Beaver City council adopts parameters to pursue up to $4.4 million in electric revenue bonds; staff warns of near‑term capacity shortfall

Beaver City on Jan. 13 approved a parameters resolution allowing the city to issue up to $4,400,000 in electric revenue and refunding bonds to finance upgrades to its electrical metering structure and related work, and city staff told the council that rapid local growth is straining existing power capacity.

The measure, Resolution 1-13-2026, was introduced during the meeting and adopted following a roll-call vote. Marcus Keller, the city’s financial adviser, told the council the parameters would let the city issue bonds with a maximum 21‑year term, a fixed-rate cap of 6.5 percent and a variable-rate cap of 12 percent (the variable cap is retained for legal flexibility). "This parameters would give the city the ability to issue up to $4,400,000," Keller said. He added that the "new money" portion of the issue would not exceed $2,000,000 and staff expects it will be closer to $1.5 million based on initial estimates. A public hearing on the bond was scheduled to be noticed and held in February, with closing possible in February–March if the council proceeds.

The adoption was recorded by roll call: Hunter Holt — yes; Lance Cox — yes; Tyler Skeena — yes; David Albrecht — yes; Glenn Hunter — yes. The resolution sets the parameters needed to post required notices and hold the statutorily required public hearing.

Keller said the parameters are an initial step to create flexibility for the city to fund an urgent metering upgrade and, if advantageous, to refund existing 2025 bonds. "There’s no pressure to refund those bonds," Keller said, noting falling interest-rate scenarios could make refunding beneficial but are not required.

The bond discussion coincided with a detailed power‑system briefing from Eaton electrical engineer Andrew Welsome. Welsome told the council Beaver currently operates two substations with combined capacity of about 20 MVA and, based on a 2024 steady‑state analysis, about 12.5 MVA of that capacity was in steady use. He outlined a pipeline of planned new loads — including vehicle‑charging sites and industrial customers — that add roughly 8.6 MVA to the future load forecast. "So the conclusion is you’re running out of capacity," Welsome said, arguing the city needs to plan now to avoid forced limits on growth or increased reliability problems.

Welsome described two projects staff are prioritizing: upgrading the 46 kV meter structure (metering and instrumentation) and building a new substation tied to the 138 kV transmission line. He gave a rough range for the meter structure of about $1 million to $2 million and a first‑order budget estimate of about $8,000,000 for a new substation that would add roughly 20 MVA and double the city’s capacity. He cautioned that transformers — a key substation component — may have long lead times; he estimated transformer lead times on the order of 100 weeks and provided a ballpark cost range from roughly $900,000 for a 10 MVA unit to more than $1,000,000 for a 20 MVA unit, depending on specification and vendor.

Welsome also emphasized that the meter‑structure work would provide improved measurement and visibility for Rocky Mountain Power and the city but "it doesn't do anything to expand how much power is available to the city." He and council members discussed funding options, including federal grid‑resilience grant programs, and whether long‑lead items such as transformers could be ordered early or funded through the bond.

Next steps: the council adopted the parameters resolution to allow staff and advisors to post formal notices and hold the public hearing. Staff will post the required notice period, hold the hearing in February and return with more detailed bond documents and project‑level estimates for council approval before any bond sale.

(Reporting note: quotes and figures above come from the Jan. 13 council meeting presentation by Marcus Keller and Andrew Welsome.)