In July, 2012, the City of Reno solicited statement of qualification from energy services companies to perform an operational audit of the Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility. Ameresco, Inc. was selected and a contract for the audit was approved by Spark’s City Council in August, 2012. Ameresco performed the audit during 2012-13. This audit identified measures that would reduce the cost of operations at TMWRF by reducing electricity, chemical or fuel consumption. These energy conservation measures were described in detail in the Financial Grade Operational Audit, along with other measures that were deemed unsuitable for TMWRF. Discussion: The On-Going Services Agreement defines the relationship between Ameresco, Inc. and the Cities for the 15-year performance period of the energy services project. Ameresco, Inc. has provided a guaranteed minimum savings to TMWRF for each of the Energy Conservation Measures recommended in the Financial Grade Audit. Each year Ameresco must measure and verify those savings. This agreement defines how that measurement and verification will occur in order to allow for an objective assessment of the realized savings. The cost of the Measurement and Verification is initially set at $39,585 and escalates at 2.38% per year over the 15 year period of the project. The savings to the plant from the recommended ECS are inclusive of these costs, thus this cost is recovered before any savings can be claimed.

The City of Reno will administer the contract and will be reimbursed for a portion of the costs by the City of Sparks through the Sparks – Reno cost sharing agreement for TMWRF. The City of Reno and the City of Sparks share the cost for this project based upon their pro-rata ownership of TMWRF, which is 68.63% for Reno and 31.37% for Sparks. The annual costs for each entity are shown in Table 1 (attached).

I move to approve the On-going Services Agreement for operating cost-savings measures with Ameresco, Inc. for the Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility and authorize the Mayor to sign the agreement.