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The Co-op Industry Welcomes Vets Co-op Bike Team Raises Over $5,000 for EOC A total of $5,115.67 was raised for Energy Outreach Colorado this fall when the Colorado electric cooperatives’ Powering the Plains bike team rode in the annual Pedal the Plains bike tour of Colorado’s eastern plains. The funds were raised by the 23-member team, which rode 177 miles from Kersey to Keenesburg to Brush and back to Kersey. The team raised $3,412.17. Basin Electric, one of the
co-op power suppliers, matched $1,350 of the co-ops’ donations. Pedal the Plains also donated a percentage of the team’s registration fees to EOC, adding another $353.50 for EOC. Energy Outreach Colorado is a nonprofit organization that helps low-income Coloradans throughout the state with heating assistance, emergency furnace repair and energy efficiency improvements.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is proud to be among the founding sponsors of Veterans in Energy. This national leadership organization was formed to provide transition, retention and professional development support to the growing population of military veterans choosing careers in energy. Electric co-ops, which always have had former military members in their workforce, launched their own similar initiative earlier. Titled Serve Our Co-ops, Serve Our Country, the program facilitated the hiring of 30 veterans in the last 18 months.
Drones Help With Hurricane Recovery in the South Electric co-op members had their power back days sooner than expected when electric co-ops in Texas and throughout the South put drones to work following hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Co-op officials said the technology passed with flying colors, helping to pinpoint outages in hardto-reach places. Co-op members near the San Marcos River in Texas experienced outages when Harvey caused the river to rise 25 feet in a single day, taking out service throughout the area. And while the waters were still receding, co-op employees launched a drone purchased just a few months earlier. The drone flew inspection missions, helping lineworkers find the problems and arrive on the scene with the right equipment and materials to get the repairs done quickly. At another co-op hit by Hurricane Harvey, the co-op drone flew 60 missions and inspected more than 1,600 poles. “The drone saved us four days,” said the line superintendent. “We had a lot of areas inaccessible because of flooding and by using the drone’s GPS capabilities, we saw exactly where the problems were. We knew exactly what we needed and where we needed it.” 12
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Thanks to the drone footage, the co-op crews were able to launch flat-bottomed boats in precise locations without wading through floodwaters. “We would have had to wait to use four-wheelers,” the line superintendent said. Another co-op used its drone to carry a rope across a flooded river, where another part of the crew waited for it. Without the drone, lineworkers would have had to throw wire across the river or wait for waters to recede. The other option for co-ops in these situations is often a helicopter. But as co-op managers noted, drones are a lot less expensive and can actually be more efficient than using helicopters or even fixed-wing aircraft. In most places, damage occurs in short stretches making drones the ideal tool. “Had we not used a drone, it definitely would have taken longer to assess and repair the hurricane damage,” said one co-op communications manager. Using these new tools meant that the power was back on sooner for co-op members.
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