There may be changes in how people pay for water and electricity in the city of Ames.

The Ames City Council met Tuesday night to listen to both the municipal water and electric utilities’ proposals for rate changes.

“I’m going to flesh out our proposed plan a little bit more,” said John Dunn, director of water and pollution control for Ames.

Dunn’s modifications to the water rate include simplifying the system. Previously, Dunn’s plan had four different account types. Now there are only two – residential and non-residential.

Dunn said he would be unable to support two different rates for the summer season and the rest of the year.

“That would conceptually be ideal, but our billing software prohibits that,” he said. “Some larger communities use custom-built software that allows this, but that’s frankly out of our price range.”

Duane Pitcher, chief financial director for Ames, helped outline the changes in store for the electric rate system.

“The study that was analyzing different options to increase base capacity is finished,” Pitcher said. “However, all options will require an increase in rates.”

Currently, an 8 percent rate increase is projected for the fiscal year 2008-2009 budget.

Donald Kom, director of electric services, said the electric utility won’t face a billing software problem like the water department’s.

“Our software systems are built to handle it,” Kom said.

He also said the rate system should take into account the regular fluctuations in price that electricity goes through.

“The price could be five cents per kilowatt in the morning, and then by noon it could be up to a dollar per kilowatt,” he said.

The study that analyzed future electric generation choices for the plant will be the subject of an upcoming public meeting, so people can ask any questions they have about the results and what they mean.

“We want to get input about the possible courses we can take from the public and our customers,” Kom said.

The council also approved a new measure that can help encourage the growth of green energy.

“This new net-metering rider will allow people to safely have solar panels or wind generators installed on their property and will allow them to tie into the local electrical system,” Kom said.

The idea is that, if the local green energy options produce more electricity than the house uses for that hour, the kilowatt meter will actually slide backward and the house will be credited for the energy it wasn’t using.

“It’s a transaction in kilowatt-hours,” Kom said. “We don’t store the energy – it gets into the system and is used right away. But we owe that customer the kilowatts they didn’t consume for us in that hour.”

People would only be allowed to generate up to 10 kilowatts of their own energy, which Kom likened to either “a really, really big house, or a really, really small business.”

City Manager Steve Schainker said that, if the council approved this motion, they would be “authorizing this format for use.” The motion passed unanimously.