Transmission Reliability

By Todd Ware, President & Chief Executive Officer

Every day, you expect safe, reliable and affordable energy to operate your home or business. Delivering these services requires a complex system of natural gas pipelines and electric infrastructure and require a lot of coordination between multiple agencies and organizations. Due to the complexity of the systems, you may have noticed a slight increase in your Energy Cooperative bill. We have addressed the increase in natural gas and propane prices in earlier issues of this newsletter. Today, I would like to discuss the increase for our electric members.

Each month our electric members see a charge on the back of their bill. This cost is simply a pass through from our wholesale supplier, Buckeye Power, to generate and deliver power to our substations. Energy Cooperative owns a share of the generation at Buckeye Power; however, we rely on an investor-owned utility to deliver this energy to us. They belong to a regional transmission organization, PJM, who coordinates the delivery of power.

Territory served by PJM

As our partners make investments to improve the reliability of the transmission grid, they pass the increased cost to us and it ultimately affects our members. We have little control of this cost. We do, however, work with Buckeye Power to ensure these projects give our system the most benefit.

We have seen a steady increase in transmission costs over the past several years. The offset of these costs is increased reliability from our transmission supplier. We see less down time and our members see fewer outages. The investments make the system more robust while also allowing a quicker outage restoration time as a result of improved technology.

Several years ago, Energy Cooperative started to operate a small amount of transmission lines for our own use. We decided it made sense to build more transmission lines and move this trasmission into the PJM grid. By moving our existing line into PJM and making it part of their system, we are reimbursed by PJM at an excellent rate of return. This still allows us to use it for ourselves, however, PJM could call on these transmission lines, if needed. We currently have thirty-two miles of transmission and are planning to build fifteen additional miles over the next two years.

While we cannot control the dollars spent by our transmission partners, we are working hard to keep other costs down and increase revenue that does not directly affect our members. We know that many costs are rising at a fast pace, and we are continuing to work hard to keep your energy bills as affordable as possible.

If you have specific concerns about your bill, please reach out to us and consider scheduling a home energy audit to help find ways you may be able to save.