The INDEPENDENT, November 16, 2006
Page 13
Power of the People
By W. Marc Farmer,
General Manager,
West Oregon Electric Cooperative
bers re
cently and I felt others would
benefit from the answers as
well. I welcome the opportunity
to communicate with members
and am grateful that this forum
allows many to gain the same
information at one time from
one source.
Q - “We’ve had three out
ages in the Chapman area and
want to know why and for what
we pay, shouldn’t the Co-op
provide us constant power?
A - Let me address the out
ages first. The three outages in
the Chapman area were due to
1) a planned outage for neces
sary maintenance of our sub
station to prepare for winter.
During this maintenance we re
placed a switch that was not
closing and bad insulators
which would have caused out
ages later this winter. Doing so
now, before the weather gets
cold, and during regular hours
instead of waiting until the sub
station goes down and paying
overtime if it went out during
the night, on a weekend, or hol
iday, saves our members and
the Co-op time, money, and po
tentially worse conditions for
our crews and members. We
prefer preventive measures
rather than spending additional
time and money to react after
the fact. 2) The second outage
was caused by a logger drop
ping a tree across one of BPA’s
lines that feeds power to the
Chapman substation, and 3)
the third outage was a large
maple leaf that blew into the
substation and landed on top of
a voltage regulator, which
caused one of the phases to
ground (caused a short) and
blew a fuse in the sub. Only
one of these outages was any
thing we had control over and
that outage saved money and
future outages for our mem
bers. If we did not maintain our
system, substations, lines, and
tree trimming, we would be
back to the long sustained out
ages of the past.
Providing constant power is
impossible for any electric utili
ty. We even address this fact in
our Service Rules & Regula
tions which states in Section 5:
“The Cooperative will use
reasonable diligence to main
tain uninterrupted service, but
does not guarantee a con
stant or regular supply of
electric energy... ”
“The Cooperative may in
terrupt service to any member
for the protection of life or
property, for making repairs,
changes or improvements in
any part of its system for the
general good of the service or
safety of the public or when in
the cooperative’s sole judg
ment such interruption will
prevent or alleviate an emer
gency threatening the integri
ty of it’s system, or will aid in
the restoration of service. ”
No utility can control the ef
fects of weather, trees falling
across lines, people damaging
poles, lines, or transformers,
accidents, acts of God, animals
or birds causing shorts in the
system, or as we experienced,
even a maple leaf blowing in
the wind.
As to our rates being high
enough to keep the lights on, I
would respond with this dose of
reality. If we charged each
member a facility charge equal
to what it really costs us to
maintain our system, it would
require an increase in our facil
ity charge from $17.50 per
month to $69.69 per member,
per month. The money to run
this system has to come from
either the facility charge or the
rates; those are the only two
sources of revenue we have to
operate. We have conducted in
the past, and are undergoing a
new cost-of-service analysis,
and the amount stated, $69.69,
is our actual cost to service an
average account. We can re
duce our kilowatt hour rate to
match the state average, but
the facilities charge would have
to increase in order for us to
continue to operate, trim trees,
maintain and repair the system,
put in new lines and transform
ers, and pay for the power we
all use. That is the reality of
providing power in a rural set
ting with miles of lines through
forests and rugged terrain, low
density of members per mile of
line, very little industrial and
commercial load to balance
residential load, along with low
growth in our service area.
When a member makes a
choice to live in a rural area
with a lot of trees, they dramat
ically increase the risk of losing
power and the cost of trimming
those trees that we all love to
live among and enjoy their
beauty. There is a very real
cost involved to live out here in
forested areas. As I stated in
my last article,- if you want to
have constant power, it will re
quire a back-up generator for
the times when forces beyond
our control cause outages, or
when we need to work on a line
or substation to fix current or
prevent future problems.
We strive diligently to keep
the power on to our members.
That is why your member
owned cooperative exists. We
understand the dependency we
all have on power for
light, warmth, commu
nications, work, and
comfort. We ask for
your patience when
events occur, as they
most assuredly will,
due in large part to
where we choose to
live. Our crews work
through the night and
in all kinds of weather
and conditions to re
store power when it
goes out. I personally
can attest to their dedi
cation, hard work, and
loyalty to the members
as they do their jobs.
Right, West Oregon
crew works on wires
after recent storm.
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