One of the distinct advantages of being member-owned is that we can invest more in our system and its maintenance. The return on that investment is higher reliability and more affordable power. Fixing outages is a cost to our members — if we build a more resilient system then we don’t incur that expense. Costs that are expected and planned are better for rates than high, unexpected costs that come later. Here are some ways we’re proactive on your behalf.

1Our system-wide maintenance practices and inspections processes go above and beyond industry standards, in both frequency and the types that we do. It’s even stricter for our critical infrastructure such as substations, transmission lines and transformers. We do our best to mitigate any problem before it becomes an outage. And we make sure that new construction is properly installed and operating effectively, to ensure it performs optimally for its expected life.

2We plan ahead to keep everything our crews need, and our operations running efficiently, in stock. Supply chain issues have left many utilities across the country without the materials they need. We’ve been proactive, anticipating need and shortages, and worked with our partners to make sure we have what’s required for maintenance, to respond to outages, and for new construction. 

3When we build new lines or infrastructure, we are planning ahead. Because we are forecasting for the future, we’re putting in larger poles and larger conductor than is needed at the time, so we don’t have to go back in and upgrade a few months or years later.  We also build to a higher wind standard than what is required, so a storm might result in a tree on a line rather than a broken pole, and a two-hour outage rather than a 10-hour outage.

4We have the latest technology in place that communicates how our system is functioning to our operations center for our dispatch, engineers and linemen. Using their tablets, they are able to troubleshoot, diagnose and operate the system more efficiently. This helps identify issues before they become a problem, and helps us respond faster and analyze outages before we’re ever on site. 

5Most importantly all our employees prioritize our members every day. If a lineman sees a potential issue on the way to a job, he makes an order to fix it before it becomes a higher cost to the members. Across all departments, there’s a culture of solving problems before they incur more expense. And everyone is flexible; your job might not be what you do that day if it means taking care of the members - and improving reliability and affordability.