Exhibit 1 Agenda Information SheetCity of Denton
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AGENDA INFORMATION SHEET
DEPARTMENT: Procurement & Compliance
ACM: David Gaines
DATE: May 25, 2021
SUBJECT
Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, a Texas home-rule municipal corporation,
authorizing the City Manager, or their designee, to authorize the spend for an insurance binder to Archer
Contingent Energy Risk, LLC, for forced outage insurance of the Denton Energy Center for the Summer of
2021; providing for the expenditure of funds therefor; and providing an effective date (RFP 7686 –
authorizing the spend for Power Plant Forced Outage Insurance Coverage or Products and awarding such
insurance binder to Archer Contingent Energy Risk, LLC, in the Summer 2021 not-to-exceed amount of
$975,000.00).
INFORMATION/BACKGROUND
The twelve (12) generating units of the Denton Energy Center consist of mechanical, electrical, and control
systems that, despite using best practices to maintain the systems, are subject to forced outage due to
unforeseen equipment malfunctions. The length of time of these forced outages are normally short in
duration but can happen during periods of very high wholesale market prices. Some forced outages, where
the malfunction of equipment requires a protracted period of time to repair, could take one or more units
out of the wholesale market during those high wholesale market price periods.
The effect of not having generating units available to generate can be financially significant to both the
DEC proforma (net income) and potentially to electric rate-payers through the Energy Cost Adjustment.
The Risk Management Policy, approved by Council on March 17, 2020, requires DME to purchase outage
insurance to hedge this forced outage risk and thus limit potential losses. Insurance was procured and
approved last year on May 5, 2020.
In establishing the annual power supply budget for DME, the Energy Management Organization (EMO)
determines the amount of energy to be purchased to meet the electrical demand of the customers of DME
for each hour of each day. The renewable energy hourly supply is then delivered to the electric grid to offset
against that hourly electric demand. Any shortage quantities are filled by the lower of the projected
wholesale market hourly price or the generating cost of the DEC. Consequently, when the DEC is not
available to meet the hourly demand due to forced outages, the EMO must purchase the energy from the
wholesale market at the then applicable hourly wholesale electric price. While the DEC is a very small
contributor to the overall energy supply in ERCOT, on days of potential wholesale energy shortages, its
inability to generate can, and does, cause the wholesale price to rise in the vicinity of Denton – ERCOT
North Hub. This is due to the supply and demand relationship that sets the wholesale market price at each
price node. Because these potential forced outage episodes are random and are correlated with higher
wholesale prices, to the extent DME can cost-effectively purchase insurance to insulate customers from
City Hall
215 E. McKinney Street
Denton, Texas
www.cityofdenton.com
high price periods, it will be prudent and is considered a best practice in the generation sector of the electric
utility industry.
To put the risk in perspective, in 2019 during the week of August 12th, the wholesale price of energy was
above $5000/MWh for over 12 hours. Had half the DEC units been unavailable due to a forced outage, the
cost to replace the energy that would have been generated, and that was counted on in developing the power
supply budget, would have been $6,750,000. The objective of the DME Hedge Plan (a confidential chapter
of the Risk Management Policy) is to manage the Energy Cost Adjustment fund balance within +/-
$5,000,000 and the forced outage risk of the DEC units is a major risk variable that requires hedging. Table
1 depicts the one-hour cost implications for a forced outage of a specified number of generating units and
associated hourly wholesale market prices.
Table 1
One Hour Forced Outage Costs
Wholesale Price ($/MWH)
Number
of Units $1,000 $2,000 $3,000 $4,000 $5,000 $6,000 $7,000 $8,000 $9,000
2 $37,500 $75,000 $112,500 $150,000 $187,500 $225,000 $262,500 $300,000 $337,500
4 $75,000 $150,000 $225,000 $300,000 $375,000 $450,000 $525,000 $600,000 $675,000
6 $112,500 $225,000 $337,500 $450,000 $562,500 $675,000 $787,500 $900,000 $1,012,500
8 $150,000 $300,000 $450,000 $600,000 $750,000 $900,000 $1,050,000 $1,200,000 $1,350,000
10 $187,500 $375,000 $562,500 $750,000 $937,500 $1,125,000 $1,312,500 $1,500,000 $1,687,500
12 $225,000 $450,000 $675,000 $900,000 $1,125,000 $1,350,000 $1,575,000 $1,800,000 $2,025,000
The February 2021 winter weather event also demonstrates how valuable forced outage insurance would
have been. For approximately 48 hours, the DEC could not operate due to an interruption of fuel supply
and the consequent term to unfreeze the cooling system. Using the above table, the damages associated with
this term was $2.025 million per hour. For the 48 period, the damages at $9,000/MWh totaled $97.2 million.
Prior forced outage policies included the interruption of fuel supply as a valid event for a claim. While the
probability of such a prolonged fuel supply interruption is low, it nevertheless remains a potential in the
event of a natural gas pipeline disruption. Forced outage insurance in North America is offered by a limited
number of providers - Archer Contingent Risk, Swiss re and AEGIS are the providers - because they must
have excellent credit and demonstrated history of providing the product and settling claims. These providers
are backed/underwritten in full or at least in part by Lloyds of London or Swiss Re, one of the largest
reinsurance providers in the world. They are qualified bidders and DME has shared the required historical
forced outage information and preventative maintenance plans/actions with potential bidders. The City of
Denton Procurement Department issued a Request for Proposal for Forced Outage Insurance in April. The
specification provided the bidders with the term of the insurance (June through September) – the term will
ultimately be determined by DME - the deductible amount stated as either a dollar amount per claim or the
number of DEC Engines ‘units’ or both, that would have to be impacted by a forced outage before a claim
could be filed, the maximum payout of the policy and the mechanics of how the payout will be calculated.
Bidders provide an indicative and non-binder offer for the policy but more importantly will provide
Procurement, Risk Management, and DME with the standard terms and conditions for the policy and the
form of Binder Agreement. The Binder Agreement will be the document that is executed by the City
Manager on the day that DME determines it would like to lock in the policy amount. Because the providers
use energy and weather derivatives to hedge their risk on the date that the Binder Agreement is expected,
the premium will be determined using live market prices on that date and DME will enter into the agreement
with the lowest cost provider on that date.
DME is seeking Council’s approval to permit the City Manager to execute the Binder Agreement on the
date determined by the EMO. The authority to transact will be limited to a not-to-exceed amount of
$975,000.
Requests for Proposals was sent to 173 prospective suppliers of this item. In addition, specifications were
placed on the Materials Management website for prospective suppliers to download and advertised in the
local newspaper. Four (4) proposals were received, references were checked, and proposals evaluated based
upon published criteria including experience, financial security, and value proposition. Based upon this
evaluation, Archer Contingent Energy Risk, LLC was ranked the highest and determined to be the best
value for the City.
NIGP Code Used for Solicitation: 941-(Service Only) - Equipment Maint,
Repair, & Related Services For Power
Generation & Transmission Equip. &
953 - (Service Only) – Insurance &
Insurance Services, (All Types)
Notifications sent for Solicitation sent in IonWave: 173
Number of Suppliers that viewed Solicitation in IonWave: 10
HUB-Historically Underutilized Business Invitations sent out: 12
SBE-Small Business Enterprise Invitations sent out: 50
Responses from Solicitation: 4
PRIOR ACTION/REVIEW (COUNCIL, BOARDS, COMMISSIONS)
On March 17, 2020, City Council approved a Risk Management Policy (Ordinance 20-420).
On May 5, 2020, City Council approved procurement of this insurance (Ordinance 20-744).
On May 24, 2021, this item will be presented to the Public Utilities Board (PUB) for consideration.
RECOMMENDATION
Award the authority to spend for forced outage insurance of the Denton Energy Center to Archer Contingent
Energy Risk, LLC, in a not-to-exceed amount of $975,000.
PRINCIPAL PLACE OF BUSINESS
Archer Contingent Energy Risk, LLC
Leawood, KS
ESTIMATED SCHEDULE OF PROJECT(S)
This is for the Summer of 2021.
FISCAL INFORMATION
These services will be funded by Denton Municipal Electric Operating Funds.
EXHIBITS
Exhibit 1: Agenda Information Sheet
Exhibit 2: Evaluation
Exhibit 3: LLC Members
Exhibit 4: Ordinance
Exhibit 5: Presentation
Respectfully submitted:
Lori Hewell, 940-349-7100
Purchasing Manager
For information concerning this acquisition, contact: Terry Naulty, 940-349-7567.
Legal point of contact: Marcella Lunn at 940-349-8333.