Start the meeting this is the monthly meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Board of Elections Commissioners in Burlington. We hold this meeting the second Wednesday of the month at 530 here at 585 Pine Street. As always, Burlington residents, ratepayers are welcome to come down and join us, join the conversation. We welcome your comments, questions and concerns. So let's start us off here. The first item on the agenda tonight is the agenda. Are there any changes, revisions or anything? I don't need to add to it. Okay, I'm going to move on to number two. Minutes of the January 11th, 22 meeting, 2023, either. Are there any substitutes, changes to the minutes that you brought up on the board? And if it's just a clerical thing, we can do that, just between you and the clerk. Anything of substance? Nothing, I'll entertain a motion. Make a motion to approve the minutes for January, 2023. Second. Motion is second. Discussion on the motion. Hearing none. That's where we're going to move on to the next item. Oh, yeah, I'll hear, yeah, I'll take a vote. No, I'll take a vote. Seconded. Yeah, that's it. Passes. All in favor. Say hi. Yes, all in favor. Aye. All right. Item number three is public forum. Are there any members of the public? I see no one in the audience. Are there any members of the public online? No, it's not seeing none. Already, I'll reiterate that we're here the second Wednesday of the month, 5-5-5. As always, it's an open meeting. You're welcome to come down. Any questions, concerns to the department or the board? We invite you and welcome you all here. All right, on to item number four, commissioners' corner. Do the commissioners have anything that they would like to discuss that's come up in the next month, last month or so? No, most not. Well, I will ask about the lighting. Hopefully we'll have something for us on that. And is that it? Anything? All right, on to the GM update for yours. Thank you very much. With regards to lighting, I believe when you're working to schedule a meeting, but that there has not yet been a meeting scheduled. So that's all the update I have for that item. The top item in the update is relates to this statement that we put out along with IPEW last week related to a proposal in Montpelier to change Vermont's renewable energy standard in a way that would eliminate eligibility for McNeill to count towards Vermont's renewable energy targets. And overall would do something that I think is relatively unprecedented anywhere in the country, which is to say to a utility like BED or washing electric co-op or swatting, we're all 100% renewable already, that you now have to change the way you're 100% renewable and drive up costs for customers, for us, perhaps tens of millions of dollars of additional power supply costs when at the end of the day, you're still gonna be 100% renewable, just in a different way. So to me, that's a fairly concerning policy proposal. We had a fairly strong statement with a lot of good information and data in it on McNeill, sustainability, air emissions controls, jobs and economic impact, and carbon profile. So we're engaging heavily in that discussion in Montpelier. There's also the city council has a transportation energy utilities committee that is planning in April to have some sort of meeting focusing on McNeill and looking at it, I think with the lens of whether district energy is a good thing to have happened or not, whether the plan should continue or not. We've submitted a list of folks who we think would be good to participate in that meeting. The irony of all this is we've submitted now the Act 250 documents for district energy through Burlington District Energy, our non-profit partner run by Evergreen. So at this moment where we have this long held community goal of trying to make district energy happen, feels like there's a particular amount of discussion around McNeill's operations in general. I would say that this proposal by Renewable Energy Vermont hopefully won't pass as written, but there seems to be some interest particularly in the house this year in doing something on renewable energy and we're gonna be engaged. This is a rare instance where I would encourage the commission to be engaged as well if you see fit. Legislators are gonna be interested in this. Our local city councilors are gonna be interested in this. So I think hearing not only from us and not only from the IVW but hearing from the commission about the importance of McNeill and the importance of giving early adopters like the credit for the work that we've done and not forcing us to abandon existing cost-effective resources for more costly new resources will be an important message to share and I'd be glad to work with the commission or individual commissioners on avenues for sharing that message. So there's gonna be a lot more to come on all of that but I didn't wanna leave with that item. I can pause there if there are any questions. I think at the very least we should craft some sort of a statement. That'd be great for starters. That would be great. Very much appreciated. Yeah. Just at the top of my head, I'm sure we could take that a little further. No, that's just for starters. We'd welcome that. I saw the links to the news coverage is there a deeper dive that talks, I mean, I'm sure we can find it in the, is there a easy link to understand the deeper dive of like, though, is it directly related? Is it a collateral to damage of the greater policy change? Like can we understand a little bit deeper? What were the, how did it manifest of meaning this be the dramatic shift? Yeah, there's not a media piece yet that really goes into that level of detail and the proposal that they made that they announced at their press conference, the bill has not yet come out. And we're continuing to actively engage to advocate for some of the things we just talked about. There will be a bill that will come out. But really, if I could summarize it, the proposal that they have would say that all utilities by 2035 can have 40% of their resources from what we consider existing renewables, which means for us, and it's 2023, that in the next 12 years, we have to get 60% of our energy from quote, new renewable resources. And they would, this is to me a little bit of gimmickry, but they would propose to change the date of what counts as new renewables in Vermont law from 2015 back to 2010, which may advantage some utilities over others, depending on what investments you made between 2010 and 2015, doesn't help us with resources that McNeil or Waduski won that are older existing renewables. And then either way, because we currently are able to participate in the New England markets with a number of resources, it would change not only potentially our generation mix, but also our rec mix, what we're able to keep, what we sell. It would phase out eligibility for McNeil relative to Vermont, which may be a market that we wanna use for McNeil recs in the future. We've talked about that with the commission. Then really, if you think about the tens of millions dollars in costs, it's gonna be tied to that change of saying right now, under Vermont law, we have to be 100% renewable generation and recs. And then we're able to be exempt from certain pieces because we maintain that level. And of course, BD is actually more than 100%. But under this, we'd be looking at adding new recs to the mix, potentially new resources. And I might be conservative with the tens of millions, I think it could be significant. So we're also gonna seek some analysis on this piece in as short an order as we possibly can to try to inform the discussion as well. And we'll share that with the commission, of course. Again, that's been in the shed. Is the general view about carbon or is it about something else? I would submit that this bill proposal, which is being submitted by Renewable Energy Vermont is about solar. Solar developers want more opportunities to build solar in the state of Vermont. And they feel that the existing markets are not giving them as much runway as they would like. Because according to all the data I'm familiar with from the state and the energy action network, the electric sector now constitutes between one and 2% of carbon emissions in the state, transportation and thermal are 75% roughly. So it's hard for me to understand if it's really about carbon. I think it's really about solar development, which has its own benefits, but needs to be done in a cost effective way, in a way that drives up rates significantly and adds to costs in our view. Yeah, that answers my question. I was gonna ask if it's a stake in the ground where they're asking for innovation or if it is like built on understanding maps market transformation, like maps known technologies, but mobile item works. Yeah, just rough numbers. The existing renewable energy standard drives roughly 40 megawatts a year of distributed generation solar development through a variety of programs, net metering, power purchase agreements, the standard offer program, 40 megawatts. We had roughly 20 megawatts of solar in the entire state around 2012. We have about over 400 today, and it's a thousand megawatt system roughly. So you could have potentially on a day where solar was performing at its peak and could provide a significant portion of the energy. But of course, solar has a unique profile. It's gonna produce more in the summer than the winter. It's gonna produce obviously during the day and not in the evening. And it doesn't necessarily align perfectly with where the region's cost drivers are, which tend to be in the winter and in the kind of evening hours now. So solar has a great role to play. We're a huge fan of solar. We will support solar anywhere in the city that we can add it to our mix. And we've been the top city per capita in the Northeast for a number of years now relative to solar according to Environment America. But what I've heard from the developers is that the PUC is telling them in some cases with projects that they may not be necessary because Vermont's driving 40 megawatts a year of solar and that's consistent with our current policy. And so they wanna change the policy to say, no, we need to have, I don't know, 120 megawatts a year of solar, which is a different discussion. And if we see load growth and other things, that might be interesting, but currently this utility, even though we're trying to drive load growth through EVs and heat pumps, we're not seeing it materially yet in our sales to customers. I don't think other utilities have seen it quite yet either. So it's really like, how are we pacing the development of new resources, the grid and the cost to customers that I think should be the key driver of the conversation? Thanks. We'll be glad to follow up on that. It's not all bad news in the legislative context. There's some good things happening as well. And I was down in Montpelier yesterday, we testified in favor of the Affordable Heating Act, which is a potential kind of complement to the RES on the heating side. It includes currently eligibility for renewable district energy as a credit. So our district energy system would be potentially included in this. It includes a variety of other measures that are fairly consistent with what I think we're growing and is doing. And the main focus of the utility testimony, not just us, but others, is trying to make sure it aligns well with our existing incentives and how the process will play out at the PUC for determining that. But we have confidence that that will work well. So we're hopeful to see that move. And I think the committee has a markup scheduled for later this week. And then after that happens, I believe we'll be working with Efficiency Vermont on the Act 151 extension to let us continue to use our efficiency monies for innovative programs, which we've talked about as well. So on to other news, Emily will probably touch on this more in the financials, but I did want to signal the commission that we are having a warmer than expected winter. As you may recall, when we did our budget, it was really based on the idea that energy prices were going to be fairly high during the winter period. That's not materialized in December or January. It materialized momentarily over the weekend when we had the cold snap. But we're back to a period now where prices are frankly at levels that we don't always even see in the shoulder season. And this is during the winter. Temperatures in Boston are consistently exceeding 50 degrees. So for the region as a whole, that might be a good thing to have lower prices. But for us in our budget having planned for the higher prices, it's not a positive and it's challenging us relative to certain metrics and is informing our determinations on the FY24 budget that we're working on now. So I wanted to flag that. Obviously we're doing what we can. We're gonna be running McNeil some of the time at 40 megawatts instead of 50 to conserve wood supply for days where there is higher price or perhaps for the shoulder season when there might be the opportunity to have more production that wasn't budgeted. So we're gonna do what we can in deploying McNeil to mitigate. But I think this budget has been more determined based on those energy prices than any budget. I've been part of it, BPD. And to date it has not been in our favor. So you'll see some of the impacts of that unfortunately in the financials. The strategy mentioned the Act 250 document is in. So what that is is a jurisdictional opinion. It is from Jeff Hand who's a lawyer at Firm here that's well known for their work on renewable energy at the PUC. Or essentially asserting that it is a municipal project. It wouldn't be subject to full Act 250 permit but would it amend existing permits at UVM, UVM medical and at city properties. That may or may not be accepted by the district. If it's not accepted, we would have a full Act 250 process. If it is accepted, we'll have a process focused on amendments. But either way there will be process with Act 250. It's a momentous step. We've never gone here before with district energy. We've never been designed far enough along for this to happen. We have some other kind of activities going on. We're working closely with the state on options for financing that would be at maybe a lower rate than what we're seeing in the markets right now because that's a potential cost driver for the project, these high interest rates that we're seeing. We are working with the federal government to try to bring in the leaky funding, still waiting on the deepest determination there. And then the DPW in the city has been working with the Evergreen team to try to make sure that we're aligned well on the impacts that there might be from the project and how we work with the water department with DPW on streets to make sure that's all working correctly. And I think next week, I'm gonna be presenting at UVM medical meeting with their neighbors that they meet with monthly on different projects. So that'll be a nice step as well. Financial piece is still moving. So there's still work to be done there. So it's not an end deal yet, of course, but we're continuing to make pretty steady progress on this. I'll pause. I still have a question. No question, okay. I'll continue. Just two other items for me, both of which we had press events for in January. What I understand is now gonna be ballot item two on the town meeting day ballot is the item that we've worked on with the department of permitting related to the carbon pollution impact fee for new construction and large existing buildings that don't go with renewable technology. We had a nice event at Hula, which is geothermal heated and cooled. We had some Burlington high school students from, we've been part of the city and lake program and we're seniors at DHS who spoke. We had a deeper renewable energy per month and the NRC on the environmental community side supportive of the initiative. And then we had our partners from the building electrification Institute who were joined us remotely to talk about how this work fits with other work that's going on in other communities. So big items coming up in just about a month now on the town meeting day ballot. And we're not, we don't advocate for these items as the city department. We just provide information, factual information about the items. So we'll continue to offer information where it's helpful, but it's now in the kind of the voting process. So we're not going to be really engaged on that side of things in any way. So we'll see, we'll see how that turns out. And then lastly, a little bit earlier in January we had our announcement around our incentive programs for 2023, some updates and changes in the new wrap tariff, which is now signed officially. And thanks to Emily for a lot of work on that back and forth with BHF-A as well as James, Chris and others. And so now that program is available. We are officially partners and we had referenced it earlier in January at the press conference, but now it's going to be an item that we can support customers in terms of on-bill financing for heat pumps and waterization for qualified customers. So another good tool in the toolbox. And we're working as well, as I mentioned here on a heat pump pilot for designing a potential future heat pump bill credit or rate. I am one of the customers who are going to participate in this pilot and to volunteer. So we're going to see if we can kind of look at the real-time data from the heat pumps and have the ED send signals to the heat pumps to be able to reduce energy use in certain quantities, not completely obviously, during peak periods in the winter and summertime. And then we're going to use that data to try to drive a design of a program to benefit customers in the future. And I'm a volunteer too. Yes. James's heat pumps are also signed up as well as mine. That's everything I've got. Excellent. Any questions? So in the last thing you mentioned, the wrapping. So I've been in touch with Brian in energy services and I'm going to see if everything works out that I can be one of the first people to take advantage of all of these things. Excellent. Weatherizing and pumping my house. Excellent. We'll see what happens. We're at the start of our experience. Yeah, exactly. So we're at the start of our journey with this. That's great. See what's going to go. Thank you for that. Yep. Okay. Next would be item number five. Item number six, rather, the FY23 financials for December. Emily. December FY23 financials were materially worse than budget mainly due to lower than budgeted energy prices. And I can tell you now that January is going to be materially worse. Worse than this. And yeah, so I think we talked to the commission about the unprecedented nature of the energy forwards, volatility, we knew that there was a risk of a mild winter affecting our power supply and it's been a mild winter. So here we are. So we as a management team will be taking actions, are taking actions, but we'll continue to probably spend serious time on this over the next few weeks to figure out how to respond to this and in particular preserve cash before the remainder of the fiscal year. So what I'm going to share with you isn't great, but I'm just letting you know that next month, my story will be even sadder, unfortunately. Question. Yes. In this table, it's like a big hit is from power supply expenses, considering the agreement we thought. And I heard you say was we had a problem selling the stuff. So I'm not sure if you can answer it. Yep. Let me walk you through. And then when I, if after I cover the power supply, I haven't answered your question. Let me know and we'll come back to that. So for the month, we had a net loss of $66,000 compared to a budgeted net income of $434,000 or half a million off for the month of where we wanted to be. For the year to date, we are just under a million dollars off with a net loss of $921,000 or the year to date versus a budgeted net income of $712,000. So walking through the details, sales to customers are generally speaking right on budget. They're up and down, but generally speaking, we're only $200,000 off for the year. We had a positive variance of $53,000 for December and that's generally like, that's really great, you know, as these things can go. Other revenues for December had a positive variance of $146,000. Most of that returns from the EU fund draw offset by EU expenses on the expense side. There were no rec revenues in December as was budgeted. Now moving to power supply expense, which as Commissioner Harrington noted was $913,000 worse than budget. So power supply, as many of you know, is a combination of several different elements. And so for December, wood fuel expense was over budget by $350,000 roughly. Part of that being due to the price that we're paying is higher than budget in order to ensure that we have adequate wood supply. We also ran McNeil 18% more than budget and so therefore we expense more wood fuel. That's one element of the 913. Purchase power, second element, was $580,000 worse than budget. Within purchase power, there are several subsections. One is capacity and that is where the unanticipated payments for mystic are coming in. So there was almost, most of that 150 was $147,000 capacity payment from the mystic plant. And then energy charges were also worse than budget by $242,000. Of that, 147 was related to the ISO exchange. And what we had happening there was we had a positive volume variance because we were running McNeil more than we had budgeted. So we had more energy to sell. However, the price was a lot less than we had budgeted. So the positive volume variance was more than offset by a negative price variance. And then transmission actually helped us that was slightly, slightly better than budget. So I'll just pause there and commission our hand in. Did that answer your question? Sorry about it, you still don't see it. Most of those numbers you just mentioned, I can't even find. Well, they all sum up the net to the 913. The biggest one is? Of that 913. Biggest one was purchased power. The combination of capacity and energy. But actually, I get prices are down because of the one winner. Yes. We bought lots more because why? We what? Why didn't we buy more? We didn't buy more. We sold at less of a profit, you could say, right? So... What did you call that an expense? Yes. It's a variance. We had budgeted for a positive expense variance, you could say.  Well, sales is an intake of money. Expenses is an outflow of money. Yes. But when I look at this table and then I listen to you, I'm hearing it doesn't work that way. Yeah, I mean, I see your point. I see your point. We budget for the excess energy that we sell through the ISO exchange as part of the power supply expense budget. Yeah, the power supply expense, it might help them lead to remind folks, is net power supply expenses. So it's power supply expenses, net of power supply revenues. Which includes both rec revenue and any excess energy sold on the ISO exchange. So a sale to customers, not a power supply revenue. Correct. Correct. So and it doesn't help you to produce less energy because, because... Well, the real question... You're selling at a lower price than you anticipated, but you're still selling it. So instead of making $1 on every unit, you're making... As long as the marginal price is above our marginal cost, right, and then you have to factor in the recs that we generate, which are then available to sell. As part of that, then yes, you're right. However, we have been watching the prices and positioning the plant to conserve wood so that we're not running full tilt. So to speak, so that in the chance that prices in March, April, May, or June are better than anticipated, we will have wood supply to run then. Which is running full tilt now, we'd expect to kind of be out of wood by the end of March. Just a quick note. That's true. Everything we said for units where we can control the output. So if it's a contracted resource like a wind resource or a hydro resource, there's either no variable cost in the case of a hydro, say, or we're not able to interrupt the output of the wind resources under contract. So, but yes, in general, we are not losing money. We are making less than we thought, materially, so. I'm embarrassed to, I guess it's clear I have never understood this after all these years. So when we take the difference between operating revenues and total expenses and come up with operating income, which checks with what I would normally think of when I said operating revenues sounded like expenses and didn't include income. So it's still confusing, but that wasn't a question. I knew you could say, okay, so you're confused. Let's move on. Well, I would offer that if it helps on, I think it's page seven every time of the packet. Let me see if I'm right, or of the financial packet. Yes, on page seven of the financials is a breakdown of net power supply, right? As James said. So that includes both the expenses of power supply and the revenues of power supply. Can you switch to the power supply detail for a second? Maybe Emily too. The purchase power detail? I'm on the page. I'm actually going to ask, unless other people are worried about this, it sounds like I have to do some homework. So I'll do it. Okay. And I'm happy to have you give me a call so we can go over in detail if you want. Yeah, yeah, I would refer you to pages kind of seven through nine where the detail is laid out and then certainly let us know the other questions. But it does seem like the worry is, so what is this mean to like the rate payers? And BED is an agency, right? Which, but I think a lot of what? We are interested is the impact to the residents and the people in Wellington. And of course it's kind of like a bad time because we just had a rate increase. We've asked for a lot of money and the communities who invested in BED and so to be have this deficit at this moment is unfortunate, yeah. Definitely, definitely. So that's what you all are going to do, say like which levers you can pull and push? I want to, yes. In certain years there are more levers you can pull and push and I think we're a little constrained at the moment both because given so much variance was on the power supply piece, there are very few pieces of budget that you can change that have an equal impact to the power supply piece. And unlike prior years, much of our capital budget is revenue bond projects. So they're going to be reimbursed but deferring and canceling them doesn't really save money in the long run. In prior years where we've had a capital budget that wasn't based on the revenue bond, deferring projects might save you on your cash and be worthwhile. So we're going to look at everything. We're going to look at even things like towards the year and making sure that revenue from expenditures that we make are able to be reimbursed in the same fiscal year so that we can bring an appropriate amount of cash on hand in the next fiscal year. So we're having monthly executive team meetings with the finance team and the policy planning teams, staff to go over opportunities to reduce expenditures or occur expenditures. But I am concerned because this is barring a change in the weather and a change in prices. Our opportunities as outlined are really limited to kind of change the power supply trajectory. And it's one thing if we don't quite hit our net income metric or our adjusted debt service coverage ratio metrics, those are unfortunate potentially and that's something that we welcome. The bigger concern is going to be cash on hand heading into next year's budget. We strive to maintain the 90 days cash on hand. That's the A rating metric for Moody's and we feel is a safe metric up for BED. And just maintaining that this year under this circumstance if it continues is going to be a challenge. And then that also puts additional pressure on the next year's rate requirement as well. So it's something to be. This is going to be a big part of the budget discussion going forward unless the dynamic fundamentally changes in the power supply piece. Yeah, so tough conundrum. Yes. So you can, and then I think also that's why the public also gets frustrated, right? Because I said, don't do the streetlight projects, right? Save that money, but you can't do that because that's a different plan. I know that may or may not be a good light example, but I know capital and operating are often really separate for publications, I guess is my point. Yeah, and the streetlighting, while there's some expense, wouldn't be at the magnitude. You're going to be deferred all of it that it would probably solve this problem. But if we had streetlighting taken away from us as a responsibility, probably being that positive from an economic standpoint, we'd welcome that if there's interest. But absent something like that, it probably wouldn't have the impact financially to make a huge difference, unfortunately. And then are there any lessons? Like, do we gamble too much on this, or? The challenge, I think, is the timing of it. Because when we're putting together the rating case, the forwards were very high. And you can't go into the public utility commission process with the forwards being that high. And if you're attempting to be more conservative, it may not play out kind of correctly in the rate process. And the one thing I would say is we don't have what some of the utilities that are under an alternative regulation plan on our investor, like Vermont Gas and GMP, have a fuel adjustment clause. So if you're a Vermont Gas customer, you'll see that the commodity price changed and the gas rate changed earlier this year, or I should say later last year, when there was upward pressure. And I think on a recent bill, I saw that the commodity price changed and the gas price is going to decrease. And all of that happens relatively automatically at the public utility commission. We don't have any of that. So we are under a traditional rate making process where each year you go in with the numbers that you have. And they may change. And there's no real mechanism to adjust the rate need or have any sort of supplementary charge for a period of time to adjust for fuel costs. Or they also have storm adjusters in some cases as well. So that would be a nice tool in the toolbox. You might be able to, if you were looking at something like this, you might have been like, OK, we're going to have a temporary surcharge during this period to cover the cost, the differential. But then it's not going to necessarily affect our cash and rate needs for next year. And unfortunately, that's not the way it works for us. So it will affect those things. And that's something that not only we looked at, it would require legislative change, but a charter change and a vote. And it's a lengthy process. So not something that would be an easy tool to access for us, unfortunately. But it would help resolve this issue a little bit. We're going to do everything we can. We will have a rate requirement for next year. There will be a rate change for next year. We'll do everything we can to keep it as reasonable as possible, given the various dynamics on the power supply side. And I think if we see forwards for next year that looked like the forwards this year, we would probably advocate for being more conservative with them in the process. Whether that gets upheld in a rate making process is to be determined. It's still complicated, right? We're paying extra to have additional fuel supply on hand. But then prices are really, it's hard for me to keep it all straight, but. Again, keep in mind, we're not operating at a loss. We're just not operating at the desired profit. Yeah, it's a frustrating dynamic. And all things equal, if the prices had been higher this winter, we'd be going into the next fiscal year with a larger cash reserve. Our rate need would be lower. It would be beneficial for our customers. We're not in that place at the moment. Inflation is still fairly high, still impacting supply chain. We do have labor cost increases and other things that would drive a rate need regardless. So the question is, how much can we mitigate the impact of these changes, both in this fiscal year and in the next fiscal year? I mean, the numbers that were included in our rate case for the value of selling this excess power for January and February are roughly four times what it's actually been coming in at. So again, it's coming in at above variable cost, but it's coming in at a quarter of what was expected. So that's how big a change this is. The rest of the numbers here pale by comparison. But I'll continue to walk you through them a little less. Other operating expense other than power supply had a relatively small variance of $136,000 over budget, largely due to timing. Moving down out of the operating piece into other income and deductions, we had a positive variance there for the month of $346,000. That's a combination of things. Interest rates have gone up, so interest income is higher. Gains on investments were higher than budgeted. And our miscellaneous non-operating income is also higher, driven by customer contributions to capital projects. So as I said at the top, in sum, we had a net loss for the month of $209,000 and a net loss for the year of $921,000. Moving to capital spending for December was $4.2 million to date compared to the budget for the year to date of $5.6 million. As Dara mentioned, we're continuing to see supply chain delays of getting materials. But we are keeping projects moving, ordering well in advance and being creative with our planning and procurement strategies as well as we can be. The cash position for the department as of the end of December was $4.7 million. That is well below the budget target we had for December of 8.9. That is the impact mostly of the lower energy prices. I can tell you that cash improved for January a little bit by about a million dollars. Still well below where we'd budgeted it to be, and it's well below where we need to end the year to have 90 days. So we'll be taking steps in the next month or so to preserve cash. That is my report unless there are a few other questions. I've never seen that before. So just another healthy four or five more million in there. I've seen it as high as 12, so it's a bit scary. So that's my last year, I think. Yeah, 10 to 12. 10 to 12 in the US. Any questions for Emily? Thank you. Yes. Next thing would be the IRP forecast update. And this is James. Can I hear you, sir? Still can. There we go. No, definitely. That was joking. Sorry I'm not there in person. Normally I would prefer to present in person, but I'm sick and you definitely do not want to get whatever I've got. We wanted to come in and give a brief after the last commission meeting where there were some questions about the IRP. We wanted to show some information on where things stand. In particular today, we're going to talk a bit about the forecast and some of the key driving variables and where our forecast cases are landing on those variables. Because we have a couple of new commissioners. Emily, next slide, please. I'm going to remind folks what is an IRP. That is a triennial utility obligation created by 30 Vermont statutes annotated to 18C. I had to look up triennial to make sure I got that right, but it is triennial, not triennial. And you can read that at your leisure. We'll be sharing the PowerPoint after the meeting. We'll share it with Lori and she can circulate it. But it's really just a plan for meeting the public's needs at the lowest possible lifecycle cost, but including environmental and economic costs. And really, you have to consider all types of investments. So energy supply, transmission, distribution, transmission, efficiency, and then consider those economic costs in relation to those four criteria. It's, next slide, please. It is perhaps as interesting to talk about what is an IRP not. And an IRP is not an actual approval to undertake any of the actions that the IRP or the plan concluded were appropriate. So when your IRP is approved, if in your IRP you said, you're gonna pursue a new wind generating station, that doesn't get approved. That's not what is being approved when the IRP is approved. It's not a determination of prudency with regard to any action with respect to rate recovery either. So you can have actions in the IRP that is approved, that is an approved IRP that you then may have to seek permitting approval for. You could be chastised in a rate case for it being an improved decision. An IRP is not protection against any of those things. And so, if something requires PUC approval, like building a generating plant, it will still require the same PUC approval, even if it was included in an IRP as an action step. It does have the advantage under, whoops, I'm sorry, I wasn't able to go back for a sec. 30VSA 248 does have a little context that says, with respect to, and 30VSA 248 is the Certificate of Public Good statute criteria and statute criteria number six, which is one of the things you have to satisfy, says that with respect to purchase investments or constructions by a company is consistent with the principles or resource selection expressed in the company's approved IRP. So really, approval equates to approval of the decision-making process described in that IRP, not any of the results. And honestly, if you had concluded something, but an assumption needed to be updated before you made a decision, and you didn't do it, that would be imprudent. So an IRP is a snapshot in a moment of time of how you make decisions about resources and how you balance them against each other. Next slide, please. So for the major statutory components of an IRP, and these are pieces we'll be bringing to you, the forecast is certainly the primary one, that's a primary input, and the forecast is telling you what load you're trying to serve. The forecast, in our case, is actually net of energy efficiency, effectively, because the target for energy efficiency is decided in a second process called a demand-resourcing plan. So these are two disconnected three-year processes, one of which determines the appropriate amount to spend on energy efficiency, and the other does really everything else. So we inject the amount from our most recent DRP as a reduction in load forecast under our integrated resource plan for energy efficiency. So we're not really trading that off against anything, and the target is maximum achievable potential, so you really can't change its amount all that much, even if you want to. You are doing resource evaluations, and there are trade-offs. So for example, if you could do more energy efficiency, you could consider that an alternative to buying a new resource. If you needed distribution upgrades, you could potentially consider demand response and lowering the demands that you're forecasting, a trade-off against distribution. But the distribution evaluation is a very big piece of it, and that certainly was a major focus of the last integrated resource plan, where we specifically looked at significantly increasing loads, loads increasing well in excess of anything we'd ever put in an IRP. In particular, we'd never done an IRP at Burlington Electric before the last one that considered loads in excess of 80 megawatts. The last IRP had a case at 102.8 megawatts, and that would be a case driven by significant new electrification loads. You consider the economic impact of the choices you're making, and so for example, you would be looking at an energy resource, and you would say, based on all of the assumption in the IRP, would investing in this energy resource increase or decrease the economic impacts on my customers under these various cases or various assumption sets? And you do try to develop a rate trajectory, and you're looking for something that, a sort of total plan that yields the lowest rate trajectory while accomplishing your goals. We do also look at environmental impacts, and we can look at them both from a monetary point of view, if there is a monetary market that captures that value, or we can simply look at it from a carbon dioxide emissions point of view, even if there is no market, and we could assign a value to that, but it would be a non-economic value if we did that, it wouldn't go into the rate path. So unless there's a way to monetize it from a rate path point of view, you can consider it, but it won't affect your rate path directly. It might affect your decisions. Next slide, please. The DPS issued new guidance for IRPs on December 30th, 2022. That is an update from the prior 2016 version which governed our last IRP. This is not an exhaustive list of what they've added, but it's some of the more significant ones, they've added sections on environmental justice, public participation, and technology development flow charts, and that's really, a lot of that is on the distribution side. That's not a lot of time in a three-year process for us to incorporate these suggestions by September. We will be reviewing to what extent can we accomplish a guidance, by the way, the guidance was issued in draft form on December 30th. Comments from everybody were due January 31st, and I don't think they've issued a final version yet. So at some point it becomes very difficult to incorporate new guidance in a document that's due in a certain number of months. So we will look at these. If we can incorporate them, we will do so. If not, we will let the department know essentially that they either need to extend the timeline or recognize that they will not be included in this IRP. One other thing I'll mention is that there is also an MOU that was signed as a result of the last IRP that has certain actions that we have to take, and those will have to be in this IRP. So for example, updating the McNeill Economic Analysis is wonderful. Next slide, please, Emily. From the forecast front, second. I see you. So, sorry, from the forecasting front, unlike in prior IRPs, some of the assumptions regarding the pace of electrification are really the biggest unknowns in terms of impact on the load we will be serving. In prior IRPs, 2008, 12, 16, et cetera, there was a lot of discussion about what are you gonna forecast for a change in GDP? What do you think the population in Burlington will be doing over the 20 years? Compared to the effect that those kind of variables can have on the load forecast, the assumptions about new EV deployments and about new heat pump deployments and about how much they will consume, will wildly crush the impact of those types of variables. So what will drive the cases here between the low base and high case where we try to look at multiple cases and see how robust the answers are at different levels of load? Do you get the same answer if you don't get a lot of deployment? Do you get the same answer if you get more deployment than you expected? The drivers for the number of EVs and the number of heat pumps is really going to be two of the biggest things we've got to deal with. And we've got a couple of slides where we wanna talk about those deployment rates. Pregnant pause for next slide. Thank you. Anyway, pardon me again. This is the IRP deployment EV deployment trajectories. The gray line, the blue line and the orange line are from the current IRP draft and they represent deployment rates of electric vehicles under what we are calling low base and high case. In this case, it was fairly easy to give a comparative value from the net zero roadmap and that is the green line, is the 2030 net zero roadmap deployment rate of EVs to achieve net zero in the transportation sector by 2030. And this particular graph is focusing on light duty vehicles, which is really the predominant type of vehicle that's being modeled. The right hand margin shows the approximate saturation or market share under each of the cases. The only qualifier I need to give you and the reason there's an asterisk under market share is that the denominators for these two calculations are not the same. The net zero roadmap used an increasing number of EVs over time. So it's a growing denominator and the IRP cases right now for low ratio share are calculated on a static 25,000 roughly vehicles in Burlington. If you were to change the denominator to the net zero case for the three IRP scenarios, they would drop relative to the 98% in the net zero roadmap. Those, that 81% market share 60 and 32, I can't read it, sorry, 53, would all drop relative to the 98, the 98 would stay the same. We are having some difficulty putting these things directly against each other and we're gonna talk about that particularly in the next slide, which is on heat pump rates. But I mean, I think what this shows is that there is a shortfall between the projected deployment rate of under the IRP scenarios. The base case would have us at 60% roughly of market share. And we knew that. We don't necessarily think that we are on trajectory to meet the 2030 net zero roadmap. So the gap above those cases doesn't surprise me that much. You can also see by the way, the blue line on the left is our historical deployment rate. And you can see that the blue line, the base case line, is really driven strongly by ITRON's forecasting off of past practice. And then we are judgmentally adjusting it upwards or downwards. I'm sorry, I just wanna ask if there were any particular questions on that slide right now. The EV one? Yes, please. I'm curious why you're cutting vehicles and not vehicle miles. We're using the deployment of vehicles and then vehicle miles is a function of creating an average use. So these vehicle deployments to become electric consumption get multiplied by an average use. The average use is affected by vehicle miles driven for Burlington customers. So these become energy sales forecasts when coupled with forecast of average use over time. And there's no nuance between like miles for an electric vehicle versus a ICD or whatever? In this particular context under the IRP, and I don't believe there is, under the net zero roadmap, there are some very complicated interplays. For example, they're projecting, increasing efficiency of vehicles over time and things like that. But by and large, this is based on an average use assumption over time. We can pull that, but I don't have it with me as a graph. I don't necessarily think it's static, by the way, either. Yeah, I was just gonna say, James, we do track our kind of BMT data in the roadmap updates using an average that's based on the two-year trailing based on the local Chittam County Regional Planning numbers and one-year trailing based on the state average. Right, and there's multiple sources of average mileage you could have what's called the tier three tag, technical advisory group assumptions about my vehicle miles. I'd have to get the actual assumption about vehicle miles because what I've actually got is consumption per vehicle per year, which then gets multiplied by deployment rate in vehicles per year. Because again, we're concerned in terms of a load forecast about electric energy at the end of the day. Any other questions on this? Sorry, just a clarifying question. You said this was the old IRP modeling though and you're gonna be updating it through your process. No, no, no, no. Oh, no, this is the current. Okay. It's current IRP modeling against the net zero roadmap in green. These are the assumptions that we're making that are two critical ones that are driving the load forecast scenarios that we will then go on to analyze in the IRP in terms of distribution impacts, economic impacts, environmental impacts and everything else. And in all of this again, remember, in three years you'll be updating the IRP. So unless you're making a 20 year decision, you're not really relying that heavily on those out years right now. Because you know that the uncertainty out there is higher than it is upfront for sure. Next slide please. So this is the potential heat pump trajectories. And I want to note right away that we have changed your comparative measure here from being the net zero roadmap to being the green mountain power base case. If the comparisons in low ratio share in the EVs are difficult, the comparisons for deployment rates of heat pump technology between the net zero roadmap and the IRP modeling is very difficult and we'll probably need synapse to calculate a few things for us before we can actually do that. Synapse is looking at whole home conversions to heat pumps over time with a changing percentage of the home load being served by the heat pump over time and with changing efficiencies in heat pumps over time. That is almost certain and it's displacing anywhere from 75 to 85% of the heating load in the house over the evaluation window in the synapse report. You know that's not a single head mini split. So all of the IRP modeling done by ITRON who's our forecasting consultant is based around heat pump counts. They have also done that work for green mountain power. So the green mountain power is a deployment of units of heat pumps as are our three graphs. We are trying to convert the net zero roadmap to being equivalent but it requires some estimates of the average number of heat pump units required to do what they modeled in their plan and their roadmap. That's proving difficult. So we've given you at least one comparison because otherwise I would just be showing you three lines that curve with no frame of reference as to what anybody else thinks might be going on. The yellow line is GMP's base case. What this data shows is that we are below GMP's base case, in our base case, the blue line and the gray line which is our low case. And only in our high deployment rate case are we exceeding GMP's base case. GMP's high case would probably be higher than our high case, virtually certain. And I guarantee you that the net zero roadmap would be higher than all of those. Okay, and as soon as we can do that math if we can do that math, we'll put that out as well. But this feels sort of intuitively correct to me in the sense that at a base case deployment rate I would expect GMP to be deploying heat pumps faster than Burlington Electric. We are looking at competing against a 95% saturation of natural gas. They have significant oil and propene that they are competing against. They do not have universality of natural gas in their customer base and the economics of deploying a heat pump against oil and propane are certainly better than deploying them against natural gas today. Now, they've gotten better. As Darren has said, we're probably a little bit above break even right now. But again, you're incurring a capital cost to more or less break even, whereas against oil and propane you're incurring a capital cost to save operating costs. Better economics. Again, we're not surprised that our heat pump deployments would not be meeting the net zero deployment rates. Again, there's no reason that they would. We don't have a program or an active dynamic or a requirement or something else that would push us to the net zero deployment rate yet. That's what we're trying to do when we're looking at the net zero roadmap is figure out how to close the gaps and move the deployment rates so the technology is up to where they need to be. Are you considering the overlay of Vermont gases, efforts in the sphere because of it not being a whole cloth replacement, but actually encouraging, at least through their pilot, the remaining heating system in place but the tea pump being an addition and therefore potentially extending that opportunity. Sure, sure. I'm just thinking of like, if you're looking at models for understanding number of your impact and your amount of impact, you have obviously another person in another entity who's playing in the space. And I'm just curious about your overlay of Vermont gases activities around heat pumps and what that does if they're high on it. Unless Vermont gases activities would push us outside of the orange line, which I don't see in any case, right? We will be testing a case that's that high, right? I mean, again, we will be testing a combined high case, which would be the summation of high heat pump deployment in residential units, the high deployment of EVs and that will become a low forecast that is tested for its impact on our system and our decisions. So unless you think their actions would put us totally out of the bounds of any of these three cases, then I'm not terribly worried about that. That sounds, yeah, I would think it would just be more actually pushed the other way. It would decrease the potential run rate for how much adoption you would get. Well, it depends. Like I said, you can use those explanations to understand what might move you from the base case to the high case or the low case or what might be needed to move you there. And you can use that when you're deciding what case you put the most weight on in terms of deciding to make investments. You don't want to sit there and invest in T and D upgrades on the orange curve without some real reason to believe that you're not gonna be on the blue line. What's gonna cover the gap between 20 below zero and the heat pump? In all of these cases that would be covered by residual gas and fossil fuel use. Even that's also in the net zero roadmap. Just a question of how much of it's left. I mean, I personally have two heat pumps. I was very pleased to see that over the cold weather, they operated two rating. They are specced out for minus 14 and they produced heat, two minus 14 and then they stopped. And, but there was enough buffer in the house that my well bills have been brutally driven down by having the two heat pumps this year. It's not been that hasn't been that cold either. It's been a really good year for, you know, high efficiency, super high efficiency heat pumps. And that answers my question of your, the modeling is continuous consumption of other heating equipment. So that's the interest. Has to be. And even in like I say, even in the net zero roadmap, they do not assume a technology where heat pumps can displace 100% of fossil fuel use by 2030 or 2040. They don't have a base for heating. Back up instead of gas. I don't think they assume a change to the backup heating unit. I'd have to double check that the model's pretty deep bob as to whether they actually, I think what they're doing is they're replacing natural gas customers with heat pumps and they're in a residual natural gas load. I don't think that they're moving that residual load then over to electric, but that I would have to check. That would require a fair bit of digging into the model. And I can do it. I just don't know the answer. So what we're doing though is we're combining these cases to drive variations around a base case so that we're not sitting there 20 years ago, the IRP would have had a single forecast line and all of your planning would be meeting that forecast and you would assume the forecast was accurate. Now you're gonna be looking at, what happens, what do you need if you do hit the orange line? When do you need it? What's the most economical way to meet the orange line? That kind of thing. So IRPs in Vermont no longer are single case evaluations. Now, we can update, we will provide this PowerPoint, share it with you guys. We will continue to develop PowerPoints to explain the steps that we're taking through the IRP. We will also though share this PowerPoint with the DPS and elicit their comments because we have an obligation under our MOU to begin engaging with the DPS six months before filing which I think ends up being end of this month. So it's timed very well. We will just simply share the PowerPoint as we have always done in the past. In the past, whenever we did an IRP PowerPoint for the BEC or any of the committees, we would share it with the DPS right afterwards and seek their commentary and then let you guys know what their commentary is if it's material. And that is the end of the PowerPoint. Thank you, James. Any other questions from seeing this? Thank you very much. Stay tuned. That's due in the September, right? Okay. September, September 1st. All right. Thank you, James. We'll go on to the end of number eight, commissioner's check-in. I wanted to give commissioner Whitaker an opportunity to just do something that we talked about before you came in to just if you need a brief update. Just quickly, I saw a renewable energy standard and a wood thing. Did you guys spend a lot of time talking about that? A little bit. We did. I mentioned that, well, we shared the statement that I hope you saw an email. I was in Montpelier yesterday. We're gonna spend a lot of time advocating about that. And we welcome, and this is part of the conversation, the commission's active engagement on the issue as well. And so, Chair Boothi suggested the commission might be willing to put together some sort of statement that might be helpful for us in terms of sharing with legislators, but also sharing globally with the city council because there's gonna be a forum potentially with the Transportation and Energy Utilities Committee at the council on wood energy in paper. So we welcome the commission's engagement on all of those areas. Okay, and there's no nuance in the standard for like the scrap part, I think so. Second, if you don't stop. Well, there is currently, I mean, current law certainly allows us to count wood energy towards for much renewable targets. This proposal, as it was laid out last week, by renewable energy Vermont, and which of course is subject to change in which we hope will change. As it was drafted and announced at the press conference would simply phase out eligibility regardless of sustainable harvesting, regardless of the district energy project. And we think that's not good policy. Yeah, good. I did have a question. I should have asked James. Are you still there, James? Looks like it is. Is that neat? Yeah, he wasn't the only one who ever said it. Okay, there we are. Any other... He caught that just as he came back into the room. But then he had to find his cursor, which slowed him down for a few seconds. Well, just context, you mentioned at the beginning of your remarks that we kick up in one previous IRP 202 megawatts. What kind of upper limits are you thinking about here? Or is it premature? It's... I-tron will need to run the energy forecasts through a peak demand model. And we need to then understand... It won't be as high as the 140 megawatts because none of the I-tron cases are net zero by 2030 or 2040. But we need to make sure that we understand if we get numbers that are lower than 140, what's driving the difference? Is it an assumption about the saturation? Is it that the average use assumptions are different? That is still in process. Converting an energy forecast to a peak demand forecast is still in process. Okay. Thank you. All right, thank you, James. Any other... Anyone who says that Christians want to bring up? I'll take a motion. Make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. You have to wear the sweatshirt to make a motion. Get the memo. I'll stand and adjourn. Thanks, everybody. Thank you all.


What's going on guys got a Kyle here laden sports cards, and we are ripping a six-box personal for This is for Justin H. It's gonna be six boxes of 2022 chrome F1 Good luck Justin. Let's see some fire. Let's see some for Stappen some Lewis Good luck. Good luck.  We got that is a Mercedes team and Sergio Perez mini diamond to 299 Silver Schumacher quick Mick silver McLaren team and Looks like gold France toast Number it's seven of fifty. I would probably trend toward no Andrew. It'll probably go tomorrow night This is Latifi and Albon Williams constructors This is purple Checo Perez to 199 Or not numbered interesting speed demons Yeah, there's one at one per box. There's like a dual color Numbers like purple green. Yeah purple green. Okay Got a lamp stroll silver Troll cards See why Speed demons Okan is out for a mail Yeah, okay Joe future stars fit the Paul D. This is Red Bull racing Black checkerboard Valtteri Botas Not numbered there and a silver Haas God silver that is Red Bull team Haas again God rookie Joe Got Ferrari there and a Carlos signs purple checkerboard. That's to 199 Alright, let's go box two for you here. Good luck Justin See something real nice out of here. It's an auto And a little maxi down for a super as well. Let's do it Let me pull one out here. Yeah, really? Yeah speed demons Okan No, not yet Alex still got a couple more before you For me the one award winners The honest Simpleton it might not go tonight Ran a little bit behind on group breaks. If it doesn't go tonight. It'll go tomorrow for it speed demons Lewis Say these cars not looking like a speed demon right now though They got Aston Martin beating them With their own engines silver Lecler got Aston Martin and Purple this is pure ghastly. This one's gonna be a 199 or 399 Alexander Albon. I will say like the Like that's the base cars look better than like the last couple years look. They're nice. Yeah another solid like the portraits or whatever Hamilton and Russell there silver ART and Many diamond Marcus Armstrong Yeah, sorry about that Simpleton Got McClaren and Fernando Alonso to 399 nice aloe Got a Red Bull like Max win the championship there Silver Liam Lawson for F2 black mini diamond. This is Lecler Grand Prix driver the day and Alfa Romeo team card Alphatari team card silver Prima and Max Verstappen purple the 75 Nice one there on the driver of the day or a Grand Prix winner Nice for stopping. It's like gold and purple Pierre ghastly might be the image variation there and Speed demons match you but noto and Green auto this one is Enzo Fittipaldi Auto for a Sheru racing is to 99 on the Fittipaldi auto Sheru McLaren Jack Hughes future star All right on to box three. Good luck Justin. See a big F1 auto here or a super Silver Mercedes Got silver McLaren See my boy Danny Rick dirty. We have Williams racing. Oh Nice Fernando Alonso here looks like gold checkerboard 8 of 50 nice one there. I'm in really nice start to the year Finish on the podium the first race Silver future stars Vesti And auto this one is going to be Liam Lawson For Carlin nice Lawson there on the Silver Auto not numbered Well on the auto so far two out of three boxes Speed demons Danny Rick. I was at my buddies the other day And he has the Oculus. Oh, yeah, and I have the the racing wheel for F1 Oh, that's cool.  It was oh, yeah, it's clean. Oh, yeah It's like we have a red and green that is Frederick Vesti Refractor Checo and refractor George Russell He might have a better year than Lewis this year to see Silver K-Mag Rebel racing and we have purple Max for stopping Nice one there to 399. That's the same one that is Abu Dhabi winner speed demons Alonso Oh nice Lewis here. We got a black Checkerboard very nice Lewis and that is the Alpine team Liam Lawson future star is the Aston Martin team. He is something juice up their car to start the year They're flying That's my squad Asim one out for a male We have a K-Mag mini diamond. That is to 299. Oh, you're right after Gregory. Gregor will be next Sam So Gregor will have a couple of baseball boxes and then you'll be up. Oh, yeah, and Jeremy. Sorry about that. Jeremy's gonna be quick though It's just a top Star Wars black nice for stopping number one. Here we go box number three or Yeah box number three look Justin or four actually four You get ripped All right, good luck good luck guys Justin this is golden purple do Han Demons Okon nice silver. That is Lewis Hamilton Grand Prix winner. Yeah, it's a Star Wars black. I like those we got Ferrari and Green is Lando Norris that is number two 99 nice Lando Very popular driver with the kids them kids We got Mercedes team got Checo speed demons We have refractor Checo that is driver of the day The Netherlands speed demons ghastly No, it has been too bad GT Pretty much the way we do things all pretty much same As for like the back end of stuff on the website and stuff got refractor Ricardo Wasn't too bad of a learning curve there And the Rippins like riding a bike, you know got refractor Okon got Ferrari refractor and Purple Logan Sargent nice one there He's the American F1 driver now to 399 Driving for Williams now nice Sargent Germany of Mercedes and a all-he called. Well to 399 Alpha Tori team card Machia Bonotto Former Ferrari team boss there black checkerboard Alpha Romeo team Refractor Scuderia Alpha Tori and it is a Haas refractor and Carlos signs nice one there on the car card Gold checkerboard number 250 Nice signs. He's gonna be in the top of the Top of the leaderboard all year. Hopefully we can just keep those Ferrari engines going They have had problems with that We have for sure our future stars And auto is gonna be gold wave auto match up a noto This one there former Ferrari team boss. That is number 34 of 50 You go Justin we got a What is that four boxes three autos not too bad Carlin refractor Joe Guan Yu that is a rookie refractor nice one there All right, let's keep it going Justin. This is gonna be box number five a Six box personal for you. Good luck McLaren. We got mini diamond Valtteri Botos number two two ninety nine Nice Valtteri flying Finn refractor McLaren team card. We got a Haas team card KMAG and Mitch Refractor Alpha Romeo. Oh nice. We're stopping number one on the refractor Hold not the number one for number one is purple and gold not numbered future stars Ollie Caldwell Speed demon stroll or refractor Verstappen Netherlands winner. This is a RT and a Lewis Hamilton Grand Prix winner Brazil to 399 Nice Lou Ham Take some numbered Lewis is for sure is McLaren and Dennis Hogger that is future stars gold checkerboard to 50 14 of 50 there for the Prima racing Nice one the future star Should be forest simpleton maybe a couple of by me, but mostly should be forest Got Yuki and Another auto. This is Roy Nassani That is for the Dom's team not numbered on the base auto Had to speed demons album. That's all good part of the job And I really don't mind I get ripped. I'll rip it after this Greg. It's no big deal got black checkerboard That's Perez Williams racing red bull racing and purple teal poor chair or tail Future stars to three ninety nine Nice one there people thought he was gonna get a call up is red bull racing Refractor LeClaire Nice one there number 16 speed demons Lando future stars of Jack Duhan Virtuosi Pierre ghastly refractor and Last one for you here Justin box number six Greg stands by that that would be funny And yeah, you get some mixed Schumacher cars showing some crashes.  Good luck. Yeah, they're full for tonight snowball They'll be room tomorrow I'm sure for us will be able to get to everything and probably more have a Haas Refractor for the Alpine team. We got an orange orange wave This is Alpha Romeo and it's gonna be Sebastian Vettel Nice one there for the retiree now to 25 Fantastic career for Sebastian Really nice one there refractor is okan purple and green Frederick Vesti speed demons Latifi not exactly a speed demon, but probably finished 20 almost every race Got a Cal and Williams future start refractor for Lewis Hamilton award winners Nice one there Justin is speed demons George Russell Refractor Red Bull speed demons Leclerc Holy shit, I got no idea Refractor Botas Flying Finn Refractor future stars all he called. Well, right a couple more packs for you Justin. Good luck. Good luck. This is Yuki Sonoda black checkerboard McLaren team card refractor Alpine out for a male and This is a purple checkerboard Max Verstappen driver of the day Saudi Arabia Number to 390 or 199 Nice one there had a couple nice numbered Verstappen's is Williams team card Roy Nassani future stars All right last pack Justin. Good luck. This is a six box personal 2022 chrome F1 Alpine and Lando Norris Grand Prix winner Emilia Ramona That is gonna be to 299 on the Mini diamond. All right, and that'll do it for you Justin. Thank you so much. We will get those cars right out to you


Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft. Thank you for watching my tutorial today. I'm going to be showing you how to make this really cool diamond fold box that I came up with. I actually made this first during my Facebook live and now I'm putting it into a YouTube video because I know lots of people like to have this to go back to and you know you can stop and start and all that kind of stuff. It's a great size this one I think I measured it up at six by let's have a little look six by eight I think it was yeah so it's a great size and then it just opens from the top and then it opens up like this so you can see you can fill everything in here and during the live lots of people were saying how this would make a really nice gift for a baby shower and I said you know you can definitely fit you know a couple of baby grows some little booties some bibs lots of stuff in there along with other things as well you change your colors and you can have this for a masculine gift as well as a feminine gift I've gone very pink and girly but you just change up your colors there and you know you can have this pretty much for any occasion it would be great to put a wedding gift in and obviously for your birthdays and things like that as well so it's pretty straightforward don't be put off by the shape I've broken it all down so let me show you how to make it okay so the papers I've used are from this one though it is an older one I picked this up from the works oh gosh probably towards the end of last year it was £3 but I'll have a little look see if I can source anybody online selling it and I'll share the links below as always but it's beautiful I've made some really nice projects with this one over the months and then I have used this one here which although is a ponsettia flower so it's the Simply Made Crafts Ultimate Ponsettia Dyeset this is now back in stock because this did sell out and I created that beautiful big bouquet with this and I'll link that up here because you might be interested to have a look to have a little look at that one and yeah I used that to make this so just change the colors you can still make really nice flowers and I think it was Marianne in the group chat she said if you just were to round off the corners there it will turn it into a very different looking flower so I've just already done that one if you'd like to see how I made that then just check out the link to the Facebook live and you'll see me put that one together and I've just got a few bits and pieces there so we'll get straight into the main bag and I've already done one half so this is what we're going to achieve is this shape here we're going to have two of them you can kind of see how that shape comes together so you want two pieces I'm going to use the craft card today I haven't used craft card for such a long time I thought against this lovely you know against all those lovely soft pinks it works really well so this is a piece of eight and a quarter by eleven and along the eight and a quarter side you want to score at one and one eighth and seven and one eighth so slightly odd scoring then that's purely because I wanted the inside width to be six and then I wanted to maximize the whole width of our A4 which is eight and a quarter so that's why I've got that measurement so one and one eighth and seven and one eighth then rotate it and score it six and a half you want to do that on another piece so two pieces like that and then what we're going to do is we're going to cut up both of those you might want to fold and burnish first actually but you're just going to cut up to the first score line and then I'm just going to fold and burnish okay like so again you'll do that on your other piece and then you want the longer piece to go over the shorter one and bring it up to a right angle so the longer one over the shorter one so I'm just going to cover that one eight one and one eighth of an inch area there and just bring that one over make sure you get a really nice clean angle because that's all going to be on show that does create the base of your gift bag and then again the longer one over the shorter one I mean you can do it the other way it's just I think you get a nicer finish by doing the longer one on the top and then again just bring that one over okay and then you just want to take some chunks off of all four corners you may well have to go into them again when we go to put it together but for the minute you just want to cut on an angle so they kind of line up you can see there you want a layer of ruler down and stuff you can but I'm just you know eyeballing all of this like so okay and then you will have another one like this we're going to flip one over you can see how it's going to come together like this don't worry about all this not lining up it's not going to make any difference but that is what you want to have okay next you want four pieces of four and a half by six and a half okay and you're going to score two from the top left to the bottom right so I'm just going to pop it in the style my scoreboard here if you've got if you you know if you want to mark like where the six inches you can put some people put a black line through their tracks they mark it like three inches six inches and nine and put black lines through here I don't do that on this scoreboard because this is the one that I do a lot of my commission work with and sometimes I have to take photos of step by steps and if it's covered in black lines it doesn't look good so that's the reason I don't do it I have done it on my older scoreboards but I just will you know sit my stylus in the track and do it this way I'm picking the six inch marker just because it's in the middle you can use any one but you want to then score right through the middle so from that top left down to this bottom right keep it here and then go to the six and a half or whatever marker you're at you want to go across half an inch and score again okay so that's the top left to the bottom right and you want to do that twice so you can see there what you're then going to do is remove make sure you remove in the right half you want to make sure that you've got your score line from point to point and then whatever score line is next to that is the one that you're cutting down like so so we've got two from the top left to the bottom right then you want to do two from the top right to the bottom left and you'll see where that was those two same size pieces but I'd already gone and cut it ahead I got ahead of myself but if you imagine I've popped it in my scoreboard and again I've scored through there okay like so so there's that six and then this time you want to come this way so then at five and a half and score okay and then again cut down make sure you've got your point to point score line and it's the one whatever's next to that is the one you want to cut down and you'll see you'll have two like that so I've got two that cut from the top right down to the bottom left and two that cut from the top left down to the bottom right all of these pieces you know don't throw them away I mean they're good scrap sizes but also they're really good to map the inside of this box if you decide to because you can obviously well it depends on what colors you're using but you can flip them over and everything but you'll now have these four pieces and then again you want to fold and burnish all of those score lines okay and while I've got the scoreboard out you also want this piece here which is for the closure this is a piece of three and a half by six and along the three and a half side you just want to score at half an inch and then this piece of pattern paper on top measures two and three quarters by five and three quarters and I've just rounded off the corners there with my corner punch and that's all ready now for me to attach and you'll also want this piece here which is for the hinge and this is a piece of two by six and along the two inch side you want to score one inch and again fold and burnish next we'll attach our hinge so I'm going to bring in my stronger glue for this just so we've got a nice very strong base to the gift bag and I'm just going to cover one side first of all and then you're going to attach it to the short side you've got your longer side and the short side you want to go inside and line up the score line right to the edge okay so again it's that short side it's like an owl shape you're sticking it on the end of and then you've got your hinge and then again add your glue all to this side here and then if you just open this one up again lie that score line but it right up if you want to miter the corners here take a little chunk off you can but if you just bend it and make sure you see they've got a really nice join you can see that okay so just burnish that okay so again now we can see this shape coming together now these pieces here you will have sat on top like this now what you want to make sure is can you see it doesn't quite go right to the corner there and that is because I can take a little bit off of one of these bits here so this is why I said don't worry too much at the beginning because you may find that you take a little bit more off as you go there you go you see it perfectly fits into that corner there and that's what you want is that perfect finish so what I'm going to do is add my glue on here so and then I can sit that over there flip it over and just push that into the corner and you want this flap to be like this because it will just help with the closure if you don't have that flap the sides just will not close up neatly and it will probably have a gap and you'll be able to see whatever gifts inside by having this little bit here it makes all the difference and this is where you can see now with your these pieces here if you decided you wanted a matte layer because you don't want to see the joins then you can pop that over the top you can see there okay so if you do want to reinforce it again if you're using the cloud glue and you reinforce it with these it's just going to make it even stronger okay so now we've got one side to our bag then I can take one of the other ones again sit it on here always lay it down first so I can see here it's not quite flush see there's a little bit here that's because that one's still not been cut back enough so always test it first and then glue now that's perfect so I'm going to do this now on all three of those corners with these three pieces okay so that's all the sides to my gift bag so then if you just make sure the tabs are kind of just folded in like so but you'll see when it goes together you get a really nice finish you can see all the corners there everything all lines up really nicely don't worry if it moves from side to side a bit once we put our Velcro dot in place and that will hold that there so now we can stick this piece on so it's up to you what side do you attach it to again I'm just going to pop my glue on there so I think I'm going to do this one here so I'm just going to fold it over make sure it lines up just fold it over like so okay and then that will come over the front and we put our Velcro dot there once we've done our mats and layers so moving on to these I have this beautiful colour here and I've got two there that are going to go on the front so you can see how that all works together so these two here are five and three quarters by six and a quarter so it's a if you've got a directional paper make sure you know your five and three quarters is what's the width there okay so that's how it's going to sit so it's a slight rectangle so two pieces there then I've got these two pieces for these sides here and these measure four and a quarter by five and three quarters okay and then I've got these pieces here which are going to be four triangular parts and these here measure four by five and three quarters and these ones you just want to cut two you want to cut one sorry so it's from the top left to the bottom right like so the other one you want to do from the top right to the bottom left now if it's directional you're going to want to do two again because if you flip this around it's going to be the wrong way up but because mine's plain doesn't matter now you know I can turn these you want two like that and two like that and you can see how they will sit perfectly on your side piece like that okay so I've got those four and that's everything and then I've got my flower which I'm going to attach at the end with some hot glue and I've also got my Velcro dots there to secure the closure okay so there are all the mats and layers all stuck down I've attached my flower there and the Velcro dot once you add your mats and layers it really does show that really cool shape I love this so I'm just going to carefully make sure my Velcro dots attach there because you can only add so much pressure but if you just press it open and then you can go in and really push that down and that one as well and then I'm going to add my ribbon handle so if I just open this up when I done the live I came in it was one and a half from each side so one and a half just going to put a little pencil mark right on the score line there this is optional you might want to keep yours more as a gift box style and then I'm just going to use this screw punch here I'm very carefully just punch right on the score line there my two holes and then I've got this ribbon here I've got a long enough piece I think what I'll have to do with this one is slightly different to how I've done the other one is I'm going to tie a knot on that one and then I'm going to feed it through and then I'm going to feed it back through this one kind of decide that's about okay there just tie that off there now you can see you've got your handle and then I'll just use this piece because it's the last bit left of this ribbon now just to have a bow on the other one again you can watch it during the live I actually just tied it all together and threaded the whole thing through and then tied it off with a bow but I don't think I it would have been quite the right length of ribbon so I'm just going to do it this way instead like so and then we've got that bow detail and that's it done I'll just bring back in the other one there so you can see this one with the craft card and those lovely soft pastel pinks and then this one here I actually use the pink cardstock now this was a 216 gsm tonic studio cardstock this is a 300 gsm so you can use a lighter weight because by the time you add your mats and layers and if you're using the collow glue it will make it very very strong and this you know feels just as strong now as this here as well so but there they are two diamond fold gift bags I think they're absolutely gorgeous and yeah I'm probably going to make some gift tags for these as well because I've got lots of scraps left over but what I'll do is I'll link up my handbag gift bag playlist I've got hundreds on there and there's some really unusual styles as well so check that out and I'll also pop another gift bag that I think's kind of similar in terms of like faceted multiple sides to it then yeah click on that one as well because you might enjoy it and also there's my face there if you haven't subscribed and you'd like to catch more tutorials just click on that one and you'll be notified when I next upload a tutorial so thanks for watching and I'll be back again very soon bye


It was a lot going on. What was your, uh, this, okay. Master P trying to figure all this out. He young too. Yes. He young too. That's the part that everybody don't get. I get so upset with people when they talk about Birdman or Master P. I get upset about people when they talk about these young guys who was came into this monitor, this entrepreneurial, uh, rap industry where people are not trying to figure it out. Trying to figure it out bro. To say what it is, you know, I don't think my partner cared for him and P didn't care for him. But is this the part of the sound like him? No, that was, that was, I thought about that when you, that was, uh, that was another one that would come in and out the group. Okay. But that's what I thought when I was like, no, this is another guy. So why do you think that your partner, cause it's been a long time. Yeah. Do you still, you and the guy still talk? Yeah, for sure. Why would he ever confide in you and say, Hey man, this is why I really didn't like this guy. No, what it was, it was, see, I had, we, I had the insight and the foresight to understand that we didn't have any leverage.  It wasn't like we could go to P and say, Hey man, you know, jive or sick with it and rap a lot said this, can you match it?  We couldn't, we didn't do that. I understood that him on the other hand, you know, not that he was completely wrong. He wanted to do business. He wanted to do corporate business. He was like, Hey, check this out.  He was like, they came at P like, yeah, so what kind of advanced you talking about?  He like, nigga, I'm giving y'all a chance. Y'all niggas ain't nobody. You know what I'm saying? Which he was right. But then also, it can be too right. This is my point. But I knew that you're trying to do the right thing in the wrong situation. I was thankful. I was more thankful for the opportunity in my exact. I remember us being in a hotel and we talked about it. And now we're 18. We don't have a reference point of no music business. We just going on common sense. And I remember telling them, I said, bro, I said, let's just do it. I said, we don't, what do we have to lose at this point? You know what I mean? Cause if we do it and it does well, then we're going to get what we were at that point. But right now we, we go, we go back home.  Exactly.  I like the fact that you at 18 was able to converse like this because at 18, nigga, we're going to rob P.  We knew we couldn't do that with P. At the end of the day, I know we can't do it, but it's hard, bro. You say that, but, but then you the same 15 year old that was still in gun. That's true. That's true. But you had grew mature enough to know that. And then I had, I had already kind of, you know, established a brotherhood with P. So that's the difference. I looked at him. Like I said, when we met, it was like we all already knew each other, but him and my partner mean for the first time. They talking for the first time, you know?  And then success hit him. It was a lot going on. What was your, uh, this, okay. Master P trying to figure all this out. He young too. Yes. He young too. That's the part that everybody don't get. I get so upset with people when they talk about Birdman or Master P. I get upset about people when they talk about these young guys who was came into this monitor, this entrepreneurial, uh, rap industry where people are trying to figure it out. Trying to figure it out. So I get upset, bro. You don't even know. I don't play about South anyway. I'm going to be on the way. I'm kind of throw it off. You know what I'm saying? I'm biased. But that's one thing I get upset about. I'll be like, man, nah, man, we ain't have much down here. And for Peter even go from New Orleans up to California and then establish himself. That's a whole lot right there at the age he was. And being a young father for him also helped. So you and him had a lot in common. Yes, exactly. I mean, neither one of us smoked a drink. We was really workaholics. We was focused. We both were dreamers. You know, we both were athletes. So yeah, we had a lot of commonalities that, you know, I would talk to you about when he was trying to go to the league and all that, or when he did play in the league. I was friends during that time. Sure. How did what, what was some things that was messing with him during that time? And I'll ask you that kind of stick out to your art was good for him during that time. I mean, that was always his initial dream. You know, he was an athlete and a basketball player before he was a rapper and a CEO. That was his initial dream. That was him going back to his calling. Yeah. You know what I mean? So for the rest of the world, it was like, oh, what? Let's think of trying to play ball. No, that's what he started out doing.  That was like, fuck, I got, I got hurt.  So that was just him pursuing his dream, man. He loved basketball. He still does. Can he still play? I see him play a little bit. But now he's trying to get into, he's trying to get a coaching job. Coaching job. Yeah. With the Lakers at this point, you know, and I know he tried with the Pelicans as well. I don't hear this by a team. But he, he's entertained that as well. But Romeo, Romeo didn't take to it like that. I thought at one point that that's what he was going to do too. He did. I think maybe his passion was just more with movies and things like that. Yeah. I've seen him grow up into a man, man. As my son did his way. Like I say, I'm watching these things. And when you, when you see these are the things that you look at and you like, man, you know, I can do it too. I'm being real. When you a person that's of age and you know, these guys running about the same age, you like kind of look at it and be like, yeah, hell, if they did it, hell, anybody can do it. It gives you an opportunity to think that way. You know what I'm saying? So I appreciate y'all for that for sure. Because y'all was hustling, man. Yeah, man. Yeah, we on boss talk one on one.