Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) has started wading through the preliminary findings of its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) as the process looks to end in April.  

Utility staff will present the preliminary findings to the GRU Authority at the next two meetings to include the members’ input as it works to produce a final preferred resource plan. A community workshop in April will present that plan for feedback.  

At Wednesday’s community meeting—one of several held over the last year—staff presented the preliminary IRP findings. The results show that GRU should move toward a mix of solar along with natural gas and battery assets. The IRP also showed that buying power from other utilities through power purchase agreements will likely not be economical.  

While the IRP analyzes the next 25 years, GRU keeps flexibility to adapt to circumstances like high inflation, an unexpected increase in electric vehicles and even new federal regulations. GRU also conducts an IRP every three to five years, updating the scenario to reflect how the past years have rolled out.  

“As we know, we’re never quite sure what the tide will bring in,” said Jamie Verschage, GRU’s interim planning director. “So things in the future will certainly be different than how we envisioned them today.” 

Verschage said the IRP model is instructed to balance economics, reliability and environmental responsibility.  

GRU lets the model run its baseline scenario that takes all the factors into consideration—staff’s prediction on inflation, peak demand for power, estimated costs to generate or purchase power, increase in electric vehicles and more.  

The modeling program then advises on the best mix of resources for GRU to power the city—whether solar, natural gas, including batteries and even small particle nuclear.  

Verschage said staff is now stress testing the baseline plan. By changing the input factors, GRU wants to see at what price does solar drop from the recommendations or does a power purchase agreement enter the recommendations.  

Verschage said GRU staff wants to find commonalities between the baseline scenario and the stress-test scenarios. These scenarios ranged from high inflation to the federal government requiring payment for carbon emissions. Verschage said the elements that continue to be recommended will be smart choices for GRU to pursue.  

Across the scenarios, Verschage said the IRP results show that the utility needs a mix of generating assets, not just a full swing into solar or a complete reliance on gas.  

GRU estimates that it can build 275 megawatts of solar power within proximity of its transmission lines—meaning no cost to transfer the power across infrastructure owned by another utility. The baseline model, under the normal predicted conditions, recommends GRU add all 275 megawatts over the next 25 years.  

Currently, GRU has a contract in place with Origis Energy that will put 75 megawatts online by the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025. Called the Sand Bluff site, the solar will be installed near Archer.  

Verschage noted that the utility must cautiously add solar and then analyze to see how each addition impacts the electrical system. He said GRU will wait four years after the Sand Bluff sites come online before linking another solar project.  

Another commonality across the scenarios was that GRU should continue to generate its own power. According to GRU’s estimates, the market price for electricity would need to drop by more than 50% before the model recommends purchasing the bulk of Gainesville’s power instead of generating it here.  

If GRU stopped building new generation and moved toward purchased power, the IRP results show that it would cost the utility approximately $380 million more than the baseline scenario over the next 25 years. 

The IRP results also show that refusing to add solar would cost the utility more than $300 million in the next 25 years compared to the baseline scenario.  

Following the Gainesville City Commission’s direction, GRU began moving toward a zero-carbon emissions policy by 2045. The city passed a 2018 resolution to set the direction. Legislators tasked the new authority to run GRU as a business and without looking at ideals like zero carbon emissions.  

Even without a push to reduce emissions, Verschage said the IRP’s baseline model will reduce emissions over the coming years even as it saves money with the addition of solar resources. In fact, another commonality in the different scenarios was a reduction in carbon emissions.  

With the baseline model, GRU will be close to an 85% reduction in carbon emissions, compared with 2005 levels, by the end of the IRP forecast—less than 400,000 tons of annual emissions. 

Eric Walters, interim chief sustainability officer, said GRU’s actual path forward won’t exactly mirror any one scenario modeled in the IRP. But he said the utility can still move forward with confidence in the mix of generation that it pursues.  

“We know, because of the commonalities of it, it’s going to include solar, it’s going to include natural gas, it’s going to include some batteries,” Walters said at the Wednesday meeting. “The mix and the timing of those is what’s got to be fine tuned for the final product.” 

He said GRU staff will continue to run scenarios as it narrows its focus on the final preferred resource plan that will go before the authority.