September 17, 2024 • 14 mins
Season 1, Episode 7: Indianola Municipal Utilities General Manager Chris DesPlanques joins "Indy Unplugged" for an insightful conversation that highlights the upcoming solar project IMU is undertaking and what it will mean to Indianola, the groundbreaking event on Wednesday, Sept. 25, and other important updates and details from the organization.
Fast-forward to a specific topic covered:
- 00:00-00:41: Intro
- 00:42-1:10: Welcome
- 1:11-3:44: Background About IMU Solar Project
- 3:45-7:56: Previewing Solar Project Groundbreaking Event
- 7:57-8:21: How To Learn More About Project & Progress
- 8:22-10:59: What Community's Support Means To IMU
- 11:00-13:31: Indianola In Comparison To Other Central Iowa Cities
- 13:32-14:10: Closing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Welcome to Indy Unplugged, the podcast
that's your front rowseat to the real talk of Indianola.
I'm Aaron Young.
Your friendly neighborhood host,and we're diving deep into unfiltered
stories, candid chatsand the nitty gritty of our vibrant city.
Think of this as a crash coursein all things Indianola.
No fancy jargon, just real conversations.
(00:33):
So get comfy.
Hit that play buttonand let's explore the heart and soul
of our communitytogether on Indy Unplugged.
Alright,welcome back to another episode of
Indy Unplugged, a City of Indianola podcast.
And today we're going to learnmore about the upcoming solar project
that Indianola MunicipalUtilities is taking on for the betterment
(00:55):
of the entire cityand really the county, the state.
Let's just talk about the world.
And with me today isIMU general manager Chris DesPlanques.
Chris, how are you doing today?Thanks for hopping on.
Very good. Glad to be here. Yeah. Yeah.
So just tell us a little bit moreabout this project, how it came to be
and just kind of open up the floorfor you to really just share some light
(01:19):
into this project background.
Well, it's always been a
Board of Trustees priorityto look for diverse sources of power and,
you know,
ideally ones that are cost effectiveand in coordination
with our wholesale suppliers.
Vision 2050 to be carbon neutral.
(01:39):
So they proposed a RFP,
they went out and lookedat a couple of nationwide vendors.
Major.
All the big players in the marketwere invited to this.
They did a lot of the legwork for us,
you know, vettedthe vendors, looked at the proposals,
and we were able to look at thisand the financial aspects of it.
(02:03):
And, you know, all in all,I kind of jokingly say that,
you know, we got two types of people,
you know, those that it needsto be all carbon free tomorrow.
And we got the I don't care.
And one of the cheapestas possible are usually
determine the best path.
When nobody's happy
with what we're doing, it'susually kind of somewhere in between.
(02:26):
But uniquely enough,the results of this project
were we got our carbon free source.
It is located in our facilities.
We don't have to pay transmissioncosts on it
and it's going to save the communitya lot of money.
So how importantwhat the timing of this project is with
everything being right here, right now,just how vital is it
(02:47):
for this current state of Indianolaand our citizens?
You know, in the utility market,you know, statewide,
region wide and countrywidetransmission is volatile.
The costs go up and down.
And that's a lot of
the work that we do at the utility is toto make that easy for the rest of us.
(03:08):
We work on
normalizing that and averaging out
and making predictable monthly bills
level and flat for our community.
But there's a lot of cost shiftsthat go up and down throughout the
week, month, day, hour.
And, you know, the fact that there'sone component of this,
(03:29):
the energy produced here is going onthe IMU distribution system.
There's no transmission on that.
And as the transmission market gets wildand volatile, here's a section of power
that we don't have to worry about thatcomponent on. Yeah.
So what the groundbreaking event
that's taking place on Wednesday,September 25th, 10 a.m..
(03:50):
Tell us a little bit more
about that groundbreaking eventand what attendees can expect.
Well, A is so there are three communities.
You know,part of what I said there, this RFP was a
our wholesale
provider directed that there'sthree communities in the state of Iowa
that elected to participate that ourselvesWaverly and another smaller community
(04:13):
Sandhills is very excitedthat they were able to kind of leverage
the buying power of the group.
And so they're actually going to walkthrough there doing a lot of the legwork
in preparation for thisand will meet out there.
It's going to be somewhat informal.
We'll say I'll say a few words.
(04:33):
Some of the mean folks will saya few words about what it means to them.
We'll have the group at Sandhills.
I'll say a few words.
And and the mayor is also going to kind ofgive a little bit of the city council's
impact on what that what a projectlike this will mean to the community.
Wonderful.
How excited are you and the entire I amyou team to really kind of set the stage
(04:54):
with this project really, you know,on Wednesday and then all the other
updates and progressthat'll be made after Wednesday's event.
So yeah, this is a construction kickoff,but this is a,
you know, a couple of years worth of workthat a lot of the time your team spent
a lot of negotiation, time, effortand getting us to where we're at now.
(05:18):
Here's the exciting part.
The construction apart, we get to actuallysee this being built and we'll
be able to monitor the progress.
And we're certainly through our channels,give construction up updates.
We're excited to see this happen.
And you know, some of the cool stuffthat'll happen beyond this.
(05:39):
You know,I know those in the community have
expressed their interest in this.
They really want to see what's happening.
Will, you know,some of the future plans are to leverage
some of the APIsand be able to see give the community
an opportunity to see the powerand what percentage of the outputs
being facilitated by the solar arrayin real time.
(06:04):
So, you know, we'll certainly leave outthe or lay out the construction,
but as we near completion, the scheduledcompletion date is June 30th.
But as we near that inand get ready to turn this on,
I think a lot of exciting things
are forthcoming and the
community will all enjoy some of those.
You know, it's kind of tough to quantify.
(06:27):
What does four megawatts mean to you?
You know,it might not be terribly impactful,
but when you can seeat certain parts of the day,
a third or 40% of the electricity used byour community are going to be
coming out of that that solar arraythat something really needs.
And we want to be ableto show the community for years on end
(06:48):
what that benefits going to look like andand just help help everyone
kind of conceptualizethe true impact we're having with it.
Yeah.
In that location of the solar array,just remind listeners again
where all this construction and locationof all this work will be taking place.
So it is at our existing water
facility at 1602 South K
(07:11):
Part of the reasonthat this plan or project worked out is
or is as
great as it is,is we don't really have any cash outlay.
We're going to do some construction workto to connect this into our grid,
but it's really not costing us anything.
Part of the value or the excitementthat I have as a project,
(07:33):
you know that all the risk of,
you know, hail damage or somethingdidn't work
and someone's broke and needsto be cleaned and needs to be maintained,
that'sall being incurred on by somebody else.
So we didn't have to hire anybody or incurany costs or do this.
We get all the benefitwith none of the costs,
(07:53):
which, you know, is fabulous.
And for community members to learnmore information about this project,
where's the best place they could goto discover all these different resources
and information?
Indianola dot com
We post a lot of our updateson on Facebook, but Indianola,
AECOM will have all the linkswhen they do become available
(08:16):
and we'll let everybody know of changesthat happen on Facebook.
Awesome.
And then lastly, Chris,I just kind of want to open up the floor
to you to maybe shareany final closing remarks
or just anything else that's in the worksthat's exciting over at IMU.
And just maybe any updates you'd liketo share with with the listeners?
Well, you know, certainlyI think everyone from the board
(08:41):
to the employeesappreciates the community support.
I think,
you know, what surprised me as I startedas the general manager is
when there is a power outage,you know, it upsets me, bothers me,
but I
bet we get 10 to 1 complimentslike you guys work so fast.
(09:02):
This was great.
I saw everyone out there.
Glad you could get this and get itfixed as quick as you can,
where it would be easy just to complain.
The community supports usand we we do appreciate that.
I love hearing all the good
impacts that we have.
You know, I know from time to timethere's water main breaks or,
(09:23):
you know, electric outages.
We work really hardto keep those minimized.
We're continuously investingin our infrastructure.
That's, you know, our number one priority.
So you'll be seeing a lot of,
you know, one off projects,both improvements of water mains or
the larger improvementthat you'll see over probably the next ten
(09:43):
years is we're going to try to undergroundall of our electric facilities.
We'll start with areas south of 92,
but over
the next ten, 15 years, you'llget to see a lot of that go underground.
And we're doing that for reliability.
And, you know, there'scertainly an esthetic benefit,
but trees not going to fall along to itwhen it's underground.
(10:05):
So we're, you know, continuously lookingto improve that and and really kind of
those incremental water main improvements,the the electric improvements,
putting that stuff underground,those are two of our big ones.
And of course, you know, on the IMUfiber side,
you know, we're right nowwe're testing some ten gig capability.
(10:26):
So look forward to multi
gig speedsand and capacities in the future.
Up to ten gigs with some of our currentgeneration equipment.
You know, again, we're certainly
I'll pat myself on the backand the rest of the Amy Fiber team.
We got the greatest productin the business here and certainly
(10:47):
the best Internet provideryou can have in Indianola,
and we're working hard to keep that up and
investigating those next generationopportunities right now
so we can keep our advantagekind of on that same frame of thought.
I mean, think about
some of our other central Iowa communitiesfor the sake of underground work,
everything in terms of fiber.
(11:08):
I mean, how isI am you on the cutting edge
of technology and innovationto best serve community members?
I mean, arewe for the sake of the underground work?
Are we at or a little bit above the workthat's maybe been done
by some of our other centralIowa communities or for the sake of fiber,
where we at in comparison to some of thoseother central Iowa City specifically?
(11:33):
Well, I think what you know,the difference kind of you're speaking
is at IMU, you know, we're communityowned community driven.
There's no shareholderare, there's no shareholders.
There's no profit motive there.
And so, you know, as we
look on what we should be doingor how we should operate,
(11:55):
you know, the first answer iswhat's the best way we can be doing it?
You know, we don't have to worryabout a dividend report coming out
or have to push this project offbecause we're not going
to make any shareholder projectionsor or profit center stuff.
We can say what is a, you know,the best and focus on the the path forward
and with the singular benefitcommunity mindset,
(12:18):
you know,that's driving us a not a profit motive,
you know.
So you certainly see thatwith the undergrounding,
you know, we've got one community handled,but it is,
you know, our number one priority
and we're going to make sure that we havethe best product out there available.
Likewise with fiber.
(12:38):
You know, certainly
I think there are other commercialvendors and ventures that are out there.
You know, here are those popping upin the neighboring communities.
But, you know, I amyou fiber was founded on the kind
of principle of here'ssome unmet needs in the community.
We think we can do it better anddo it ourselves with a community focus.
(13:00):
And, you know,you saw that from the foundation
and you see this in the investment for thefor the future.
You know, certainly the investment in the
the money that it takes to continue
to move forward and have a better product.
It could be going to the shareholders,but instead
(13:21):
it's going to enhance the community's,
you know, performance
and availability of high speed Internet.
Well, Chris,thank you so much for joining us today
on this episode of IndieUnplugged Committee members,
you can find all this information aboutthe solar project online at Amy's website
(13:42):
WW W dot Indianola dotcom as well as on social media
specifically Facebookand make sure you like and subscribe
Indian pluggedwherever you're listening to your podcast.
Leave us a comment leave us a review.
That way
we can
make sure that we're hitting the markfor these episodes to ensure that we're
providing that real time informationin these behind the scenes conversations.
(14:04):
And who knows, maybe someday you'll bea future guest of Indie Unplugged.
Welcome to Indy Unplugged, the podcast
that's your front rowseat to the real talk of Indianola.
I'm Aaron Young.
Your friendly neighborhood host,and we're diving deep into unfiltered
stories, candid chatsand the nitty gritty of our vibrant city.
Think of this as a crash coursein all things Indianola.
No fancy jargon, just real conversations.
(00:33):
So get comfy.
Hit that play buttonand let's explore the heart and soul
of our communitytogether on Indy Unplugged.
Alright,welcome back to another episode of
Indy Unplugged, a City of Indianola podcast.
And today we're going to learnmore about the upcoming solar project
that Indianola MunicipalUtilities is taking on for the betterment
(00:55):
of the entire cityand really the county, the state.
Let's just talk about the world.
And with me today isIMU general manager Chris DesPlanques.
Chris, how are you doing today?Thanks for hopping on.
Very good. Glad to be here. Yeah. Yeah.
So just tell us a little bit moreabout this project, how it came to be
and just kind of open up the floorfor you to really just share some light
(01:19):
into this project background.
Well, it's always been a
Board of Trustees priorityto look for diverse sources of power and,
you know,
ideally ones that are cost effectiveand in coordination
with our wholesale suppliers.
Vision 2050 to be carbon neutral.
(01:39):
So they proposed a RFP,
they went out and lookedat a couple of nationwide vendors.
Major.
All the big players in the marketwere invited to this.
They did a lot of the legwork for us,
you know, vettedthe vendors, looked at the proposals,
and we were able to look at thisand the financial aspects of it.
(02:03):
And, you know, all in all,I kind of jokingly say that,
you know, we got two types of people,
you know, those that it needsto be all carbon free tomorrow.
And we got the I don't care.
And one of the cheapestas possible are usually
determine the best path.
When nobody's happy
with what we're doing, it'susually kind of somewhere in between.
(02:26):
But uniquely enough,the results of this project
were we got our carbon free source.
It is located in our facilities.
We don't have to pay transmissioncosts on it
and it's going to save the communitya lot of money.
So how importantwhat the timing of this project is with
everything being right here, right now,just how vital is it
(02:47):
for this current state of Indianolaand our citizens?
You know, in the utility market,you know, statewide,
region wide and countrywidetransmission is volatile.
The costs go up and down.
And that's a lot of
the work that we do at the utility is toto make that easy for the rest of us.
(03:08):
We work on
normalizing that and averaging out
and making predictable monthly bills
level and flat for our community.
But there's a lot of cost shiftsthat go up and down throughout the
week, month, day, hour.
And, you know, the fact that there'sone component of this,
(03:29):
the energy produced here is going onthe IMU distribution system.
There's no transmission on that.
And as the transmission market gets wildand volatile, here's a section of power
that we don't have to worry about thatcomponent on. Yeah.
So what the groundbreaking event
that's taking place on Wednesday,September 25th, 10 a.m..
(03:50):
Tell us a little bit more
about that groundbreaking eventand what attendees can expect.
Well, A is so there are three communities.
You know,part of what I said there, this RFP was a
our wholesale
provider directed that there'sthree communities in the state of Iowa
that elected to participate that ourselvesWaverly and another smaller community
(04:13):
Sandhills is very excitedthat they were able to kind of leverage
the buying power of the group.
And so they're actually going to walkthrough there doing a lot of the legwork
in preparation for thisand will meet out there.
It's going to be somewhat informal.
We'll say I'll say a few words.
(04:33):
Some of the mean folks will saya few words about what it means to them.
We'll have the group at Sandhills.
I'll say a few words.
And and the mayor is also going to kind ofgive a little bit of the city council's
impact on what that what a projectlike this will mean to the community.
Wonderful.
How excited are you and the entire I amyou team to really kind of set the stage
(04:54):
with this project really, you know,on Wednesday and then all the other
updates and progressthat'll be made after Wednesday's event.
So yeah, this is a construction kickoff,but this is a,
you know, a couple of years worth of workthat a lot of the time your team spent
a lot of negotiation, time, effortand getting us to where we're at now.
(05:18):
Here's the exciting part.
The construction apart, we get to actuallysee this being built and we'll
be able to monitor the progress.
And we're certainly through our channels,give construction up updates.
We're excited to see this happen.
And you know, some of the cool stuffthat'll happen beyond this.
(05:39):
You know,I know those in the community have
expressed their interest in this.
They really want to see what's happening.
Will, you know,some of the future plans are to leverage
some of the APIsand be able to see give the community
an opportunity to see the powerand what percentage of the outputs
being facilitated by the solar arrayin real time.
(06:04):
So, you know, we'll certainly leave outthe or lay out the construction,
but as we near completion, the scheduledcompletion date is June 30th.
But as we near that inand get ready to turn this on,
I think a lot of exciting things
are forthcoming and the
community will all enjoy some of those.
You know, it's kind of tough to quantify.
(06:27):
What does four megawatts mean to you?
You know,it might not be terribly impactful,
but when you can seeat certain parts of the day,
a third or 40% of the electricity used byour community are going to be
coming out of that that solar arraythat something really needs.
And we want to be ableto show the community for years on end
(06:48):
what that benefits going to look like andand just help help everyone
kind of conceptualizethe true impact we're having with it.
Yeah.
In that location of the solar array,just remind listeners again
where all this construction and locationof all this work will be taking place.
So it is at our existing water
facility at 1602 South K
(07:11):
Part of the reasonthat this plan or project worked out is
or is as
great as it is,is we don't really have any cash outlay.
We're going to do some construction workto to connect this into our grid,
but it's really not costing us anything.
Part of the value or the excitementthat I have as a project,
(07:33):
you know that all the risk of,
you know, hail damage or somethingdidn't work
and someone's broke and needsto be cleaned and needs to be maintained,
that'sall being incurred on by somebody else.
So we didn't have to hire anybody or incurany costs or do this.
We get all the benefitwith none of the costs,
(07:53):
which, you know, is fabulous.
And for community members to learnmore information about this project,
where's the best place they could goto discover all these different resources
and information?
Indianola dot com
We post a lot of our updateson on Facebook, but Indianola,
AECOM will have all the linkswhen they do become available
(08:16):
and we'll let everybody know of changesthat happen on Facebook.
Awesome.
And then lastly, Chris,I just kind of want to open up the floor
to you to maybe shareany final closing remarks
or just anything else that's in the worksthat's exciting over at IMU.
And just maybe any updates you'd liketo share with with the listeners?
Well, you know, certainlyI think everyone from the board
(08:41):
to the employeesappreciates the community support.
I think,
you know, what surprised me as I startedas the general manager is
when there is a power outage,you know, it upsets me, bothers me,
but I
bet we get 10 to 1 complimentslike you guys work so fast.
(09:02):
This was great.
I saw everyone out there.
Glad you could get this and get itfixed as quick as you can,
where it would be easy just to complain.
The community supports usand we we do appreciate that.
I love hearing all the good
impacts that we have.
You know, I know from time to timethere's water main breaks or,
(09:23):
you know, electric outages.
We work really hardto keep those minimized.
We're continuously investingin our infrastructure.
That's, you know, our number one priority.
So you'll be seeing a lot of,
you know, one off projects,both improvements of water mains or
the larger improvementthat you'll see over probably the next ten
(09:43):
years is we're going to try to undergroundall of our electric facilities.
We'll start with areas south of 92,
but over
the next ten, 15 years, you'llget to see a lot of that go underground.
And we're doing that for reliability.
And, you know, there'scertainly an esthetic benefit,
but trees not going to fall along to itwhen it's underground.
(10:05):
So we're, you know, continuously lookingto improve that and and really kind of
those incremental water main improvements,the the electric improvements,
putting that stuff underground,those are two of our big ones.
And of course, you know, on the IMUfiber side,
you know, we're right nowwe're testing some ten gig capability.
(10:26):
So look forward to multi
gig speedsand and capacities in the future.
Up to ten gigs with some of our currentgeneration equipment.
You know, again, we're certainly
I'll pat myself on the backand the rest of the Amy Fiber team.
We got the greatest productin the business here and certainly
(10:47):
the best Internet provideryou can have in Indianola,
and we're working hard to keep that up and
investigating those next generationopportunities right now
so we can keep our advantagekind of on that same frame of thought.
I mean, think about
some of our other central Iowa communitiesfor the sake of underground work,
everything in terms of fiber.
(11:08):
I mean, how isI am you on the cutting edge
of technology and innovationto best serve community members?
I mean, arewe for the sake of the underground work?
Are we at or a little bit above the workthat's maybe been done
by some of our other centralIowa communities or for the sake of fiber,
where we at in comparison to some of thoseother central Iowa City specifically?
(11:33):
Well, I think what you know,the difference kind of you're speaking
is at IMU, you know, we're communityowned community driven.
There's no shareholderare, there's no shareholders.
There's no profit motive there.
And so, you know, as we
look on what we should be doingor how we should operate,
(11:55):
you know, the first answer iswhat's the best way we can be doing it?
You know, we don't have to worryabout a dividend report coming out
or have to push this project offbecause we're not going
to make any shareholder projectionsor or profit center stuff.
We can say what is a, you know,the best and focus on the the path forward
and with the singular benefitcommunity mindset,
(12:18):
you know,that's driving us a not a profit motive,
you know.
So you certainly see thatwith the undergrounding,
you know, we've got one community handled,but it is,
you know, our number one priority
and we're going to make sure that we havethe best product out there available.
Likewise with fiber.
(12:38):
You know, certainly
I think there are other commercialvendors and ventures that are out there.
You know, here are those popping upin the neighboring communities.
But, you know, I amyou fiber was founded on the kind
of principle of here'ssome unmet needs in the community.
We think we can do it better anddo it ourselves with a community focus.
(13:00):
And, you know,you saw that from the foundation
and you see this in the investment for thefor the future.
You know, certainly the investment in the
the money that it takes to continue
to move forward and have a better product.
It could be going to the shareholders,but instead
(13:21):
it's going to enhance the community's,
you know, performance
and availability of high speed Internet.
Well, Chris,thank you so much for joining us today
on this episode of IndieUnplugged Committee members,
you can find all this information aboutthe solar project online at Amy's website
(13:42):
WW W dot Indianola dotcom as well as on social media
specifically Facebookand make sure you like and subscribe
Indian pluggedwherever you're listening to your podcast.
Leave us a comment leave us a review.
That way
we can
make sure that we're hitting the markfor these episodes to ensure that we're
providing that real time informationin these behind the scenes conversations.
(14:04):
And who knows, maybe someday you'll bea future guest of Indie Unplugged.
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