Utility’s CEO search framed by solar hopes

The Orlando Utilities Commission is about to pick a new leader at a key time when the city’s power company still sees coal as essential for generating electricity even as elected officials push to divorce Orlando from burning fossil fuels.

The selection, which may come as early as next week, will require a CEO with a vision for energy transformation amid disruptive technology and worldwide fears that power plants like those at OUC are heating up the planet.

“It’s going to be an interesting ride,” said Jim Fenton, director of the University of Central Florida's solar center, observing tension and intrigue in OUC’s pursuit of a leader for an uncharted course.

OUC has 250,000 electric customers in Orlando, Orange County and St. Cloud. But environmentalists regard its influence as greater than its service area.

“You guys are the lead coaches in this,” said Michael Cohen, an Orlando clean-energy proponent, encouraging OUC recently to lead in solar.

How Orlando and its century-old utility arrived at a turning point that echoes energy uncertainty embroiling the nation came about swiftly.

In May, Mayor Buddy Dyer said the city should wean itself from coal and natural gas by 2050.

“Cities are the front lines where this transformation can happen,” Dyer said then, referring to activism on climate concerns gaining traction at municipal rather than federal levels.

In July, OUC’s general manager and chief executive officer for 13 years, Ken Ksionek, announced he would leave office.

In August, the City Council unanimously backed Dyer’s goal for renewable energy.

“You have visionary political leaders, but they need someone who can execute that vision,” said Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Orlando is Florida’s largest city to have stepped toward that future of energy, even as the view from City Hall’s 9th floor includes a daunting legacy.

Rising from pines a little more than a dozen miles to the east are the 50-story chimneys and cooling towers of OUC’s coal plants.

Their veils of exhaust represent power for more than 500,000 homes.

As OUC’s most significant undertaking, the Curtis Stanton Energy Center’s units 1 and 2 opened in 1987 and 1996, costing about $1 billion each in today’s dollars.

Conceived when coal was king, the flagship plants put Orlando on the map of major power makers.

Directing their construction was Ksionek, now a 44-year utility veteran, with 32 of those at OUC. He was named for OUC’s top job after his handling of hurricanes in 2004.

“I cut my teeth on coal,” he said Tuesday, after the end of his second-to-last meeting of OUC’s board.

Asked if the city’s rejection of coal and natural gas spurred his decision to leave, Ksionek said “absolutely not.”

Dyer also said he had not encouraged the longtime manager to depart.

“We have been his strongest ally,” Ksionek said, referring to Dyer, while explaining his retirement as capping an achievement of professional goals: “It’s been a great journey.”

For Ksionek’s service, OUC’s board voted to name the utility’s new solar plant after him. That $15 million array neighbors the coal plants.

Ksionek stood, gripping an honorary plaque and responded with words of appreciation.

He then hinted that he was expecting OUC to soon unveil plans for another solar plant, possibly the biggest in the state, according to observers.

Ksionek said the mayor’s vision “is a bold one” but “if there is a will, there is a way, OUC will accomplish that.”

“It doesn’t happen overnight and each one our generating facilities that we have to date is needed,” Ksionek said. “It takes all of those assets and by that I mean we need the fossil generation, which includes coal and natural gas.”

Later on Tuesday, OUC’s newest board member said she took Ksionek’s remarks as in line with his passion for renewable energy.

Ksionek’s reference to coal, said Britta Gross, a GM director for electric cars, underscored that “we can’t shut off spigots as fast as everyone wants today. But we will define a glide path that gets us there.”

For many outsiders, OUC path-finding is obscure, including with solar energy.

“I don’t know what your plan is,” said Orlando environmentalist Pete Dunkelberg at the Tuesday meeting.

The utility board does not have the kind spirited debates that more fully reveal the dynamics of an issue as at other public agencies.

“For the items that had the potential to draw some different viewpoints, I think the OUC staff has done a great job of trying to proactively flesh out concerns,” OUC’s president Gregory Lee said. “By the time a decision is needed, there is more of a consensus established.”

OUC governs itself and several city commissioners said they have little influence over its actions. Commissioner Tony Ortiz said that doesn’t concern him.

“It has worked really well,” Ortiz said. When you have an agency like that, it’s hard to put it under a magnifying glass.”

Each year, OUC funnels cash to run Orlando government: $1.3 billion since 2000. This year’s $90 million covers one-fifth of the city’s general fund. OUC also pays well. Its 10 vice presidents earn from $206,000 to $335,000 annually, eclipsing other public bodies except the far larger University of Central Florida.

Only four employees at City Hall and four in Orange County government are paid as much as in the low- to mid-$200,000 range.

Ksionek's pay of $496,000 is two-and-ahalf times that of Dyer’s and more than that of the manager at the considerably larger Jacksonville utility.

Sue Kelly, president of American Public Power Association, said it’s not appropriate to compare salaries of utilities and local government.

“We have a lot of people who could go and have gone to make substantially more money at for-profit utilities,” Kelly said.

For Ksionek’s replacement, OUC is offering $350,000 to $450,000, with “customary benefits.”

The opening netted three dozen applicants from as far away as the West Coast and six OUC vice presidents.

OUC’s chairman, Lee, former Orange County Mayor Linda Chapin and Orange County Clerk of Courts Tiffany Moore Russell cut the list to a pair of OUC vice presidents and two who have led larger utilities in Texas and Oregon.

Dyer, as one of OUC’s five board members, said he wants a talented leader with a positive attitude for his goal.

“We made a pledge to be 100 percent renewable by 2050, so that involves OUC being 100 percent renewable by 2050,” Dyer said.