Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Utilities Electric topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lansdale committee reviews electric initiatives: EV truck, ordinance updates, deposit elimination and lineman apprenticeship
Summary
The council's electric committee reviewed a proposed Ford Lightning service vehicle purchase, work to prepare a new electric ordinance, possible elimination of residential/commercial electric deposits, radar sensor upgrades for intersections, and a new four-year accredited lineman apprenticeship program.
Councilman Andrew Carroll updated the work session on several electric department initiatives. He said the electric department will request purchase of a Ford Lightning service vehicle not to exceed $58,000 and will seek a state rebate of up to $7,500 if available.
Carroll said staff are preparing and advertising a new electric ordinance that cleans up language and addresses issues such as the allocation of responsibility for service repairs beyond the street. He noted one recent outage at the North Penn Educational Services Building was a property-hardware issue that the borough repaired and that proposed language would clarify property-owner responsibility for repairs beyond the street for certain primary customers.
The committee reviewed a quote of $20,828 to replace in-pavement loop detectors with pole-mounted radar sensors at two Main-Street intersections; that procurement will be considered by full council. Carroll also said the EAC will present a 100% renewable resolution in March for consideration.
On customer billing, staff discussed a recommendation to eliminate residential and commercial electric service deposits, citing Quakertown Borough's experience and an administrative burden of roughly 3,200 deposits among 9,600 customers; options include crediting deposits to customer accounts or liquidating funds. Committee members also discussed EV charging resale rates and possible ranges from roughly 14¢ to 25¢ per kilowatt-hour.
Separately, the electric department introduced a new four-year accredited apprenticeship program for line workers delivered through Northwest Lineman's College and accredited by the U.S. Department of Labor; trainees must remain with the borough for a minimum of 24 months after training or repay training costs.
Next steps: vehicle purchase and radar-sensor procurement will be brought to full council; the electric ordinance will be prepared for advertisement; staff will continue work on deposit policy and EV-rate discussions, and the apprenticeship program will be implemented with testing and on-the-job training.
