The post West Coast Chamber Presentation: Re-Energizing the Community with Holland BPW appeared first on Holland's Energy Future | P21 Decision.

See the presentation from this evening’s special joint meeting with the HBPW Board of Directors and City Council, where we revealed the architectural design for the new power station.

Download the Board Meeting Presentation in PDF Format

The post New Architectural Designs Presentation appeared first on Holland's Energy Future | P21 Decision.

The post Photo Gallery: Local & Regional Public Safety Departments in Action appeared first on Holland's Energy Future | P21 Decision.

Annette Manwell | From the Holland Sentinel | Read the Full Article

Holland — HDR, the firm that recommended that the city of Holland choose combined cycle natural gas for its electrical generation, also could become the engineer for the project.

The Holland City Council will decide Wednesday whether to affirm Monday’s decision by the Holland Board of Public Works Board of Directors to hire the firm at an estimated cost of $2.5 million. The decision was made in December to build a new power plant at a location other than the site of the James DeYoung power plant.

HDR could, if approved by the city council, provide engineering services to the BPW for the design of the new power plant. Services will be billed on a time and materials basis, General Manager Dave Koster said. Although $2.5 million is the estimate, that amount could end up being different. He expected the services provided by HDR will amount to about 1 to 2 percent of the total project cost.

Koster and Business Services Director Dan Nally said much of the overall cost for HDR’s services also would be decided on how much work the firm does to assist with the expansion of the city’s snowmelt system and the district heating component of the Holland Community Energy Plan.

The BPW put out a request for qualifications — a report that helped BPW determine which firm was most qualified to accomplish the job — to seven firms but received only three back. While HDR’s costs were estimated at more than another qualifying company, that company is based in New Jersey and travel expenses were not included. HDR’s Ann Arbor office would be handling the BPW’s engineering needs.

HDR will have team leaders to oversee mechanical, instrumentation, electrical, permitting, architectural and civil and structural aspects of the new plant, said HDR Project Manager Ron Utter.

A timeline for the power plant has not been given because the site has not been chosen, Nally said. The BPW did enter into a closed session meeting Monday to discuss property acquisition. It was not stated if it was concerning the location of the power plant, and no action was taken. The location of the plant also would need city council approval. Once the location is finalized, the necessary equipment will be decided and the air permitting process will begin, Nally said.

The post Holland Sentinel: Holland city officials consider new power plant engineer appeared first on Holland's Energy Future | P21 Decision.

The post Business Services Director Dan Nally Makes an Appearance on Holland City Connections appeared first on Holland's Energy Future | P21 Decision.

Report Posted September 30, 2011–Holland Board of Public Works is facing a decision regarding its need for new electricity generation. It is asking for the community’s input on which single source of generation, or group of generation options, are best for Holland. As part of the P21 – Power for the 21st Century (www.p21decision.com) program, Holland BPW invited community groups and stakeholders to participate in a Risk Analysis Process, or RAP session, yesterday.

Baseload generation options that use innovative technologies like fluidized-bed combustion and combined cycle gas turbines as well as biomass, solar, and wind turbines were described by a power engineer with HDR, an engineering architecture and consulting firm. The options’ impacts on the Holland community were talked about during the RAP session.

An economist with HDR kicked the session off by outlining the Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI) methodology that will be used as an input to the decision on new generation. SROI is a risk-based cost benefit analysis process that opens up and makes transparent the models and data used for decision making. SROI aims to reveal the value of the projects under consideration by combining, for example, capital costs with environmental emissions cost into a sustainable rate of return.

SROI was developed by HDR and is HDR’s commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. HDR explained how it has been used in other infrastructure decisions across the country. SROI is being used by municipalities such as Denver (wastewater), Miami (solid waste); Honolulu (H-Power waste to energy) and also currently being used in nearby Chicago to study the benefits and costs of separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River system to stop the spread of invasive species such as Asian Carp.

The SROI process allows stakeholders to make changes to the initial structure and logic of the model that will be built for the analysis. Panelists were invited to add, change, or remove costs and benefit categories. This was the focus of yesterday’s RAP session with sixteen panelists providing technical and local expertise to help HDR and Holland BPW frame the generation decision. Representatives were present from City Council, the BPW Board of Directors, the Sustainability Committee, the Chamber of Commerce, Haworth, Herman Miller, Riverview Development, West Michigan Environmental Action Council, Holland Historic District, the Sierra Club, Hope College, Holland Public Schools, and Holland BPW.

Approximately ten observers were also present at the RAP session that ran for most of the day. Panelists and observers had a chance over lunch and breaks to discuss the decision making process. A wide range of costs and benefits were discussed over the day. Potential costs such as emissions and the benefits of possible district heating options, the cost of dredging Lake Macatawa, and extensions to the snowmelt system were some of the many items reviewed.

A second RAP session is scheduled for November 3, 2011, at which HDR will work with the panel to put values to these costs and benefits. Risk ranges will be used to address the fact that these values are either not known with certainty or may be subject to differences of opinion.

Other P21 community information sessions have been scheduled on: Conservation; Fuels; Regulatory Matters; Generation technologies and options; Transmission; and District Heating.

HDR will report back to Holland BPW in the New Year at which time the SROI results will be presented to the community, tentatively scheduled for Thursday, January 12, 2012.

The session workbook from this RAP session is available here.

The post Summary Report on RAP Session #1 appeared first on Holland's Energy Future | P21 Decision.