Joint Utility, Cable, Telecommunications and Technology and Climate Change and Sustainability Committee.

Resolution 669 also directed Entergy to file an implementation plan to lay out how this fairly complex and extensive program would actually be implemented on the ground and integrated into Entergy's system. Entergy filed an implementation plan in March by the specified deadline. And the advisors and Curo reviewed the implementation plan that they filed and found that it was generally compliant, that it covered the topics that were directed by the council that it cover and address, like program design, eligibility criteria, incentive and clawback structures, requirements, deployment targets, and then some specifics with respect to how the upfront incentive levels would be set. And let me just sort of say that the overall apportionment of these incentives, as directed by the council, was 50% for residential and 50% for commercial, with the 40% set aside for low and middle income customers out of the 50% that encompassed the residential portion. The implementation plan also proposed non-LMI customer incentive levels of $400 per kilowatt hour installed, which is also the same amount of incentive for commercials for kilowatt hour installed. And then there's a LMI bump that increases the amount that an LMI customer gets in terms of an upfront incentive, and that would be $480 per kilowatt hour. The implementation plan also proposed to implement the council's direction to have ongoing incentive levels because the program is intended to spread out over a time period of 10 years. And in order to be able to recover the investments that are made in these facilities, there's ongoing incentives, and the implementation plan set the residential customer incentives at the level that the council had directed, which is $125 for average kilowatt delivered across all events with a $600 annual cap, and commercial customers at $250 average kilowatt delivered across all events with an $1,800 annual cap. Subsequent to the filing of that plan, T&O filed comments, and subsequent to that, the alliance filed a motion asking for clarification about when the comment period was due because there was some confusion about that. So this resolution today actually addresses three things that need to be resolved. The first thing is T&O's comments did make some new proposals, offer some new analysis, and proposed revising incentive levels and caps, which were things that were not originally considered in the record that was presented in connection with Resolution 669. So this resolution sets an extension on the discovery period to May 26, 2026, to allow parties to propound discovery, to gather more information specifically about the T&O proposal. The second thing this resolution does is that it directs Entergy to make a supplemental filing on its proposed implementation plan and to address a list of things that the consultants, including the council's DER consultant, developed as things that needed to be fleshed out for the plan to be functional. So I don't have to read the list to you. It's on the slide, but there's a number of things that they're directed to flesh out in a supplemental filing, and that's due by May 26, 2026. The next thing that this resolution does is it reestablishes a comment deadline of June 22nd. And the way the resolution reads, comments on all of these things can be made at that time. So you can, the alliance can go back to the 669 resolution and make whatever comments they intended to make with respect to that. And they can also, and all parties can, make comments on the T&O proposal and on E&O's supplemental implementation plan. So it's going to be a comprehensive comment period where all parties are going to get the opportunity to comment on all of this stuff. And then that will ultimately culminate in an advisor's report analyzing and summarizing everything that goes on in this extended procedural schedule for the council, and it will terminate with a record certification by the hearing officer on August 6th. So that's the intent and the purpose of the resolution that you're being asked to vote on today, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Great. Council Member Willard. Thank you. Thank you, Bazeal, for giving us some information on this. So my understanding is the resolution that passed in December set up a process for upfront and ongoing incentive levels that was subject to feedback from the advisors and from the council. I wanted you to touch on you guys' evaluation of those levels in the Intergy implementation plan, and how you think that lays out a process to help achieve the goals of the program. You want to comment on the levels that were in the resolution in December? No, the filing from Intergy, the ongoing and upfront incentive levels. I think they adopted the ones from the council resolution. The upfront incentive levels and ongoing incentive levels were the ones that were in the 669 resolution. And they didn't specify, like, what would be upfront and what would be ongoing, right, in that resolution? The council? Yeah. I believe the council did. The council specified, oh, I'm sorry, the E&O ongoing resolution proposal was a reflection of the direction from the council to set the ongoing incentives. I guess when I was reviewing it, I was just overall had a concern that the upfront incentives would not be enough to actually get people, especially for the low to moderate income classification, which I think was set aside at 40%, to actually be able to participate in this program. So do you think going through more of a discovery process to kind of flesh that out is a step in the right direction? Yeah. I think it's not just a step in the right direction. I think it's required at this point to make any changes to what was authorized by the council in 669. And let me just say, the LMI set aside is 40% of the 50% of residential upfront incentives, not of the total project, but of the 50% that's assigned to residential. Okay.

And then on the clawback mechanism and the intergy filing, did you have a chance to review that? Yeah, we did. Actually, that was something the council had directed the advisors and Curo to conduct some meetings before the implementation plan came out to discuss how some of these things were going to be addressed. And the clawback provisions I think were particularly influenced by Mike Goldman, who was our DER consultant, to try to honor the council's direction to have a clawback provision but to do it in a way that's reasonable and fair and isn't in itself a discouragement to participation. Do you think they achieved that with the mechanism that they laid out? Or do you think we could use some more work on that? The problem with that, council member, is we just haven't done it before. I mean, one of the things 669 did that's going to be very, very valuable is the council built in lots of reporting requirements and lots of ongoing reporting requirements to have pretty constant feedback on what's working and what's not working and reserved the right to make any modifications and changes to the program as that feedback came in. So not having done it on this level before, and I can say, I mean, I think some of the input came from the DER consultant's experience other places. I can say, you know, nobody really likes clawbacks. I mean, they're something that people who want to participate in this do get uncomfortable with. I think Mike's input was, you know, there are ways to do it that are less discouraging. But not having done it before on this scale, I think it's going to be the feedback, the collection of data, and the constant monitoring that the council is going to be able to do to at any point say, look, if the feedback you're getting is people aren't, aren't signing up because of the clawback provision, we need to do something about it. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Green. Thank you for the presentation. I do want to thank Together New Orleans for your comments and for your true interest in our residents that have brought forth, you know, the council's sensitivity relative to this issue. I said this before, I just want to say it on the record. Again, you know my concern. I've talked to you about it. It's eligibility and it's also customer protections. What I don't look forward to is kind of hearing that later on down the line, and I hope that we don't have to hear that some of the assets are being taken back because of some criteria that we didn't really think through completely. We have an additional period to do so. The last time that I mentioned it, I thought that in our latest proposal, as I mentioned the latest one presented to us, that we were going to have that in place. So I just want to say too, I appreciate Together New Orleans for your comments. I appreciate your presentation. I want to emphasize to Entergy how much attention that I and I know other members of the council will be given to the issues of customer eligibility and protections. Because that is something that is a long-term concern. I mean, we could be talking years from now and then somebody lose an asset because of a change in situations that we didn't contemplate, you know, early on. I just want to make sure that we contemplate that in between now and May 26, Entergy comes back or has some very detailed information as to how people are going to be eligible and also how they're going to be protected. All right. Thank you. Anybody else from the dais? Okay. So with that, we'll start public comment. Okay. First up, I have Natalie Jordy followed by Broad Bagger. Good morning, council members. Morning. My name is Natalie Jordy. I'm with Together New Orleans and I've been working closely with all the parties in this docket for over a year since its inception. And so I want to take a moment to set the scene and zoom out a little bit and remind people why we're doing this in the first place. The council members have a PowerPoint in front of them that I'll run through and the rest of you can use your imagination. As you can see from the first slide, in any given month, New Orleans needs between 800 and 1200 megawatts of power to run the city. On to the next slide. Where does New Orleans get that power? About 85% of it comes from six power plants. Another 7% of it comes from solar, 2% from demand response, and we buy some from the open market. But the bulk of it, 85% of our power supply comes from six power plants that are mostly pretty far away from us. And New Orleans is in what's called a load pocket. That is an area where transmission bottlenecks make it costly and risky to import power. And that's because it's difficult and expensive to build transmission because we're surrounded by water and because not enough power is generated locally to meet our needs. And to be clear, we're not against transmission. But we don't have enough of it here for a bunch of different reasons. And what we want to do today is get into one solution to that. So New Orleans relies on imported power. About 76% of our power comes from outside the load pocket and 24% from inside of it. And the distance between where our power is generated and where it's used can cause two big problems. I'm on page 4 now. Distance creates a risk of disruption, which can be deadly, like when hurricanes destroy our infrastructure. And distance also exacerbates congestion, which is really expensive. You can see on the slide that during the Memorial Day incident last year, a huge part of the cost of electricity was due to congestion. So the distance between where our power is generated and where it's used creates a lot of vulnerability in our power supply. And what we found is that microgrids abolish that distance. Microgrids shrink the distance from which we're getting our power. Because instead of getting it from hundreds of miles away, we're getting it from directly on top of where it's being used.

So microgrids help to solve disruption by providing a source of backup power that stays on when the grid fails. That's the solar and the batteries that stay on when the power goes out. And they also help to solve congestion by providing the grid with a source of local and dispatchable power during times when the grid is stressed. So what we believe that we need is three things. LGR, power that is local, meaning generated inside our load pocket. Power that is grid-tied, meaning able to discharge the grid when it's needed. And power that is resilient, meaning able to island from the grid and keep operating during outages. And that is what the Neighborhood Power Plan is. So I want to turn the mic over to my colleague, Broad Baggart, to talk further about the Neighborhood Power Plan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you, Councilmembers, Chairs. So we need power that is LG and R, local, grid-tied, and resilient. Things that look good on paper but that people cannot afford do not lead to the deployment of that kind of power. We saw this once before in the community solar docket. It was before Together New Orleans was active. But we followed it retroactively. There was a dispute and I'm sorry, can I be clarified, do I have five minutes or two minutes to, okay. You have five minutes. We're going to reset. One of the issues in 2018 and 2019 in the community solar docket was the credit rate attributed to a kilowatt hour of solar. And Entergy wanted it to be avoided cost. The Alliance had it at full market rate. And the recommendation from the advisors was, you know, let's more or less split the middle or end up at about six and a half cents. Not on the basis of any analysis of the feasibility or the value of solar, but because it was a number between the two parties. The result was a program that had no applicants in five years. And that was fundamentally not viable economically. When it was the docket was reopened, Together New Orleans commissioned a feasibility analysis and a value of solar analysis which resulted in the credit rate being set at full market rate with a two cent adder in six months. 15 developers opposed, filling up the entire queue. Because programs that people can't afford don't lead to the deployment of projects. We created a calculator tool for the purpose of this docket. And to be frank, it has been our understanding that the advisors were going to be conducting an analysis that was in the resolution. It said these incentive levels will be adjusted based on the recommendations of the advisors and the VPP advisors. So it was somewhat of a surprise that they were exactly the same numbers and no analysis was conducted. We created a tool that allows anybody to see what the gap would be under Entity's proposal, what the gap would be under our proposal, and to put in their own numbers and determine the gap. And our recommendation is let's all do that, but let's not create a program that looks good on paper but people can't afford. If this program were approved today, low income people would have an incentive gap of $5,600 which would take 15 and a half years to pay off on a ten year asset. And if you know low income people that either have that amount of money or are that unwise about their economics, then you know more than I do. Residential that are not low income would have a $7,100 gap and a 25.7 year payoff. Commercial that is kind of regular commercial would have, it would actually never pay off and a $52,000 gap. So there are a couple levers to make the program affordable. And you see in our filing in this presentation what T&O proposed. The first, throughout the second year of the battery pilot, at least, maybe it existed before but we weren't familiar with it, Entergy has had an incentive level that's arbitrarily double for businesses than it is for residents. So if you have exactly the same power wall and it's in a house, you get $150 per kilowatt ongoing payment. Sorry, 125. And then if you have the exact same power wall and it's in a business, it's $250. Why? There's no rationale or justification. And we think that needs to be addressed. So one lever is bring the ongoing payment up to the full $250 that businesses get today. The second, there are caps that make it so that if you have three power walls, you get the same amount per year as if you have ten power walls. That's both unfair and it's unwise because it disincentivizes larger systems where the economies of scale make it cost-effective. The third is the incentive level itself. You see our recommendations there. But we encourage people to look at the tool, have the advisors look at the tool, adjust the assumptions. We have to get to a place where people can afford these systems, otherwise they won't be deployed. Thank you, Rod. Thank you, Rod. I just want to say that the reason for including discovery period in this resolution is to assess those numbers and the tool and see if we need to make adjustments. And after discovery period, council will revisit and look and see if we need to make any adjustments. Okay. Deborah Salvador followed by Brandon Dubois. Good morning. My name is Deborah Salvador and I am the board president of Community Church Unitarian Universalist. Our church is honored to be among the first of the 19 community lighthouses established in Louisiana. The decision to become a lighthouse was a natural step for us, given our history and commitment to resilience and sustainability. Our building was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina as we are situated just blocks from the canal levee break in Lakeview. In the process of rebuilding, we made a deliberate choice to go entirely solar, becoming one of the first churches in Louisiana to do so. As a result, we were already experiencing the economic and environmental advantages of solar power when the lighthouse project was launched after Hurricane Katrina.

Joining the lighthouse initiative has enabled us to extend those benefits to the larger community. Whenever a power outage occurs, whether due to a storm or an event like the Memorial Day weekend brownout, we are able to open our doors to our neighbors. Our facility provides safe place with air conditioning, power for charging phones, computers, and essential medical equipment, as well as refrigeration for food and medications. Most importantly, we offer a helping hand and a friendly presence during times of great stress. We take great pride in our ability to offer these basic necessities when they are most needed, but we recognize that we and the other community lighthouses cannot do it all. The Neighborhood Power Plan would allow more locations to serve as safe havens during extended power outages, such as the nearly two-week outage following Hurricane Ida. This plan would enable grocery stores, hardware stores, and gas stations to remain operational during emergencies. Individuals with medical needs that require electricity or refrigeration cannot afford to wait in long traffic lines or travel far to receive assistance. The intense heat commonly experienced during hurricane season can have serious health consequences, and many residents are unable to leave town and wait for power to be restored. Therefore, it is essential to meet those needs within our communities in accessible locations throughout the city where we live. The best way to address these challenges is by broadening those incentives to provide more participation in the Neighborhood Power Plan throughout our city. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Brandon? Good morning, Council. My name is Brandon Dubose. I'm a homeowner at 110 Sharon Drive in New Orleans, 70124. I currently have solar panels on my home but do not have a battery. That is primarily due to the initial upfront cost to acquire a solar battery. I feel, which has been stated by various people so far, that the upfront cost is a huge barrier to folks acquiring batteries, and I would urge the Council to look at a plan. plan to further and, um, additionally incentivize folks monetarily to acquire a battery. That's has just been said. Batteries allow residents and homeowners to do so many things like charge phones, stay in touch with the media regarding updates for outages. Um, keep food cold and fridges operate medical devices. And this is doubly important for those folks who are low and moderate income here in city. Um, I do feel like in addition to the individual households, when you talk about overall resiliency here locally, the idea is that more people have batteries. Um, the greater resilient the grid becomes and, uh, more secure power is, and the brown out or black out becomes less of an issue longer term. So this is quite literally something that will help the entire city benefit from. Thank you. Thank you, Brandon. Okay, up next, have Jesse George, followed by Margaret Washington. Jesse George on behalf of the Alliance for Affordable Energy. My comments will be brief. I just wanted to thank the council for responding to our motion and for providing this procedural clarity. Procedure is not always the most exciting thing, but it is important on. We look forward to offering formal comment on creating a program that provides maximum benefit for the citizens of New Orleans. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. Margaret Washington. Good morning, Councilman. Good morning. I'm Margaret Washington, 72 41 Camberley Drive, and I have been a resident of New Orleans East for more than 40 years. I rise to speak to the fact that we need neighborhood power plants. I am a retired citizen, and I do not have solar panels nor battery backup because I cannot afford it. But I need the power plant because I am on a CPAP, which is necessary to assist me during hours of sleep that I experience sleep apnea. And I do want to say that if you understand what sleep apnea is, it could result in my death. And I do want to live long, longer than I have. Uh, but I think that the power plants are essential because doing Hurricane Ida, I had to travel to Mobile, Alabama to find residents in a hotel for more than 10 days so that I would be able to use my CPAP every evening at hours of sleep. Additionally, I incurred more expenses because of that. Whereas if I had had a neighborhood power plant in my area of New Orleans East, I would not have had to so join out of state to provide for safety and maintain my health as it is. Additionally, I want you to know that there are other citizens in our area who have other medical devices that they need. And when we have a power outage that limits our being able to take care of ourselves as it relates to our health. So I do want you to please consider the neighborhood power plants and what it does for the citizenry that I, as a homeowner, am still a taxpayer. And I think that the city needs to address those issues of the citizens that contribute to the upgoing of our city. Thank you. Thank you, Margaret. Next up, I have Jeff Canton and then Christopher Walker. Thank you, Council. Jeff Canton with Solar Alternatives and Gulf States Renewable Energy Industries Association. My comments will also be brief. Just want to speak in support of the ordinance and this effort to bring distributed energy resources to the city in more volume than we have seen in the past. It is very timely. The resources are becoming more accessible. The technology is already very mature, but it is becoming more diversified in a way that it is accessible to all New Orleanians if we put a program like this in place. We've been integrating these systems for almost 20 years now and we can attest to the reliability.

Some of the systems that we originally installed are still functioning as designed and supporting the owners and site hosts and communities when there is an outage in a way that traditional generators cannot. During Hurricane Ida, we saw that many of the property owners that lost power that we were working with, their systems continued to work for days and weeks during the outage. The systems that we had, the prior, we had to install generators, traditional generators, and those failed in a way that we had not expected due to the duration of the outages and just the nature of the technology and the gas grids that are becoming overloaded. So the technology is mature, it's appropriate, and I do agree with Councilmember Green's notion about consumer protections. I think it is very important we think through the measures both in the impact of changes and clawbacks, but also in the design and incentivizing of the program and approvals for who and how and what is integrated to make sure that we protect consumers across the board in the matter of rolling the program out. So we are very excited to see the program go forward and I very much appreciate the Council's leadership. Thank you. Good morning, Council. President Morrell, esteemed Councilmembers, thank you for the opportunity to provide remarks on the Neighborhood Power Plan. My name is Chris Walker and I'm here today to provide remarks to the Council, adding to those submitted in writing via our comment letter on March 27th. I represent Grid Alternatives, the nation's largest nonprofit clean energy provider. For 25 years, Grid Alternatives has advanced economic and environmental justice via renewable energy through programs like the Neighborhood Power Plan. Our work is exclusively focused on serving the underserved and we only work with, in, and for low-income environmental justice in tribal communities. Equity is our sole focus and always will be. We've delivered projects that serve over 30,000 households through direct installations while benefiting tens of thousands more through our equitable program administration work. These projects will operate for a generation and generate over 800 million dollars in savings and in building them, Grid has provided workforce training to over 30,000 trainees, volunteers, and fellows in the process. So why the resume? We're here for two reasons today. First, we want to recognize and commend the people of New Orleans and the Council's leadership in advancing this important virtual power plant program which has the potential to be a national model. And second, we're here to come together with local organizers and industry to advocate to make sure that this program delivers on its promise for low-income New Orleanians. In Grid's deep history in this space, we've seen well-meaning program design concepts fail to translate into real projects or real benefits for the intended recipients. Based on our mission, we believe that the Neighborhood Power Plan must be of, for, and by New Orleans. And while the Neighborhood Power Plan must be homegrown, we humbly offer the following design imperatives that we believe will help to decide whether the program is successful. Based on our experience implementing similar programs across the country, there are three elements that we want to emphasize today that can support the success of the Neighborhood Power Plan, specifically as it regards low-income residents. First, the program should provide free battery systems for low-income residents. For the many thousands of low-income households we've served, trust me when I say it's hard enough to give it away for free. Under the current structure, even after incentives and tax credit monetization, we estimate that households will still face a gap of roughly $5,000 to install a typical system. For most working New Orleans families already facing energy insecurity, that's a non-starter. Having grown up in the same kind of household that many of us hope the Neighborhood Power Plan will serve, $5,000 doesn't pass my GANY test, which is a question I asked myself in designing programs. Would this program work for my GANY? Currently, the answer is no, but Grid Alternatives believes that Together New Orleans proposal takes us substantially closer. But if that gap remains, the program risks low participation at best, or worse, reliance on financing structures that may not serve households' long-term interests like predatory loans or deals that greatly erode any savings. Second, the upfront incentive should be calibrated to fully close that gap within the low-income portion of the program. We've seen this work in practice. When incentives are set appropriately that fully cover project costs, programs achieve meaningful participation and deliver real benefits to low-income households while avoiding consumer protection nightmares. Third, the income eligibility threshold should be set at or below 80% AMI for the low-income portion of the program. Aligning low-income eligibility criteria with many other programs will help to efficiently process applications, and if you've seen those AMI tables lately, we know that people at and below 80% AMI need help. If these elements are incorporated, the program can greatly reduce energy burden, improve resilience during outages, and provide meaningful economic relief for families across New Orleans. And if that happens, Grid Alternatives stands ready to work with the city and local organizations to help implement a program that works and makes a difference for work and families. For low-income households like the one I grew up in, where... are spending too much of their incomes on electricity and still struggling to keep the lights on, or who are suffering through long outages, this program will change everything but only if it reaches them.

So we're excited to help make it a success for the people of New Orleans and call upon the council to continue its good work improving the Neighborhood Power Program concept. Thank you for your time. Okay next up we've got Douglas Melanson followed by Becky Merriweather. Good morning council. My name is Douglas Melanson, 7910 Lady Gray in New Orleans. I had a lot to say but I don't know much more I can add to what this gentleman just said other than to represent a homeowner with solar, retire. And so those incentives are very important not just for my family in my home but family members who don't have solar that will need a place for refuge. So I want to thank you for considering everything that's presented this morning and once again Douglas Melanson. Thank you. Becky Merriweather. Good morning Becky Merriweather 7744 Belfast Street New Orleans 70125 Council District A. I'm here to support and say thank you to the council for its vote last December to move this docket forward in the way that you did. I have a number of concerns however about the implementation plan that energy is put forward and I'd like you to focus please on what has already been said about making the upfront incentive adequate to enable people to actually do this. I'd also like to suggest that you consider a differential incentive for commercial entities that would be willing to actually be community facing and agree to be a resilience hub in long-term power outages like after storms and so forth. A little bit of context I am a retired family and public health physician and despite that I chose community and public service over amassing wealth and so my husband who will be 90 on May 3rd and I are living on pensions basically and so when we moved back to New Orleans 10 years ago we intentionally put solar panels and batteries on our house as a hedge against rising power costs knowing it was going to happen. The battery we have works well in those really short power outages but we don't have enough battery to stay lit and run our air conditioning even for one room on when there's a full power outage like after a storm and that makes my husband with congestive heart failure and a recent cancer diagnosis even more vulnerable than his age and his medical conditions alone. We know from Ida that a lot of people died because the power is out. Most of the people who died was because the power was out. This plan offers the opportunity for us to actually make a difference for those folks, keep them out of the emergency room, keep them alive, batteries save power. So I would urge you to address that upfront incentive. I would also urge you to really seriously consider making sure that those incentives ongoing are equalized. As TNO has said it makes no sense to pay more for an electron from a commercial battery than one from a residential battery and that ongoing incentive could make this more affordable for people with long-term medical problems. So batteries save lives. Frankly while Intergy kind of did not oppose the resolution last December, their implementation plan appears to me to be death by a thousand cuts and I would encourage you strongly to be sure that the administrator is accountable to counsel rather than to Intergy ongoing and that you would very very seriously instruct the advisors and the ongoing process to revise these upfront and ongoing incentives. Thank you. Thank you Becky. Okay next up I've got Sean Moses and then Calvin Lawrence. Good morning. I'm good morning. I'm Sean Moses Angle. I live at 920 North South Cedo and I'm also the pastor of First Grace and as of last week I'm a former member of the board of Together New Orleans. A few things. We have solar on our house. We've had it for 10 years. We couldn't afford it. We got a small interest loan because we it was about five or six thousand dollars. We paid it off in about six years. Ever since then about every few years we investigate getting batteries on our house. Most recently in November it would cost over twenty thousand dollars for us to do that so we're not going to do it. We're not a low-income family and I don't I'm not feeling sorry for myself at all but I am in New Orleans. I've lived here twice now for over now over 20 years since Katrina and I just want you to know several months ago I wrote a new song. I write a song about once a year and this song I wrote on the day that I got my 13th traffic ticket through a school zone that does not have a light saying 20 miles an hour but it has a camera and I read the statistic about all the people leaving the city we love and so the song was I think I'm thinking about flying away. Maybe buying a spaceship today. Venus or Mars someplace far. There's room for you. But the last verse is I'm sticking with New Orleans today. Maybe buying a trumpet today. Uptown or Treme. There's a parade on the way. There's room for you if you can dance to this tune. So I'm here and we are talking about a sustainable future and a lot of the people in New Orleans do not believe that we are interested in that or that the power company is interested in that. They're interested in making money and I don't blame them. That's what they do. My question is what do I do? What do we do? We talk about a sustainable future. Now the one way to look at a sustainable future with energy is who has the data? Who presented data today for you to make a good decision about the future of this city? Together New Orleans presented the data and we have to fight constantly to present good data. So the one thing we would ask you to do is look at the data. What does it tell you? A compromise in the middle? May not. We all believe in compromise. I'm married. I have a teenager. You got a compromise. But we're compromising about what is good for us to do. We have evidence.

My church is a community lighthouse and we know that those lighthouses will save lives and we know that it has provided energy in that neighborhood and one little power outage for about 42 hours the place was packed with hundreds of people and who called us? The city of New Orleans called us and said can we distribute oxygen tanks out of your church because you have power. Wow. The city came with their oxygen tanks distributed and the Salvation Army called us. The food bank called us. Can we distribute food because we have power. We have a path ahead for a sustainable future in this city and it's just waiting for us to grab it. And finally I want to tell you what my favorite gospel is. It is not Matthew's. It is not Mark's and it's not Luke's and it's not John's. It's the movie Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawking. If you've ever seen you should see the movie. A deceased member of my clergy group told me to go see this movie that it was the gospel. And basically you know Denzel is in this he's a detective. We need police. We need good systems. But he's corrupt and he's it's training day for for Ethan. Will he be corrupted into this this system. It's not that the system of bad is bad but the culture of the way the system works is. And we have not had a great culture about how this really good system should work. And I believe we're really reaching for that now. And I know there is always a good reason not to follow the gospel. There's always a good reason not to do the right thing. But the right thing is right there. We may need to compromise but let's compromise for a sustainable future so we can all go to those parades whether they're uptown or intermediate. Thank you. Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the council. My name is Calvin Lawrence and I'm here with the International Brotherhood of Elections. workers, and I don't want to be Captain Obvious, but I've been living here my whole life, and I would thank more of these, the more, the more of these battery plans, the battery backup that we have, we better for our community and the whole, man, that just makes sense. But I ain't coming for be Captain Obvious with that, I'm coming that y'all doing a great job, I just want to congratulate y'all on that, man, I know the hard work that y'all do, I just want to bring up the, when all this do come to a close, let's make sure that the working man get his fair due, make sure y'all have local hires, that local people get these jobs, and that it's prevailing wage, that it's apprenticeship programs, so that our people here can have a better future, man, and give them an opportunity to succeed and to thrive, do anything that the city is putting forward financially, man, I just want to thank y'all again for that. Thank you, Calvin. Mr. Larry Morgan, followed by Morgan Clevenger, and that will get us to the end. Mr. Larry Morgan's first, Morgan. Good morning to everybody in the house. Good morning. I am Larry Morgan, I'm up in New Orleans. The people sent me here today, they all are in favor of the power plant. Simply the people, a large percentage of them that called me and come to the house, their children bring them. I was surprised, they're from senior citizen homes, and they state that the power plant is long overdue. But this is some of them fear, it's a question that I couldn't answer, they asked me. Mr. Morgan, those batteries, those power plants, will we have to pay for them? I said, I don't know. If it comes to that, they're afraid that those batteries, when begin the game, they will be cheap and reasonable, and the price will decline like the light bill today that can't even afford the energy. That's the way the system of the battery price will generate. What we're saying to you all, you are the representative of the neighborhood, of the people who put you all in that office. And I say to you, you better do your job and serve the people, because I'm going to tell you, these people believed in you all. And because they believe in you all, I'm going to make sure that they get what they put you in there for. Serve these people, whether you like it or not. Because they put you in there. Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Morgan Clevenger. Good afternoon, Council and Chair. Good morning. And thank you all for considering this. I'm Morgan Clevenger, 1653 North Broad in the 7th Ward. And we know that our communities in the heart of New Orleans, many of them working class, middle class, low income, we are already underserved. We are already cost burdened. There is a lack of trust in Intergy as a for profit company. They made, I believe, a profit of $9.5 billion last year. And we know also that post Katrina, a lot of our seniors were approached by Intergy, low income and fixed income seniors, to put solar panels on their roof for free in a program. But they would be connected to the Intergy grid. And the contractors, the solar companies that came out on Intergy's behalf, installed these solar panels. But over time, over time, the benefit decreased. Because there were lack of batteries, lack of storage, but also lack of maintenance. And also because Intergy's cost to the rate payers continued to rise. So, the actual benefit over time to these low income homeowners decreased heavily. And then after Ida, when the roofs were compromised and you can't get a new roof unless you take those solar panels off, many of these companies were no longer around. So, we have a really hard situation with that. We also know that, you know, in our area, we don't have any community solar places. We want one. Because we don't have any churches or schools close to us. After Ida, it was very, very clear that the city stood up at Treme Center. They stood up at Milne. And between those two points, vast neighborhood, without cars, without resources, without ability to travel to these places.

So, we convinced Nord, literally two days after the storm, to let us stand up food and water and ice and supplies for ten days in Stallings Playground, which had no power. And our homes, the people who stayed for Hurricane Ida, we didn't have any power. We have a vast amount of seniors and folks on various dialysis, CPAC, oxygen tanks. And there really wasn't any choices for them. And our folks cannot afford to get in a car and drive out of town every time we have a power outage. Can't afford a hotel. Can't afford really anything. And so, deaths are attributable to this. We support this idea, but it needs, as Brad said earlier, what looks great on paper with Entergy does not always translate into accessibility and affordability for our people. And that's really, really important to carry with you in these deliberations, because we cannot trust a company that is just there for profit and continues to create programs but that really don't help anybody. So, we definitely support community solar, community power plants, but we also advocate for Nord, especially in underserved areas, to become community solar hubs as lighthouses as well. We could really use that in our neighborhood. So, we appreciate all the work that Together New Orleans has done and all the citizens that support this. And we support it as well with also to make sure that it's not just too low of an income, because as we see, our middle class continues to roll back. It's not affordable. Entergy, our utility bills are not affordable at all. So, people are losing ground, and we need to make those income levels not just accessible to low income and fixed income, which we wholeheartedly support, but also the tax base, the people that are paying the taxes in this city and keeping everything going. So, thank you, and we appreciate all the work that you're doing on this and keep the community front and center. Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. Okay. Any other comments from the dais? Okay. With that, I'll motion to approve. We have two online comments. Oh, two online comments. Sorry about that. Go ahead. Okay. The first comment is from Patricia Bernstein. We must demand better for our electric grid. Today's outage in the French Quarter only reiterates that things are not stable here. No more rate hikes, no more excuses. Demand energy, do more. The next comment is from Sharonda Williams. Energy New Orleans participate the opportunity to comment. E&O filed its plan for a battery system, BPP, to be implemented through Energy Smart after working closely for months with the council's advisors and independent consultants, as ordered by the council. The E&O implementation plan is fully compliant with the council's December resolution, and it is designed to serve all customers in a responsible and efficient manner. A few weeks later, Together New Orleans filed its alternative proposal, a rehash of an earlier proposal it made in this docket, one of which the December resolution declined to opt. The big difference between E&O's implementation plan and the T&O proposal is the rate impact. Under Energy's plan, all program costs are considered by existing series settlement credits. That means no increase in rates. Customers who don't participate in the program are not asked to pay for those who do participate. This is what the December resolution contemplated and is consistent with fair rate-making policies. By contrast, the Together New Orleans proposal would use the series credits only for upfront incentives and shift the remaining and ongoing program and administrative costs to other customers. That means customers who receive no direct benefits are going to pay higher bills to cover additional program costs. That is not fair and not compliant with the council's resolution. The charts distributed by Together New Orleans omit that critical part of the story. And the so-called funding gap they identify would be more fairly described as representing the additional costs beyond the $30 million in series credits already allotted to the VPP program that will be short-lived. to non-participating customers under their proposal. We are also concerned about timing. Reopening the program design now, after all the work that's been done, pushes a final decision past August into the heart of hurricane season. We encourage the council to keep the focus on a solution that is fair, practical, sustainable, and compliant with this December resolution. Those are all the comments. Can you just clarify who, again, was that from? Sharonda Williams with NTG New Orleans. Yes. Got it. Okay, with that, I will motion to approve the resolution. Thank you. Seconded by Council Member Willard. All those in favor? Five yays, no nays. The motion passes. Or resolution, sorry. Thank you. All right, thank you everyone for being here. Now we'll move on to the Utilities Committee portion. All right, next up we have item number four, which is Ordinance Calendar Number 35422. Where's Erin? Erin, give us a brief overview. I know Broderick has a card in for this one. Good morning, Council Members. As you'll recall, about a month ago, the Utilities Committee considered this draft of Chapter 158 as part of a resolution. In order to amend the code, however, you have to do an ordinance. The ordinance was introduced at the last Council meeting. It is laying over and will be on the agenda for next week's meeting. So we're just considering the same thing we've already considered. Okay, thank you. Mr. Baggart. Thank you. Thank you, Council Members. I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about a part of the resolution that deals with ex parte communications. And it's out of now about four years of experience, which is compared to most of the people who do it, a very small amount of experience of being a part of dockets in a formal way as a party.

What you have before you, and it mirrors the former policy, says that ex parte written communication is any substantive information provided in writing to a Council Member or staff member serving in an individual Council Member's office transmitted outside of an electronic communication to the dockets service list. My understanding of what the intent here is, if you've got an idea that you want considered, you don't go talk about it behind closed doors with decision makers, you submit it to the entire service list. So everybody knows what's being considered and deliberated. What this is saying is everyone should know what's being considered. It is not saying no one should discuss what's being considered. And the way in which ex parte has been administered in practice has a far more restricting effect and has explicitly prohibited conversations about already submitted proposals. I think it's an informal kind of prohibition, but like we know that the advisors have been told not to talk to us while that same standard doesn't apply to all the parties and shouldn't apply because human beings do a lot better job at solving problems when they have conversations with each other. So we are supportive of this, but want to work with Curo and you guys to have a interpretation and putting in practice of ex parte that really holds the line on submitting proposals to the entire service list the way this is intended, but also doesn't gatekeep and prohibit conversations that allow for understanding. I think we could have fleshed out mutually the disconnects around the incentive levels six months ago because we have been raising those six months before and apparently that did not get to the ears of the advisors. So I think it would move more collaboratively, it would move more constructively, and this doesn't require any kind of change. It means actually implementing the ex parte provisions the way they're written, not the way they've been interpreted over the past few years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Morgan Clevenger. Hi, thank you. To be honest with you, I have not been able to read chapter 158 or resolution R26129 and I just got informed by your staff member that that was at a previous meeting. So it's gonna take a minute to really look into that. But I would like to take this opportunity very briefly to ask all of you to consider what is the impact of the technology situation in the areas and residential neighborhoods surrounding Jazz Fest. It is completely overwhelming us at this point. We have a geofence that's been compromised that forces residents to be unable to call for a taxi. I would like to finish. And we also have the cashless system that. Okay, just so everyone knows, the council rule is that you can comment on items and make pertinent comments based upon what is on the agenda. I appreciate that you are concerned regarding the neighborhoods at Jazz Fest and that has nothing to do with what's before us today. What we're talking about is the rules that deal with ex parte communication, other related matters in regards to utility considerations. What you're talking about has nothing to do with that. I judge it as not germane. Thank you for your time. You could probably go to a community development meeting and find an item that is germane to that. Have a nice day. Thank you. Is there any other comment? All right, thank you very much. I will move. Can I get a second? Second by Council Member Willard. Please vote your machines. Five yays, no nays, thank you. Next up, we have two resolutions that are arbitration appeals from the Sewerage and Water Board. The first is by Michael Stephens. Mr. Stephens here. Council Member, we don't have any comment cards on either resolution. Okay. So I can just give a brief overview on how we get here. Knock it out, thank you for me. So Council Members, as you know, state law has the council serving as the regulator with regard to billing matters. The process starts with Sewerage and Water Board, then goes to an appeals manager that was selected by the council. Currently it is HDI. From there it goes through an arbitration process. The council receives appeals related to an arbitration decision. Both Mr. Stephens and Ms. Moliere have appealed their decisions. The resolutions before you uphold the arbitrator's decisions. I'll entertain a motion. Thank you. I will move, sorry, move by Council Member Willard, second by Council Member Karen. Please vote your machines. All right, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, it's a yes, five yays, no nays. I do have a question. Are we voting on both resolutions? Do we need to do individual? We do need to do individual. Also, Mr. Morgan has put in a comment card. Okay, I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan, you had a comment card? Oh, come on. Just making up things. Mr. Morgan? No, thank you. I move for approval of the second resolution. Well, he's getting his cane. Oh. Let him get, he added that comment card in. I didn't have it in hand, but. Are we back to two minutes or five? Yeah, we're two minutes. Two minutes, and it is on the Michael Stevens Sewage and Water Board Appeal. Mr. Morgan? Many people at high water bill, and it's been introduced every day, every time, time, it comes. Mr. Morgan, don't hold the front of the mic. Hold the, there you go. There you go. The people's angry at y'all with the high water bill. Every time they come to me, I say I can't do nothing about it but I know a solution that pop up in my head. Jeff Landry gonna take care of it. If you can't do the job of saving the people or helping the people with the water bill, I will go to Jeff Landry and plead to him to help the people. All right, thank you. I know what y'all say. It's been moved? Yep, it's been moved and seconded, already voted on. Appreciate your comments, Mr. Morgan. All right, Juanita Mollier. If the machines are working, otherwise we need to do a voice vote.

We already did the vote on this, on the first one. It was moved by McCarron, seconded by, okay, we'll vote on it again, all right. So now we're on B, right? This is still A, because we have to use Mr. Morgan's comments. Okay, all in favor, five yays, no nays. Can I just do the quick roll call? Yes. Council Member Greene. Yes. Council Member Morrell. Yes. Council Member Willard. Yes. Council Member King. Yes. Council Member McCarron. Yes. All yays, no nays, the resolutions will go to the full council with the recommendation for approval. Thank you. Thank you. Wait, Councilman, to confirm, we just voted on the second one too, right? I believe both resolutions, for the record, have been voted on and passed unanimously and will go to the council for full consideration. All right, Councilman Willard moves to adjourn. Councilman McCarron seconds. All in favor? None opposed. Five yays, no nays. We're adjourned.