DC Facilities Committee expects to review RFPs for judicial center geothermal in January
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Facilities Committee is expected to review Requests for Proposals in January for the $11 million judicial center geothermal and solar project.
State statutes for performance contracting require the full county board to evaluate the bids at a meeting for which a proper notice has been posted or published, so the plan is to have the five-member facilities committee evaluate the bids and make a recommendation to the full Dunn County Board, said Dan Dunbar, assistant county manager, at the Dunn County Facilities Committee meeting on December 4.
The complete bid packets will be provided to the county board so board members can also evaluate all the RFPs and make a decision on whether to follow the recommendation from the facilities committee, Dunbar said.
The Dunn County Board will have to approve a resolution selecting the specific Qualified Energy Service Company that will be working on the geothermal and solar project for the judicial center, he said.
The facilities committee will evaluate the RFPs at a meeting January 6 so that the Dunn County Board can consider the bid packets at the January 15 county board meeting, Dunbar said.
After the county board approves the Qualified Energy Service Company, then the next phase will be to finalize the contract with the vendor, he said.
The Qualified Energy Service Company will work with the county to identify where there are potentials for saving energy, and then the companies that respond with bids for the geothermal and solar project can add items that will save more energy, Dunbar said.
The companies are bidding on an energy saving initiative, so the state statute says that the cost of the project does not need to be taken into account, since the energy savings will pay for the project, he said.
How fast the project will be paid off is part of the process, noted Ann Vogl, county board supervisor from Menomonie and chair of the facilities committee.
Larry Bjork, county board supervisor from the Town of Spring Brook, asked if Dunn County had paid for the Veregy Energy LLC presentation to the facilities committee about geothermal and solar for the judicial center.
No, the county did not pay for the presentation, Dunbar said.
Revenue
Bjork said the county must look at the geothermal and solar project for the judicial center closely since $11 million is a large amount of money to spend in order to save money.
Will information be included on how long it will take to pay off the cost of installation? Will Dunn County generate income, and will the cost of the money [interest paid on the loan] be part of the overall cost savings? Bjork asked.
The county board “gets to decide” how they want to go about the project, Dunbar said.
Dunn County will finance the project and pay the up-front cost, but over time the cost will be paid back by the energy savings, he said.
Dunn County spends roughly $500,000 per year with Xcel Energy. Once the geothermal and solar project to heat and cool the judicial center is completed, then the Xcel bill is expected down to $200,000 — so Dunn County has $300,000 more in the budget, Dunbar said.
The same levy that taxpayers are paying now for the electric bill with Xcel Energy will be used to pay for the geothermal project. There will be no additional property tax levy to pay for the project, he said.
After the geothermal and solar project is paid off, then the revenue available from the energy savings will be available to the county for other purposes, Dunbar said.
Brown Swiss
Bjork said he likes Brown Swiss cows and that he likes them so much, he will pay more for them because he really likes Brown Swiss cows.
In the same way, there are people on the Dunn County Board who really like geothermal and solar and will pay more for it, Bjork said.
Bjork said was afraid that some county board members were so steeped in geothermal and solar that “they don’t care if it’s the right thing to do.”
Will people weigh what it will really cost and what they really want? he asked.
“The five of you will decide which bid is best and will forward [a recommendation] to the county board,” Dunbar said.
But the Dunn County Board could go with a different company than was recommended by the facilities committee, Bjork said
“The Dunn County Board could pick something else,” Dunbar said.
“I am not off base thinking there are people out there who will pay anything for geothermal and solar to eliminate fossil fuels,” Bjork said.
“I do not want Dunn County taxpayers to fund their desire to eliminate fossil fuels,” he said, adding that he did think the geothermal solar project was a good idea.
Bjork pointed out that he lives in the Town of Spring Brook and will soon see 2,000 acres of good farmland “lost” to solar panels.
Bjork also said “he was just asking question” and that he hopes the companies are honest about the cost savings.
Readers should note that under a performance contract, which is the kind of contract Dunn County will be entering into with a Qualified Energy Service Company, if the county does not end up with as much savings on energy as the Qualified Energy Service Company said there would be, the company will pay the difference to Dunn County.
And if there is federal money available, Dunn County “better make sure we get it. No one knows how the federal government will be in a year,” Bjork said.
The facilities committee meets January 6, but will the committee have another regular meeting in January? asked Barbara Lyon, county board supervisor from Menomonie and a member of the facilities committee.
Whether the facilities committee has two meetings in January is up to the discretion of the board, Dunbar said.
Cost savings
The facilities committee will be the leader on the project for the Dunn County Board, said Kristen Korpela, county manager.
The heating-ventilation-air-conditioning (HVAC) system must be fixed at the Dunn County Judicial Center, she said.
One option is that the county can spend $4 million to $5 million of taxpayer money to replace the system with a similar system that is not energy efficient, Korpela said.
The second option is to work with a Qualified Energy Service Company that will guarantee Dunn County can pay for the HVAC system with cost savings at no extra cost to the taxpayers, she said.
The judicial center was built in 1998, and HVAC system is “at the end life.”
If Dunn County does not save as much money as the Qualified Energy Service Company has said the county will save, then the company must make up the difference and pay Dunn County, Korpela said.
There are “layers of rules” on the state level around performance-based contracting that are protections for Dunn County, she said.
“You are not the first person to say ‘I don’t believe them’ and the rules are there to guarantee protections, Korpela said.
Packets
Will the information packets for the RFPs be available at the next meeting? asked Ron Score, county board supervisor from Boyceville and a member of the facilities committee.
The intent is to have the information to the members of the facility committee the week before the next meeting and not “throw it at you to read through the day of,” Dunbar said, adding that that the intent is to also have the information to the Dunn County Board the week before the board meeting.
The scoring criteria is built into the RFP, and without the cost being a factor, most of the criteria is qualitative, he said.
The number of years that it will take to pay off the judicial center project can be a discussion for the facilities committee, Dunbar said.
Score said that he does not have a computer that works very well and asked if he could get a paper copy of the RFPs.
Dunbar said that a paper copy could be provided but noted that the information in the RFPs cannot be shared with anyone else.
The cost of paper and printing should not need to be considered on an $11 million project, Bjork said.
It’s not the cost of printing out the RFPs — “it’s that the information does not get into the wrong hands,” Dunbar said.
The information in the RFPs is proprietary to the companies, Vogl explained.
“Proprietary” means that the information in the RFPs is owned by the companies that submitted the RFPs.
Is there any way of knowing how many companies will respond? Score asked.
Dunbar did not say how many RFPs were expected but did say that he did not expect the decision to be difficult for the facilities committee.
