Board reviews draft Electric Coordination Agreement and 24‑month power-pool budget; Foxtail Flats and contract terms remain uncertain

The Los Alamos County Board of Public Utilities on May 7 received an update on the draft Power and Energy Coordination Agreement (commonly shortened to ECA), the associated statement of work and operating procedures, and the county’s 24‑month power-pool budget. Staff said the draft ECA documents are under Department of Energy and internal procurement review and that certain contract terms and procurement-related language remain to be finalized.

Ben Ulbert, Deputy Utility Manager for Power Supply and Operations, summarized four decades of contract modifications and said the county and DOE had scrubbed the document set to consolidate prior amendments. Ulbert described several substantive items in the draft documents under review: removal of the county’s NERC transmission-operator requirement because the county is now classified as a distribution operator; updates and clarifications to billing and operational calculations in the operating procedures; and additions and removals of approved resources (for example, the draft removes some older resources such as San Juan Generating Station while retaining decommissioning language as appropriate, and adds Foxtail Flats as a planned resource). Ulbert said the DOE/contracting side is preparing the terms-and-conditions and that the county expects the remaining terms and conditions to be available in the coming months.

Board members raised questions about schedule and scope. Several members asked whether the DOE/LANL side had provided an allocation of capacity from planned transmission upgrades and Ulbert said the county had not yet had those discussions. Members also asked about the service term and how long the new procurement would cover; staff said procurement review imposes federal requirements and that the DOE contracting process will determine final term language. Members requested that any future changes to the statement of work or operating procedures be provided in redline form so the board can review differences without re-reading the entire document.

Ulbert and staff also briefed the board on the county’s power‑pool loads and resources and a proposed budget for fiscal years ahead. The packet listed a total resource cost for FY26 of $49,305,715 covering a modeled 547,806 megawatt‑hours, producing an aggregate cost of approximately $90.01 per megawatt‑hour. Staff noted adjustments made to historical lab load forecasts and cautioned that over‑forecasting lab load can create oversupply that requires market sales at a loss. When a board member asked why the per‑megawatt‑hour numbers differed between the county and DOE allocations (the packet shows the county portion at about $83.52/MWh and the DOE portion at about $92.18/MWh in one table), staff said they would need to review the allocation calculations in greater detail.

The board did not take formal action on the ECA or the budget at the May 7 meeting; staff said the package will continue through DOE procurement review, and the county will return to the board when final terms and the full contract package are available. Board members discussed next steps for review and requested a clean redline of changes for the next time the board considers the documents.

Key points from the discussion: - Draft ECA aims to consolidate decades of contract modifications into a single document and to clarify operating procedures and billing calculations. - DOE contracting and procurement review still must finalize terms-and-conditions; county staff expect additional procurement-related documents that have not yet been shared. - Foxtail Flats (a solar + battery resource) is included in planning models; projected commercial operation/testing timing was discussed and staff said some test energy deliveries could occur ahead of full commercial operation. - Staff presented the county’s power-pool budget figures (total resource cost ~$49.3 million; total MWh modeled ~547,806; aggregate ~$90.01/MWh) and said staff will continue to refine lab-load forecasts to reduce the risk of costly oversupply.

No formal vote was taken; the item was presented for information and further direction to staff.