Good afternoon NIECI!
I’m a little late writing my article. I was away from the office at strategic planning with Great River Energy. Right after that I spent a little time in Canada fishing with my family. The good news is, I broke down and put a fence around the garden, so the deer didn’t clear it out when we were gone. The bad news is I may have gotten out-fished in my boat. That just means I’m out of practice and need more time fishing, I think. Regardless, it was time well spent on the water; it’s never about the fishing with me.
Last month I shared my Annual Meeting speech as my WATTS article. There were a few questions asked at the meeting as well. I do intend on addressing those questions in a future article. I want to ensure my information is accurate and laid out for everyone.
I read my buddy Mark’s article in his newsletter. He was writing about the reliability of our systems, and the responsibility is shared. Mark brought up some good points here and I wanted to be a good neighbor and follow cooperative principle #6, cooperation among cooperatives. This is why I’ll share some of his well-made points.
Reliability is spread among cooperative partners for you, the Member-Owners. I am directly responsible for our system, ensuring it is safe and reliable for your use. We are constantly talking about the system here at North Itasca Electric. My linemen share with Daryl and myself trouble areas, outages, and concerns they have. We work together to address these concerns through right-of-way clearing, fusing, system design, and replacement when necessary. We are constantly looking at outage data to improve the system when necessary.
Great River Energy has a large responsibility in this mix as well. GRE generates or buys the power we need to run our homes and businesses. They also have a system of transmission lines used to carry this electricity to us. Their system, like ours, requires a great deal of maintenance and sometimes replacement.
Recently GRE was here to meet with us to discuss reliability. The line feeding North Itasca Electric’s system from the south was rated an “F”. GRE has made a commitment to replace this line due to age and condition; this will improve reliability and accessibility to their system that feeds our substations.
The next piece of the puzzle lays at MISO. They are the air traffic controllers of the big picture. They are responsible for ensuring there is power where and when it is needed across the center of the US and part of Canada. This relationship also provides financial benefits to our Member-Owners.
MISO has had warnings over the past couple of years there wasn’t enough generation for future needs. Recently they backed those warnings down slightly. Good news for all of us but I still will keep a watchful eye in that direction. In future articles I will share with you some of the projects being considered to ensure you have the reliability you expect from North Itasca Electric.
By your side! Miigwech
Brad
