Konish: GRU ratepayers are stranded on an energy and financial island

Letter to the editor:

A former GRU General Manager used to refer to GRU electric generating plants as an “arsenal.” This arsenal runs primarily on 19th-century fuels: coal and wood. Some GRU electric generating plants are almost 50 years old.

All electric utilities are required to be interconnected through an integrated electric transmission grid. Generating utilities such as GRU buy and sell wholesale electricity. GRU only owns transmission lines within its own service territory. Duke owns the transmission lines that allow GRU to purchase and sell wholesale from other generating utilities.

Duke has transmission lines that extend to the UF campus and its adjacent service territories. GRU only has access to available capacity on these Duke lines. The current infrastructure would not allow GRU to buy all of its electricity wholesale from other generating utilities. The City of Alachua and Clay Electric buy all of their electricity wholesale – they do not generate. Current generation pollutes the air.

GRU accordingly is locked into its current arsenal of electric plants, unless GRU builds new plants. GRU would have a hard time financing new plants. The current modest GRU “Net Position” stated on its belatedly-prepared Balance Sheets is totally dependent on the dubious claim that the biomass plant was worth what GRU actually paid for it. Ernst & Young, in the wake of the Enron debacle, quit working for GRU rather than advance this proposition. So did GRU officials.

If GRU were to mothball any of its antiquated plants, that plant would come off the GRU Balance Sheet as an asset and the GRU Net Position could immediately go negative.

This accounting reality additionally locks GRU into its current arsenal. GRU claims on the upper façade of the downtown John R. Kelley electric generating plant that this plant “is owned by the citizens it serves.” The R in GRU stands for “Regional”.

GRU is solely owned by City residents, who have been disserved. GRU does not belong to County residents in the unincorporated area, the City Commission, or our City Commissioners. In 2000, with GRU debt at $200 million, the City Commission that was supposed to govern GRU began to systematically breach their duties to the GRU owners, and they continue to do so to this day.

GRU owners/ratepayers are now castaways marooned on a barren utility landscape in need of a rescue.
City residents own GRU, the City Commission is supposed to govern the utility, and the GRU General Manager is supposed to manage the utility. Instead, GRU was used as a political ATM.

The proposed governor–appointed board would both govern and manage, and City Commissioners would become no more than pundits, seated in the peanut gallery with the concerned citizens.

There are very good reasons why any City or County Commissioner holding office since January 2000 is to be disqualified from sitting on the proposed new board. There is little chance that the current governor would appoint them.

Jim Konish, Gainesville

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