City of Beatrice agreement with OPPD to manage wind energy output

BEATRICE – The City of Beatrice has reached agreement with Omaha Public Power District to manage the city’s level of wholesale power it gets from a southern Nebraska wind farm.

The city council approved the agreement Monday night, which replaces a prior contract with Tenaska, Inc. The agreement involved electricity produced by the Cottonwood Wind Farm near Hastings operated by NextEra Energy Resources. City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer says the city gets over 16 megawatts of energy from the project.

"We've had Tenaska be the company that manages that asset for us. They would forecast our wind production in the day-ahead market...they were bidding it into the day-ahead market and the real-time market for us. That agreement came up for renewal. OPPD came back with a proposal that provided the same level of service that Tenaska was providing, but at a susbstantial savings to the city."

Tempelmeyer estimates the annual savings in the two-year contract at $80,000 to $90,000 annually. The contract increases about three-percent every two years.

In other action Monday night, the city council approved an agreement with a University of Nebraska-Lincoln for graduate level study and formation of a downtown streetscape program for the city. The move followed an unsuccessful attempt by the city to secure a planning grant for the purpose.

"When talking with Main Street to find some other avenues that were out there...Southeast Nebraska Development District came forward to us and had this idea. They've partnered with the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. They'll have some graduate students come down and put together a plan for our downtown area. The total cost is $8,000.....SENDD is covering $5,000 of that."

The UNL class did similar plans for David City and Syracuse, recently. An open house and public input sessions will be held on a proposed plan…with the dates to be set later.

Monday night was the Beatrice City Council’s reorganization meeting for the new year. City Councilman Mike McLain was unanimously elected as city council president. He was nominated by Rick Clabaugh, who served the past year as council president.