ELLINWOOD — Ellinwood City Administrator Chris Komarek was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Kansas Power Pool (KPP) during their annual meeting on Dec. 11. Komarek joins fellow new appointee Tim Johnson, director of Public Utilities for the City of Augusta, on the nine-person KPP Board. The appointment to the board is a four-year term.
“The KPP is the management company that we purchase our electricity through,” Komarek said. He added that the City of Ellinwood is one of 24 municipalities who are members of KPP. “Ellinwood became a member of the Kansas Power Pool in 2007. We have our own power and sewage plants, several water wells, recycling trailer and compost area.”
The Kansas Power Pool, one of two municipal energy agencies in Kansas, was established in 2004 under Kansas statutes with the execution of an agreement creating the pool by six Kansas municipalities: Augusta, Burlington, Clay Center, Neodesha, Wellington and Winfield. Municipal energy agencies in Kansas are not-for-profit quasi-municipal organizations that are owned by their member municipalities.
KPP was organized as a pool to take collective action to preserve and invest in the members’ energy facilities to satisfy, in the most efficient manner possible, the members’ collective future energy and transmission requirements. To this end, the KPP’s operating philosophy is to equitably share resources and costs among all members through the computation of uniform annual wholesale electric rates approved by the members.
According to www.kpp.agency, over the next few years, the KPP philosophy attracted new members, which by 2010, totaled over 30 municipal electric utilities. In 2012, the KPP opted to acquire an ownership share of a natural gas-powered, combined-cycle generating facility. To finance the acquisition, the KPP issued revenue bonds, which it secured with long-term power purchase contracts with 21 member municipalities.
The value of a long-term commitment for electric energy was not shared by all members and membership in the KPP declined by 2014 to twenty-one municipalities. Three new members have since joined the Kansas Power Pool raising total municipality membership to 24.
