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ceo’s report BRETT ORME
C HI E F E X E C U T I V E O F F I C E R
Kiamichi Electric Cooperative 944 SW Highway 2 PO Box 340 Wilburton, Oklahoma 74578 tele: (918) 465-2338 toll free: (800) 888-2731 FAX: (918) 465-2950 www.kiamichielectric.org email: support@kiamichielectric.org HOURS OF OPERATION Monday-Friday 8 am to 5 pm 24-HOUR OUTAGE HOTLINE (800) 888-2731 BOARD OF TRUSTEES Don Parr, President DISTRICT 5 Mark Ichord, Vice President DISTRICT 6
Over the years, you’ve probably heard or read about KEC’s concern for our community. This is one of the core principles that sets cooperatives apart from other types of utilities and businesses. We’ve always taken this mission and responsibility to heart. It’s who we are as a co-op. Over the past few months, like so many of you, we’ve risen to meet new challenges and strengthen the safety net for our community, particularly for those who are most vulnerable. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve made numerous adjustments to programs and operations to maintain business continuity while staying focused on the bigger mission of helping our consumermembers during this turbulent time. Now, with the holidays fast approaching, these recent events have made me pause
Monitoring the Line for Reliability
Electric co-ops use a variety of monitoring and automation technologies that improve power reliability, shorten outage times and reduce labor time for crews. Here are four technologies we use to improve reliability.
Ron Pelanconi, Treasurer DISTRICT 3 Russell Shaw DISTRICT 1 Amy Miller DISTRICT 2 David Ray DISTRICT 4
Power Sensors
Power sensors typically clamp on or connect to the power line and provide near real-time reporting on power, voltage, current and more – all of which helps to provide more reliable energy to consumer-members.
Larry Culwell DISTRICT 7 Brett Orme Executive Vice President-CEO Kiamichi Electric provides reliable and affordable electricity to members in Pushmataha, Leflore, Latimer, Atoka and Pittsburg Counties.
and think about the role we play in our community. While our purpose is to provide safe and reliable energy to you, the members we serve, we have a greater mission––to be a catalyst for good. You’re probably aware of our Operation Round-Up program, where we take donations from generous members like you who have “rounded up” the amount due on their electric bill to help support our communities and fund scholarships. Or our Youth Tour program, where we take our community’s brightest young people to Washington, D.C. for a week-long immersion to experience democracy in action. We also have a strong commitment to safety — not just for our employees, but for our community as well. We visit schools to teach children of all ages how to stay safe around electricity. We hold safety demonstrations at community meetings and other gatherings. KEC invests in the economic development of the community through an active role in our local Drones Chamber of Commerce. Drones may be used to inspect the You’ll also see our power lines we maintain. Drones can provide infrared evaluation to employees serving on local locate hot spots on power lines and vegetation assessment to boards, coaching youth locate trees and other vegetation that can cause outages. sports and volunteering at charitable events. Because when you work at a co-op, you understand how important a strong community is — after all, without you, the co-op wouldn’t exist. We know that our core job is to keep the lights Reclosers A recloser acts like a on; but our passion is our circuit breaker for power lines. When a problem community. Because we occurs, the recloser temporarily shuts off live and work here too, power. If the problem is temporary, the recloser and we want to make it a restores power. (This is why you sometimes see better place for all. the power blink.) If the problem persists, the Concern for recloser will shut off power until a crew can community is the heart make repairs. The recloser’s antenna and soul of who we are. provides wireless, And no matter what the real-time data back to the co-op. future brings, you can count on your electric co-op to care about you.
AMI
Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) provides real-time data to the co-op. In addition to meter reading, this data helps us detect faults and other potential problems on the electrical system, resulting in increased power reliability for consumer-members.
(Antenna)
