The Big Spring City Council approved first reading of an agreement with Enernoc Inc. Tuesday night that Assistant City Manager Todd Darden said will benefit both the city and the state's electrical customers.

“It's part of the response system by ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas),” said Darden. “At a specific time on a specific day they will ask us to shut down the plant for a 15-minute interval. As you know, across Texas and across the United States there have been rolling blackouts that have occurred. What this program does is when they know there is a situation that might cause an interruptible blackout in Texas, entities that are part of the program will curtail their electrical use during the potential blackout.”

Darden said he'd like to see the $9,000 a year go into a fund that would eventually allow the city to purchase stand-by electrical generators for both the city's water treatment plant and wastewater facility.

“The program will earn us about $9,000 a year” said Darden. “Peggy (Walker, city finance director) suggested we put it in a fund or reserve balance because it will be easier to track that way. As you know, in the past we've been budgeting for and looking at putting in generators at both the water treatment plant and the wastewater plant. What I'd like to do is let these funds build so we can use it for the generators. That way we can have stand-by power at the plants.”

Mayor Russ McEwen suggested utilizing the city's lease purchase program to pay for the generators, a move that could allow the municipality to have the equipment in place much faster than waiting for enough funds to accrue in a fund.

“What we might consider doing is to take the money — and I don't know how much a generator would cost — but if not this year then next year, do it on the lease purchase agreement and use that money ($9,000) as payment,” said McEwen.

Also Tuesday, the council approved first reading of an agreement with Power Resources Inc.

“Our current agreement with Power Resources will expire at the end of this month,” said Walker. “This is simply a three-year extension with identical terms that say they will pay to the city 10 percent of what their taxes would be if they were inside the city limits. It's actually an annexation agreement. We (the city) agree we will not annex that property without their approval and this is basically a payment in lieu of taxes. This will more than cover any services we would provide to them.”

The council approved both measures by unanimous votes.

Also approved was first reading of an ordinance amending Chapter 18 Article 3 of the city code to increase the speed limit on the Interstate Highway 20 S. Frontage Road from the eastern city limit to Tulane to 45 miles per hour.

The measure was also approved by unanimous vote.

Contact Staff Writer Thomas Jenkins at 263-7331 ext. 232 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it