POWER STATION
B Y M AG E N H O WA R D
Innovation LEADERS
Technological advances help co-ops continually improve service for their member-owners
SCADA systems help electric cooperatives monitor and control what is happening in their service territory.
When it comes to adopting new technology, electric cooperatives are David beating Goliath. “The smaller size of co-ops allows us to be more nimble because we have fewer consumers,” says Pat O’Loughlin, president and CEO of Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives, the wholesale power supplier and trade association for the 24 co-ops serving the state. “We can try new things and deploy them faster than 10
some big utilities.” For example, electric co-ops have led the industry in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which provides frequent, more accurate readings and helps discover outages faster than with older analog meters. About 70 percent of electric cooperatives across the country have implemented AMI, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).
New computer software that communicates with equipment in the field also enables co-ops to know where outages are without having to send a crew into the field to visually inspect the power lines and poles, O’Loughlin says. “That means co-ops can tell their consumers earlier what happened and when power will be back on,” he says. It also allows co-ops to offer outage maps, either on their own
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