet Tahoes. After opening two slow-fill CNG stations for municipal vehicles, the Athens Gas Department built a $614,360 fast-fill station along Interstate 65 that is open to the public - the only station of its kind between Birmingham and Nashville. The League of Municipalities says Athens is currently in discussions with local school systems about converting buses to run on compressed natural gas. Guntersville won in the midsized city category (population 5,001 to 12,000) for a publicprivate partnership that turned a fire-damaged portion of the downtown historic district into a new park and entertainment venue. Named for Errol Allan, ECA Trivia Grid In 2012, the world s longest electric transmission line was under construction in what country? Be the first to the correct answer to Andrea Salvador at asalvador@electriccities.org and win a $25.00 gift card. Good Luck! Last month s winner was Lisa Hanks of Fairhope. Lisa answered that a kilowatt is the unit of power equal to one thousand watts. a retired educator and arts patron who bought the land and later donated it to the city, the park includes a timberframe structure, fountain, new sidewalks and street lamps, and extensive landscaping. It is now home to the Mountain Valley Arts Council s summer concert series as well as regular Movies in the Park sponsored by the public library. Said the League of Municipalities: This historically vibrant area has literally emerged from the ashes of tragedy and desolation to be reborn as an open-air entertainment park that has become the cultural heart of the historic downtown district. Huntsville won honorable mention in the big-city category for a citywide obesity awareness campaign called the Healthy Huntsville Initiative that involves City Hall, Huntsville Hospital, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, the city school system and Madison County Health Department. January 2014 Electric Cities Connected Page 3

4 TVA Sets Single-Day Record for Electricity Demand Source: al.com Story by Paul Gattis KNOXVILLE, Tennessee - TVA announced earlier this month that it set a single-day record for electricity use on Tuesday, January 7, a day after the fourth-highest demand in one day on Monday, January 6. Consumers across the sevenstate TVA footprint used 703 gigawatt-hours of electricity on that Tuesday, breaking the record of 701 gigawatt-hours on Jan. 8, On Monday, consumers used 678 gigawatt-hours. TVA met those energy requirements by working closely with local power companies, customers who could conserve electricity on request during high demand periods and in-house and voluntary conservation efforts, the utility said in the announcement. TVA also relied on its diversified portfolio of electric generating sources. To meet the 32,460-megawatt peak load on Tuesday, TVA received 28 percent of its power from coal-fired plants, 21 percent from nuclear plants, 14 percent from combined cycle natural gas plants, 11 percent from hydroelectric dams, 10 percent from conventional gas turbines, 2 percent from wind farms and 13 percent from power market purchases. Cantor Lays Out January Legislative Agenda Cantor, center, outlined the House s January legislative agenda on Friday. (Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call File Photo) Source: Roll Call Story by: Emma Dumain The U.S. House of Representatives will have a busy January judging by the lengthy legislative agenda Majority Leader Eric Cantor circulated among his colleagues earlier this month. The Virginia Republican s memo, obtained by 218, lays out the obvious items of business: passing conference reports for the farm bill and for legislation funding the nation s water programs, plus an appropriations bill for the remainder of fiscal The GOP-run House will also continue to assail the president s health care law, starting next week with a measure to address potential security breaches on HealthCare. gov. Cantor released a memo on that specific priority. Cantor also told lawmakers to familiarize themselves with other initiatives that could come to the floor in the weeks ahead, such as a possible Iran sanctions resolution that has been on the back-burner since late last year. Iran remains perhaps the most significant national security threat facing the United States and its closest allies. Its determined pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability and support for terrorism and instability must be stopped, Cantor wrote. It is my hope that the House, in a bipartisan manner, can express our concerns about Iran s aggression and state our position on what a comprehensive settlement of the nuclear issue should look like. The House is also expected to act on legislation aimed at regulatory red tape that Republicans blame for curbing job creation and economic growth. Cantor has his sights on a package of bills drafted by GOP Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Ohio Republicans Bill Johnson and Bob Latta aimed at improving the federal and state relationship when dealing with hazardous waste and overhauling the Environmental Protection Agency s regulatory process. Removing barriers to job creation imposed by the federal government remains a priority, Cantor wrote. As 2014 marches closer to Election Day, Cantor gave a small flavor of what lawmakers can expect to vote on after January. Several outstanding issues may be brought to the floor over the next few months, including: the Intelligence authorization, flood insurance, as well as legislation related to trade and immigration, Cantor noted. We can also expect action on the statutory debt ceiling some time during the first part of the year. January 2014 Electric Cities Connected Page 4

5 THE INFORMATION SOURCE OF THE ELECTRIC CITIES OF ALABAMA P.O. Box 1550 Montgomery, AL South Perry St., Suite 200 Montgomery, AL Phone: Fax: Calendar of Events February 4, 2014 Board of Directors Meeting/ Legislative Meet & Greet Reception RSA Plaza Terrace Montgomery, AL March 11-13, 2014 ECA Washington DC Legislative Rally Renaissance Mayflower Washington, DC July 6, 2014 ECA Board of Directors Meeting Perdido Beach Resort Orange Beach, AL July 6-8, 2014 ECA Annual Meeting and Governmental Affairs Conference Perdido Beach Resort Orange Beach, AL THE ELECTRIC CITIES OF ALABAMA IS A COALITION OF THE STATE S MUNICIPALLY OWNED AND OPERATED ELECTRIC SYSTEMS. ALABAMA S ELECTRIC CITIES SERVE APPROXIMATELY ONE MILLION CONSUMERS IN 36 CITIES THROUGHOUT ALABAMA. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: JONATHAN HAND - JHAND@ELECTRICCITIES.ORG DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATION & MARKETING: ANDREA SALVADOR - ASALVADOR@ELECTRICCITIES.ORG Washington D.C. Legislative Rally March 11-13, 2014 The Mayflower Hotel Washington, D.C. October 20-22, 2014 ECA Engineering & Operations Conference Ross Bridge Hoover, AL January 2014 Electric Cities Connected Page 5