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Vol. 73, No. 8 The newsletter of Washington Electric Cooperative, Inc., East Montpelier, Vermont. December 2012
InsideWashington Electric CooperativeEast Montpelier, VT 05651 The Year in Review: WEC President Barry
Bernstein recaps a very consequential year for the electric utility industry in Vermont. Page 2.
WEC rates holding steady. When the Co-op files for a rate increase, it generally takes effect (provisionally) at the start of the year. At the moment, though, the Co-op does not see the need. Page 6.
The annual fall Coventry tour took place in November, and WEC member Erika Mitchell, for one, was an enthusiastic participant. Page 8.
Construction Foreman Tim Pudvah and First Class Lineworker Dennis Bador retired in November. With 80 years of experience and service to the Co-op between them, that’s a big deal. Above, Tim cuts the cake at the retirement party. Story on these and other staff changes, page 3.
Lori Barg, a hydrogeologist and WEC member from Plainfield, has obtained the first federal license in 25 years for a new hydro project in Vermont. But it was like paddling upstream, she says, and she’s advocating for changes to the process. Barg is pictured before the Plainfield village dam.
Nearly “Up,” But Not Yet “Running”
WEC Closes In On Its AMI Project
As 2012 enters its final month, Washington Electric Co-op enters the final stages of
its system-wide installation of an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). WEC General Manager Avram Patt said the Co-op expected to complete the installations of so-called “smart meters” at members’ homes and businesses by the end of December.
“We’ve been working very hard to let our members know about AMI through Co-op Currents, through bill inserts, at our public meetings, and in many other ways,” said Patt. “The vast majority of our members have responded positively and shown a lot
of interest.“Now what we need to emphasize
is that before we go live with the system there will be a period of testing and refining – making sure everything works, and dealing with special cases that arise. Making AMI compatible with the home-generating systems owned by our net-metering members, for example, will take special attention. But we’ll have those problems worked out within the first few months of the winter.”
When it’s time to make the switch, there will be a lot to switch (think turning the Titanic, but without
2012 • INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF COOPERATIVES
www.washingtonelectric.coop
A New Age Of Hydropower?Plainfield Hydro Developer Scores a Breakthrough
In an age when renewable energy is “cutting edge” – the technology of today and tomorrow, pathway to
a future of localized energy produced in harmony with the earth’s systems rather than destructive of them – hydropower developer Lori Barg of Plainfield has found her chosen form of renewable energy hampered at every turn because it’s old. Very old.
Hydropower – the use of water for industrial and agricultural purposes – dates to antiquity: the Egyptians, the Romans, the Assyrians, the Chinese, all deployed it. Historians believe the first dam in the New World may have been built in South Berwick, Maine, in 1634, to operate a sawmill. In colonial Vermont, dams were ubiquitous.
“Every single village was born on hydro,” says Barg. “Hydro was the economic engine of Vermont. As you read Zadoch Thompson – who was the state naturalist in the 19th century – his civil, statistical, and agricultural history goes town by town and it’s amazing; there’s not a village that’s not based around a river, and they would have half a dozen mills – sawmills, corn mills, grain mills – all operated on hydro.”
The first hydroelectric generating plant in the U.S. was constructed in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1882. It made sense that with the advent of electricity – the greatest power source to date – Vermont would
turn to its rivers for this gift as well. A turn-of-the-century (1900, that is) federal study concluded that Vermont was capable of generating about 1,000 megawatts (MW) of hydroelec-tricity.
“As you get into the 1940s,” says Barg, “Vermont was getting more than 90 percent of its energy from in-state hydro.”
There were other means of producing electricity, such as the diesel generators that provided Washington Electric Cooperative’s first power, in 1939, but not on a grand scale. Public investment in the construction of the great dams – such as the Hoover, the Bonneville, and the Grand Coulee – played a role in the country’s recovery from the Great Depression.
With states’ interests increasingly interwoven around complex issues of power production, wholesale charges, and interstate transmission, a federal regulatory role was called for. Enter the Federal Power Commission (FPC), founded in 1930. Its job was to coordinate federal hydropower production, but in 1935 it also took on the regulation of hydroelectric transmission and markets. (Natural gas – with pipelines comparable to electricity’s transmission infrastructure – was added to the FPC’s purview in 1938, and gradually the agency took
HAPPY HOLIDAYS and HAPPY NEW YEAR from your Electric Co-op.
To call the Co-op, dial: weekdays 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., 223-5245; toll-free for reporting outages & emergencies, 1-800-WEC-5245; after hours, weekends & holidays, 223-7040.
Page 2 • Co-op Currents, December 2012 www.washingtonelectric.coop
Brick Church next door, who offered us use of their bathrooms, meeting room, and kitchen, and in space offered by Goddard College immediately after the flood, we were able to make it through.
Your WEC staff endured in these far-less-than-satisfactory working conditions, continuing the same exceptional service
to our members. We owe each and every one of them our gratitude and thanks. At the same time, your Board, and employees also thank our Co-op membership for being understanding and supportive during this difficult period.
The renovation project was successful because of the help of so many folks: the Building Committee, consisting of Avram Patt, Dan Weston, Cheryl Willette, Debbie Brown, Richard Rubin, Dave Magida, Annie Reed, and myself; John Rahill and Black River Design; Larry Rossi of LK Rossi Corp. and the many subcontractors who were involved; our consultants Andy Shapiro and Wayne Nelson; PC Construction Company (formerly known as Pizzagalli); our WEC linemen and operations staff; General Counsel Joshua Diamond of Diamond & Robinson PC; Brian Aitchison of Dennis Ricker & Brown Insurance, and many others. Thanks to all.
AMI (Advanced Meter Infrastructure)
Your Co-op successfully completed the first phase of installing nearly 11,000 new “smart” meters in our members’ homes and businesses
continued on page 8
Co-op Currents (Publication No. USPS 711 -210 and ISSN No. 0746-8784) is published monthly except February, May, August and November by Washington Electric Cooperative, Inc., Route 14, P.O. Box 8, East Montpelier, Vermont 05651. The cost of this publication is $.48, which is included in the basic monthly charge to each member. Periodical postage rates paid at East Montpelier and at additional offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Co-op Currents, P.O. Box 8, East Montpelier, Vermont 05651.
AVRAM PATTGeneral Manager
WILL LINDNEREditor
TIM NEWCOMBLayout
The Board of Directors’ regularly scheduled meetings are on the last Wednesday of each month, in the evening. Members are welcome to attend. Members who wish to discuss a matter with the Board should contact the president through WEC’s office. Meeting dates and times are subject to change. For information about times and/or agenda, or to receive a copy of the minutes of past meetings, contact Administrative Assistant Deborah Brown, 802-223-5245.
Co-op Currents
WEC is part of the alliance working to advance and
support the principles of
cooperatives in Vermont.
Board of DirectorsPresident BARRY BERNSTEIN 1237 Bliss Road, Marshfield, Vt. 05658 456-8843 (May 2013) [email protected]
Vice President ROGER FOX 2067 Bayley-Hazen Rd., East Hardwick, 563-2321 (May 2015) Vt. 05836-9873 [email protected]
Treasurer DONALD DOUGLAS 21 Douglas Rd., East Orange, Vt. 05086 439-5364 (May 2014) [email protected]
Secretary MARION MILNE 1705 E. Orange Rd., W. Topsham, Vt. 05086 439-5404 (May 2014) [email protected]
ROY FOLSOM 2603 US Rt. 2, Cabot, Vt. 05647 426-3579 (May 2013) [email protected]
DAVID MAGIDA 632 Center Road, Middlesex 05602 223-8672 (May 2014) [email protected]
ANNE REED 3941 Hollister Hill Rd., Marshfield, Vt. 05658 454-1324 (May 2013) [email protected]
RICHARD RUBIN 3496 East Hill Rd., Plainfield, Vt. 05667 454-8542 (May 2015) [email protected]
MARY JUST SKINNER P.O. Box 412, Montpelier, VT 05601 223-7123 (May 2015) [email protected]
Editorial CommitteeAvram Patt Donald Douglas David Magida Anne Reed Will Lindner
I always feel a tinge of surprise each December as I sit
at my computer to write my end-of-the-year President’s Message to WEC members. Where has the time gone over these past 12 months?
A year ago I was writing about “another weather year that will forever be etched into our memories,” reflecting on Tropical Storm Irene on August 26, 2011, and the central Vermont “microburst” and flood just three months earlier (May 26, 2011). This year our members in the Joe’s Pond and Lyford Pond area experienced another short but violent storm, on the Fourth of July, that caused extensive damage to homes, vehicles, and other property, including our poles and infrastructure (though WEC was able to restore power within 48 hours). And even though our Co-op and much of Vermont escaped the full wrath of Hurricane Sandy, we all watched the devastation it wrought
well. As WEC closes its
books for 2012 and we enter 2013, I can report that we will not be filing for a rate increase at the start of the year, and will keep our members informed. The Board and management will be closely tracking our revenues and expenses, hoping to avoid a rate increase during the coming year, but several factors will affect the outcome: lower kWh sales (a trend nationally); higher regional and state wholesale transmission costs; lower revenue from sale of surplus power; unpredictable storm expenses; changing prices in the volatile market for renewable energy certificates, which is an important revenue source for the Co-op. These are just a few areas we monitor.
Your Co-op has accomplished a lot in a very busy 2012, which we hope will benefit our members going forward.
2012 Highlights
WEC’s Renovated Headquarters
In June, the Co-op staff moved back into our East Montpelier office, a year after the May 2011 flooding made the space uninhabitable. The new space is fully renovated – remodeled inside and out, with new mechanical and electrical systems and an energy-efficient envelope. During the previous year much of the staff had been displaced – housed in the doublewide trailer in our parking lot, in temporary space in our warehouse, and in small usable spaces in the existing building. With the gracious support of the Old
President’s Message
upon our neighbors in New York and New Jersey, and in states to the south and east of them: close to 8 million homes and businesses without power, and $100 billion in damages. As we end 2012, even with many of our members still struggling financially, we must consider ourselves fortunate compared to those who
felt Sandy’s and Irene’s direct effects.The first decade (2000–2010) of
this century was the warmest decade on record (2010 and 1998 were the two warmest years on record). The predictions that New England will experience more severe storm activity seem to be bearing out as we end the second year of this decade. How we respond to these changing times will require all of us to give serious thought to future decisions we will be called on to make, and their impact on our earth and its resources. Business as usual will not serve us and future generations
Powerful Storms, AMI, The GMP Merger, Made 2012 Another Busy And Significant
Year For WEC And VermontThe predictions that New England will experience more
severe storm activity seem to be bearing
out. Business as usual will not serve
us and future generations well.
Washington Electric Cooperative, Inc.
Statement of Non-DiscriminationWashington Electric Cooperative, Inc. is the recipient of Federal financial assistance
from the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and is subject to the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended; the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended. In accordance with Federal law and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s policy, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, status as a parent (in education and training programs and activities), because all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistant program, or retaliation. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs or activities).
The person responsible for coordinating this organization’s nondiscrimination compliance efforts is Avram Patt, the Cooperative’s General Manager. Any individual, or specific class of individuals, who feels that this organization has subjected them to discrimination may obtain further information about the statutes and regulations listed above from, and/or file a written complaint with, this organization; or write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call, toll free, (866) 632-9992 (voice). TDD users can contact USA through local relay or the General relay at (800) 877-8339 (TDD) or (866) 377-8642 (relay voice users). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
Complaints must be filed within 180 days after the alleged discrimination. Confidentiality will be maintained to the extent possible.
Serving more than 10,500 member/owners in central Vermont. A rural electric cooperative since 1939.
Co-op Currents, December 2012 • Page 3www.washingtonelectric.coop
continued on page 6
Washington Electric Co-op is a small company with a huge job to do – a staff of 38 men
and women providing electricity for 10,500 members and their families in a low-density territory spread out in 41 central Vermont towns. (“Density” refers to the average number of members per mile of line; WEC’s 7.5 average is the lowest in Vermont, an indication of how rural the territory is and therefore how much maintenance is involved.) In this situation, everyone’s job is crucial – the engineers designing new sections of power line; the line workers construct-ing, maintaining, and repairing the sys-tem; member services reps processing bills and payments and fielding people’s inquiries; the mechanics keeping the trucks and four-wheelers in good con-dition; IT specialists maintaining and programming WEC’s computerized sys-tems; stock keepers, bookkeepers, etc., etc. And in big storm events basically everyone jumps in to keep things going, sometimes around the clock for a few days in a row.
WEC has been fortunate to have a stable and conscientious workforce performing these many duties. So it is significant when there is turnover among the people who serve the member-owners of this cooperative, and that’s particularly true when veteran employees move on, whether for retirement or to take another position.
On November 15, WEC said farewell to First Class Lineworker Dennis Bador and Construction Foreman Tim Pudvah, two of its most senior employees. Dennis, who lives in Worcester, had
been with the Co-op since 1971, while Tim, who lives in East Montpelier, came to Washington Electric in 1973. That’s an average of 40 years, doing arduous work in the hot summer sun and the coldest winter weather, leaving home at 2 a.m. on stormy nights to repair broken connections in the dark, doing a job that requires not only physical stamina but an impressive amount of know-how about how electricity behaves and a power system works, and about the roads, woods, and fields in three counties where the Co-op built its lines 10, 30, 50, or 70 years ago.
On top of knowledge and endurance, WEC’s Operations Director Dan Weston added, it takes strength of character to be a good lineman.
“That generation of linemen took a great amount of pride in the work they
did,” said Weston. “Both of these guys would make a beeline to our front door to help restore power in any situation. You could absolutely count on them. I know I always did.”
Tim and Dennis weren’t the only WEC employees to leave recently. Member Services Representative Shawna Foran left the Co-op earlier in the fall. Shawna came to Washington Electric in 2002. Her voice was familiar to people who called with any kind of inquiry or complaint, including basic issues about their electricity bills and usage, and it was usually Shawna who greeted members and visitors at the front desk.
“Shawna was outgoing and eager to help people,” said General Manager Avram Patt. “She was with us for 10 years. She decided to move on, and we certainly thank her and wish her well.”
Tributes to Pudvah and Bador
“There’s got to be turnover on a line crew,” Operations Director Weston said. “It’s a fact of life, and we prepare for it in our staffing decisions. But veteran guys like Dennis and Tim sure take a lot of knowledge and experience with them when they go. Those two guys built an awful lot of line for the Co-op.”
The Heartbeat Of The Co-opIt’s The People Who Make it Tick
“Lots of times you talk to
linemen and they’ll say
they feel more comfortable in
their hooks than they do walking.”
Tim Pudvah
There were particular things to appreciate about both these workers. Dennis, Weston said, was skilled as a digger-driver operator (the heavy equipment used to set poles), and he had exceptional geographical knowledge of the WEC system. “I could ask him, ‘Where is pole number such-and-such?’ and he would know within a couple of span,” said Weston. “Not bad, considering we’ve got 24,000 poles on our system.”
Another quality that Weston appreciated was the consideration that Dennis Bador showed toward WEC members and their property. Sometimes in a rural system a crew needs to drive onto or across a member’s land
to get the equipment near a worksite. Dennis understood that people’s property is important to them, and would treat both the members and their land accordingly.
When Weston came to the Co-op in1997, he discovered he had an unexpected connection to Dennis. As a teenager, Weston worked in the summers for the Waitsfield Cemetery
Commission, and one of his co-workers maintaining the town’s four cemeteries was a senior employee named Clayton Bador. As Weston recalls, “Clayt” was a unique character, in his oversized Dickey work pants held up by green suspenders, a white T-shirt, and a
Cigarillo hanging from his mouth.
“The minute I met Dennis I said, ‘Are you related to Clayt Bador?’ He said, ‘He’s my uncle.’ I knew it!” Weston exclaimed. “Except for their ages, they could be twins.”
The characteristic that comes instantly to Weston’s mind about Construction Foreman Tim Pudvah was his climbing ability, honed over a lifetime of line work. He seemed to be made for it,
with his tall and lean frame and natural agility.
“Tim was one of the best climbers I’ve ever seen,” said Weston. “He would climb like a squirrel.”
Reached at his home a few days after retirement, Tim agreed that climbing poles was a part of the work he liked the most. “Lots of times you talk to linemen and they’ll say they feel more comfortable in their hooks than they do walking,” he said.
Tim, a Hardwick native, got started
Dennis Bador (above, climbing out of a snow bank while performing repairs in 2002), helped keep your power on for 41 years. His retirement, along with Tim Pudvah’s, was commemorated with a cake (right) and a luncheon for the retirees on November 15.
Staff turnover is bittersweet. WEC loses the service of a skilled and veteran line supervisor (Tim Pudvah, right), but also gains a very capable and genial new Member Services Representative, Rich Balzano (left).
“There’s got to be turnover on a line crew, and we
prepare for it in our staffing decisions. But veteran guys like Dennis and
Tim sure take a lot of knowledge and experience with
them when they go. Operations Director
Dan Weston
To call the Co-op, dial: weekdays 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., 223-5245; toll-free for reporting outages & emergencies, 1-800-WEC-5245; after hours, weekends & holidays, 223-7040.
Page 4 • Co-op Currents, December 2012 www.washingtonelectric.coop
A New Age Of Hydropower?continued from page 1
on other responsibilities such as oil pipelines and LNG, or liquid natural gas, terminals.) In 1977 the FPC became the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC.
From Barg’s viewpoint, there is a dubious heritage in this 80-year relationship between the federal government and hydroelectricity. Neither wind nor solar power – two of the most prominent and fashionable renewable energy technologies – is under FERC’s jurisdiction. Certainly they face regulatory challenges of their own, partly because their regulatory landscape is still being figured out. But the longstanding and layered relationship between Lori Barg’s renewable technology of choice and the federal and state agencies that administer its usage has left her feeling that “I’ve been banging my head against a wall for five years.”
However, Barg – who is 54 and a member of Washington Electric Cooperative – persevered, and late last winter she was awarded the first FERC license for a new hydroelectric project in Vermont since 1987. A couple weeks later she won another. These licenses granted her company, Blue Heron Hydro, LLC, permission to install a 924-kilowatt (kW) generating system within the existing U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood-control dam in Townshend, and a 2,196-kW system at Ball Mountain in Jamaica, also using a Corps of Engineers dam. Both are on the West River, in Windham County. Together, they will produce a significant total of 3.1 MW of renewable, reliable electricity – approximately enough to provide power for 3,000 homes.
The half-year since the licenses were granted has seen swifter action on the two projects than the previous five years had. Barg has sold her company to New Jersey-based Eagle Creek Renewable Energy, LLC – “They’re very experienced at working not only with hydro projects but hydro at Corps of Engineers dams,” she says – but she remains central as a consultant and “institutional memory” for the project. Plans are to start construction in April 2013, and to be generating power by the end of next summer.
Equally important to Barg is her advocacy for changes to the regulations that govern hydropower licensing, at least here in Vermont. For now, she’s pinning her hopes on a Memorandum of Understanding making its way through the state’s legislative and regulatory processes. The MOU would not – could not – waive federal requirements, but Barg believes it would streamline procedures for seeking the permits a hydroelectric project must win.
“We need a box,” she explains, “universal policies that developers can apply to sites they’re looking at and say ‘This one is a yes; this one is no, forget
it; and this one is a maybe.’ We know it has to be run-of-river [Vermont hydro facilities must generate their power
without thwarting the flow of the river], we know we can’t develop above 2,500 feet [above sea level], and we know we can’t build a single new dam.”
Those latter constraints already are understood. The “box” that she is seeking would make other conditions equally clear.
“It also needs to give us a timeline,” Barg continues. “Like 30 days for review from the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, from the Agency of Water Quality, and the Division of Historic Preservation.”
The MOU should provide a way around the tangle caused by permitting processes that seem not to recognize each other – such as in Morrisville, where Barg says the municipal utility has spent more than $1 million trying to relicense an existing dam that quite demonstrably has not impaired the river way.
“There’s a 303(d) list,” she says, “which is our impaired waters list. No operating run-of-river hydro in this state has impaired Vermont’s waters
– and that’s according to the state! It makes me crazy.”
Why is this all so important? There are some 1,200 dams in Vermont, 80 or so of them producing power and – according to a study Barg performed for the Vermont Department of Public Service (DPS) – 300 with electric-generating potential. Among them, those 80 sites have racked up about 4,000 years of operating experience with, Barg insists, “very, very, very few water quality violations.”
By definition, hydro plants would be local assets, employing local people (you can’t make power on the West River from someplace in Texas), and keeping the money circulating within local communities. Technology available today involves installing adaptive equipment in existing dams, not constructing new ones, making them comparatively inexpensive to develop. Consequently, after paying off the capital costs the power would be cheap (“three or four cents a kilowatt-hour,”
Barg contends), and all sorts of entities, including lake associations as well as municipalities, could own them. Think
of the benefit for schools, town offices, homes, taxpayers.
Yet the licensing process as Barg describes it is slow, costly, and duplicative, with roadblocks at every turn.
Severely localLori Barg is a
self-made hydrologist. Raised in New York and Connecticut, she came to Vermont after high school and found work as a carpenter and apple picker. Her first experience with renewable energy came in 1980, when she and a friend found a good deal on a house and 41 acres in Calais and set about constructing a small solar power system – not because they were committed to living off-grid but because their homestead was remote from Washington Electric Co-op’s power lines and they couldn’t afford the costs of connection.
They stored their solar-generated power in nickel-cadmium batteries purchased from Bombardier Corp. in Barre, which was harvesting them from the New York City subway cars as part of its subway-renovation contract. They bought a gas refrigerator and erected a small windmill, and by limiting their electric consumption, they got by.
“My guess is that our total usage was well under 1,000 kilowatt-hours a year,” Barg estimates. (For reference, WEC members average 550 kWh per month.) “I wasn’t really thinking about what it would be like now, when I’m older and I don’t really want long driveways and all of that anymore.”
In 1991 Barg moved to Plainfield, and life changed. Not only was she on-grid (thanks, Washington Electric Co-op), but, now in her early 30s, she
Hydropower developer Lori Barg is fascinated with the central role that dams have played in villages since before Vermont was a state. Posing for photos at the Plainfield village dam (above), she noticed a worn, granite “keystone” (inset, shown with a set of keys to indicate its size) among the rocks, which had once performed functions at the dam.
An old “Kºennedy” hydrant in the woods by the Plainfield village dam, an artifact of a bygone era.
“As you read Zadoch Thompson, there’s
not a village in Vermont that’s not based around a
river, and they would have sawmills, corn mills, grain mills, all operated on hydro.”
Late last winter Barg
was awarded the first FERC
license for a new hydroelectric
project in Vermont since 1987.
Serving more than 10,500 member/owners in central Vermont. A rural electric cooperative since 1939.
Co-op Currents, December 2012 • Page 5www.washingtonelectric.coop
decided to leave carpentry behind.“I wanted to figure out what I loved,”
she says, “and I thought, ‘Well, I love the earth and I love water, and there’s a name for that: hydrogeology. So I ended up with a master’s degree in geology.”
Which was a pretty neat trick for someone who had never gone to college. She received her master’s from U-Mass Amherst degree, and took a position at Stone Environmental in Montpelier, but eventually went out on her own and worked for NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on projects in Central and South America related to water quality and watershed management.
However, it was her election to the Plainfield Select Board that channeled her toward hydro projects here in her home state.
“The town of Plainfield owns a dam, like more than 50 other towns in Vermont,” says Barg. “So I thought, ‘Okay, let me call the state dam-safety inspector and see what he says about it,’ and he told me it was a beautiful dam.”
She learned that decades ago the Plainfield dam had employed 30 workers, had milled “millions of board feet of lumber, ground hundreds of bushels a day of locally grown grain, and was an economic engine of the town.
“So I’m like, okay,
we’re paying over $50,000 a year in power bills. How can we turn this potential liability into an asset?”
Further research revealed the breadth of this situation in Vermont – those 1,200 existing dams; the 300 or so with hydro potential; the enthusiasm of the state’s Office of Historic Preservation, which advocates using historic resources rather than mothballing them; and a U.S. Department of
Energy analysis that concluded that Vermont could produce more than 400 MW of hydroelectricity in-state. Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power’s experience, Barg says, revealed that hydroelec-tricity can be generated inexpensively in Vermont; also, there is less “line
Ball Mountain Lake, on the West River in Jamaica, Vermont. This is one of two locations where Barg has obtained a FERC license to install an electric generating system within an existing Corps of Engineers flood-control dam. Says Barg, “There’s no power house, no penstock. We don’t have to put a shovel in the ground. The only thing we’re doing is making power with the water that’s already going through. You won’t see or hear a thing.”
loss” (diminishment of voltage over distances) than with the power we import from Hydro-Quebec.
So, logically, Barg decided to jump into the hydroelectric-development business with both feet. “That was my naiveté,” she says.
Developers of all types frequently lament the regulations they face. Barg contends she does not propose weakening environmental regulations. “I’m a river geologist,” she says. “I care about this stuff.”
But she perceives a “morass” of regulations, many of which are no longer necessary in an age when modern scientific advances would enable conscientious (and well-regulated) developers to safeguard
the environment while developing an environmentally and economically sustainable, local power source at the same time.
‘Not a shovel in the ground’In this vein, Barg is excited about the
technology that Blue Heron Hydro will use at the West River sites. Designed in the 1980s by hydro guru Henry Obermeyer, of Wellington, Colorado, the system is “brilliant,” she says, and non-invasive.
At both locations the Corps of Engineers constructed two 250-foot-tall concrete towers slightly upstream of the dams. Barg likens the generating units her projects will use to a six-pack of soda, although in this case the cans are the size of 55-gallon drums. The “six packs” will be lowered through the towers, and will slide into slots (which already exist) all the way at the bottom of the reservoir, where they will generate power from the water passing through.
“There’s no power house, no penstock. We don’t have to put a shovel in the ground or change a thing. The only thing we’re doing is making power with the water that’s already going through. You won’t see or hear a thing.”
There’s also another, very significant, advantage to Barg’s West River hydro projects. They will be sited in what is
called a “transmission-constrained” area of VELCO’s southern loop (VELCO is the company that owns Vermont’s high-voltage transmission lines). Barg describes it as a 60-mile stretch between Grafton and Manchester that needs either an injection of
newly generated power or a $70-million transmission line upgrade. By providing the former, Blue Heron Hydro probably will enable VELCO (and the Vermont ratepayers who support it) to avoid the latter.
There are lots of good ideas out there for developing Vermont’s hydroelectric potential with minimal
impact on the environment, and after five years of frustration Barg has reason to hope she – and we – will see more of them come to fruition. Not all involve dams, for wherever water of any real quantity cascades, drops, or flows, it possesses the power to create power. Barg envisions a Vermont that returns to the source that birthed its villages and sustained them for centuries, not for wheat or lumber, but for power that would propel its citizens and their communities into a 21st-century future with clean, safe, and affordable electricity.
From Barg’s viewpoint, there is a dubious
heritage in this 80-year relationship between
the federal government and hydroelectricity.
Neither wind nor solar power is under FERC’s
jurisdiction.
Both dams are on the West River, in Windham
County. Plans are to start construction of the hydroelectric plants in April 2013, and to be
generating power by the end of next summer.
The scenic, but presently unused village dam in Plainfield.
Lori
Bar
g
To call the Co-op, dial: weekdays 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., 223-5245; toll-free for reporting outages & emergencies, 1-800-WEC-5245; after hours, weekends & holidays, 223-7040.
Page 6 • Co-op Currents, December 2012 www.washingtonelectric.coop
The Heartbeat of the Co-opcontinued from page 6
early, working for a line-construction company as a summer job when he was attending Hazen Union High School. He went to work for the company fulltime after graduating, and helped build the transmission line from St. Johnsbury to Coventry, Vermont, that serves the substation now connected to WEC’s electric-generating plant at the Coventry landfill. When the contracting crew moved on to projects out of state, Tim decided to stay in Vermont. He worked for another company that contracted with Washington Electric, and was eventually hired by WEC at age 19.
“Linemen are a different breed,” Tim said. “If it’s right for you it gets in your blood and you stick with it. When the power goes off it puts you on a high, because you know you’re going to be helping people. Then when you get home it can be hard to sleep because in your mind you’re still working throughout the night.”
One of the most memorable experiences in Tim’s career was when WEC sent several line workers to Louisiana to help in the recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “That was the ultimate,” he said. “We were there for just over two weeks and we were helping people who desperately needed it.”
Tim may not have climbed his last pole. RUS (the Rural Utilities Service) uses retired volunteers to build line and help train local workers in far-flung places like Africa, and Tim has spoken with the director of that program. For now, however, he and his wife, Carmon (also recently retired) are “planning the next chapter in our life.”
“The Co-op has been great to me,” said Tim. “I’ve worked with a lot of people who were friends at work and friends away from work. It’s been like a family,”
New guy in townAs in all work places, veterans
eventually move on and younger people come along. There’s a new face in
the Member Services Department, and it’s the friendly face of Rich Balzano, who was hired on October 2 to replace Shawna Foran. Rich is from the Northeast (he’s lived in Connecticut and Lake Placid, New York), but is new to Vermont, having moved back east
after several years in Bend, Oregon. He now lives in West Brookfield.
Lake Placid, Oregon, and Vermont all offer opportunities for the activities Rich enjoys most: mountaineering, back-country skiing, and rock climbing. He also has experience as a mental health worker, and speaks highly of a program he helped run that united those interests – an outdoors program for people with mental health needs.
In his two months at Washington
The Vermont Public Service Board requires all electric utilities to publish this Herbicide Use Notification periodically. Members of Washington Electric Cooperative are reminded, however, that it has long been the policy of this cooperative not to deploy herbicides in the
right-of-way management program.
Board, Bylaw Elections Coming UpWashington Electric Cooperative’s 74th Annual Membership Meeting is
fully six months away. The meeting will be held in May 2013.Nevertheless, it is not too early for WEC members to consider running
for a seat on the Co-op’s Board of Directors. Co-op Currents begins its coverage of the Board elections in our March issue; by that time interested parties should have their candidacy materials completed. Administrative Assistant Debbie Brown can provide all the information you’ll need to become a candidate, and can advise you when the deadline is for submitting those materials.
Similarly, the elections leading up to the Annual Meeting provide members an opportunity to petition for changes to the Cooperative’s bylaws, WEC’s governing document. You can obtain a copy of the bylaws through the Co-op or read them at the WEC web site. If there is a change you would like to see, as a Co-op member you have the right to petition for it and bring it to a vote of the membership. That takes some time, as the signatures of a minimum of 50 WEC members are required. Petitions for bylaw changes will be due on Monday, February 11.
We’ll publish more related to the Board elections and bylaws in our January 2013 issue.
Electric, Rich, who is in his early 30s, has discovered that he’ll need to learn a little bit (at least) about a lot of things in order to serve the members and others who call the Co-op with requests. “You don’t know much about a utility from the outside,” he said, “how its heart beats and how it functions.”
He’s already had the memorable experience of working a storm –
Hurricane Sandy, even though its impact was comparatively small in central Vermont. “But it got very busy in here,” Rich said. “You’d think you were on Wall Street on the floor of the stock exchange.”
WEC welcomes Rich Balzano and says adieu and thank you to Shawna Foran, Dennis Bador, and Tim Pudvah. As ever, the beat goes on.
No Rate Increase For Now
Washington Electric Cooperative’s Board of Directors has deter-mined that the year 2013 will begin without a rate increase for Co-op members. WEC General Manager Avram Patt stressed that
the Board’s decision does not guarantee that a rate increase won’t be need-ed during the course of the year. But to start with, rates will stay the same.
“As our members know, we have customarily timed rate increases to begin with the calendar year,” said Patt. “The calendar year is also our fiscal year, so making a change at that time fits with our budgeting process.
“The good news at this time,” he continued, “is that we don’t see the need for an increase to take effect in January. We hope that continues through the year. But if we determine that it’s necessary to have a small, incremental increase during 2013 we’ll pursue it as needed.”
As a cooperative, WEC is permitted by law to begin charging its members higher rates before the Vermont Public Service Board grants a formal approval (or denies, or moderates, the rate increase). WEC has exercised that right in both of the last two years.
The fact is, though, that all this talk of rate increases is a recent phenomenon for Washington Electric Cooperative. The Co-op bucked a national trend throughout the first decade of the 2000s, going for 11 years without petitioning the PSB for higher rates – the only utility in the state, and perhaps the nation, to do so. That stretch ended in January 2011. And when it did, the Co-op was forced to raise its rates by more than 19 percent. That was a hard adjustment for many WEC members.
There were good reasons for the abrupt need for a rate hike, having to do with the economy and a drop in the value of the renewable energy certificates (RECs) that are an important part of the Co-op’s revenue stream. Nonetheless, the Board heard the unmistakable message from members that small, more frequent rate hikes, if necessary, were preferable to larger ones spread out over time.
“That is our policy now,” Patt said. “We monitor our revenues and expenses, project them as accurately as we can into the near future, and make our decisions accordingly. For now, we’re comfortable going into the new year holding our rates steady.”
No doubt that will provide some holiday cheer to the Co-op’s members.
Dennis understood that people’s property is important to them, and would treat both
the members and their land accordingly.
Serving more than 10,500 member/owners in central Vermont. A rural electric cooperative since 1939.
Co-op Currents, December 2012 • Page 7www.washingtonelectric.coop
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the iceberg). AMI involves far more than the new meters that most WEC members have already received. The technology includes “signal-injection” equipment at the Co-op’s substations to enable Washington Electric’s power lines to perform the additional task of transmitting kilowatt-hour usage data from members’ meters to WEC’s central computers. WEC is employing a “power line carrier” (PLC) – or “wired” – AMI system, rather than the wireless system most Vermont utilities are installing that uses radiofrequency transmissions to beam that information.
The months-long project has also included installing special comput-erized equipment in the substations themselves.
An immediate benefit for members
Step Number One, after the trouble-shooting phase, will be to test-run a billing cycle. That will be an internal
exercise to make sure the AMI system is performing that essential function without error. Assuming it’s successful, the next billing cycle will be for real.
What may be most interesting about AMI to Co-op members will come when WEC’s AMI system goes live in the late winter or early spring. From the outset, members will be able to have secure computerized access to their electric-usage information. The customers of utilities that have already adopted AMI find that this information can help them identify ways to use their electricity more efficiently, and thereby lower their costs.
“We’re planning a ‘soft rollout’ of features that will become available to our members,” said Patt. “Not everything can be ready at once. But the web presentment – going to a secure web site and getting detailed information about your consumption patterns –
will be an early one. Generating accurate bills through computerized meter-reading, helping us locate the causes of outages and fix them more quickly, and then the secure
usage information… these will be the first benefits we and our members will see from the AMI system. And that’s quite a lot of benefit, actually.”
The computer program that will enable WEC to provide the web service is called the Metered Data Management System. It will be added to the package of IT programs WEC receives from the National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC), which serves rural electric cooperatives all over the country. In time, WEC will add other features for Co-op members, taking further advantage of the electronic communications that AMI provides. One offering will be “Time of Use Rates,” an option that will become available to WEC members and which will give
them even greater control over their electricity usage and costs.
“That one requires approval from the Vermont Public Service Board, however,” said Patt. “It will be something we’ll pursue farther down the road.”
Members are reminded that, for now, the AMI meters at their homes, farms, and businesses will continue to be read by contracted meter readers. That won’t change until WEC flips the “on” switch, and moves lock, stock, and barrel onto its advanced metering system. We’ll let you know when it’s coming.
From the outset, members will be able to have secure
computerized access to their electric-usage information. This information can help
them identify ways to use their electricity more efficiently, and
thereby lower their costs.
CorrectionIn the October 2012 issue of
Co-op Currents we featured an article on WEC members installing solar hot water systems. We mistakenly identified one of the members featured as Alex Johnson. Her name is Alex Brown (but she lives on Johnson Road in East Montpelier). The editor expresses his regrets for the mistake, and thanks Alex again for her invaluable help with information for the article.
To call the Co-op, dial: weekdays 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., 223-5245; toll-free for reporting outages & emergencies, 1-800-WEC-5245; after hours, weekends & holidays, 223-7040.
Page 8 • Co-op Currents, December 2012 www.washingtonelectric.coop
President’s Messagecontinued from page 2
in just five months. Quite an accomplishment, given a late start due to regulatory delays and delays in receiving equipment, and continuing to attend to the other work that needed to be done. Our operations staff performed all the installations and the complex, related work at substations and elsewhere. Thanks to the entire Co-op team, we are ready to work on the next phase of AMI in the first quarter of 2013, with the goal of being operational by April.
I know there were questions from a few of our members concerning smart meters, and that some still might not be fully satisfied with our decision to make the changeover. However, your Board, our Manager, and our employees feel the benefits of better storm response, cost savings for the Cooperative, and member access to their electric-usage information will prove its worth over time. This represents a leap into the future and is another Co-op effort that our membership can be proud of.
Gaz Metro/GMP Buyout Of CVPS
2012 saw the most significant change in the electric utility industry in Vermont in the past 100 years: Green Mountain Power and its Canadian owner Gaz Metropolitan’s takeover of Central Vermont Public Service, which had been the state’s largest electric utility. The transaction gave the enlarged company control of the distribution infrastructure that serves 72 percent of the ratepayers in the state.
One of the potentially positive benefits of the change is the expanded role of “Public Good Directors” on the VELCO board. (VELCO owns the state’s high-voltage transmission system.) It is a change that your WEC Board publicly supported and advocated for. Special thanks go to outgoing Commissioner Elizabeth Miller of the Department of Public Service, and her DPS staff, who listened and understood the importance of this issue. We also thank former State Sen. Vince Illuzzi, who was willing to speak out publicly on this subject, and State Rep. Tony Klein, who was an early supporter. Our WEC Directors, Manager Avram Patt, and our General Counsel Joshua Diamond were all dedicated to this important change. I thank them all for their perseverance.
The importance of who owns and controls VELCO is not about the decisions of today as much as it’s about the decisions that will be made far into the future. As a public-power entity, WEC’s Board of Directors now is better positioned to provide public input into VELCO decisions. (Originally, the Co-op advocated for a transition to public ownership of VELCO, a stance in keeping with the historical positions of former U.S. Sen. and Vermont Gov. George Aiken, and former Gov. and Vermont Supreme Court Justice Ernest Gibson, who believed that the statewide transmission system should be publicly owned and distribution lines should be under local control. While that position was rejected in the GMP/
CVPS merger negotiations, the new VELCO structure at least provides an enhanced public voice in critical power decisions.)
Rate Increase Of 2.27 Percent Approved
The Vermont Public Service Board gave final approval this fall to the Co-op’s rate filing that appeared on members’ bills in January 2012 and thereafter as a temporary surcharge. Most of the increase was due to wholesale regional transmission costs. The Co-op’s request was not opposed by the DPS in its review.
Critical Issues Affecting Our FutureThe WEC Board will continue your
Co-op’s history of speaking out on energy policy and issues that we feel affect our members and Vermont’s energy future. Two of these are VELCO’s future decisions and the proposed closing of Vermont Yankee, which are critical energy issues that will have major significance for our Cooperative and the state of Vermont.
New Construction Work Plan
WEC continued its second year of work on our 2011-2014 Four-Year Construction Work Plan (CWP). The CWP drives vital construction upgrades of our electric system, including our generation facilities at our Wrightsville (hydroelectricity) plant and our Coventry (methane-power generation) plant, as well as our nearly 1,300 miles of distribution and sub-transmission lines. The CWP includes installation of our AMI system, noted above. Our Co-op has made a conscious effort since the early 1990s to be more environmentally aware as we make decisions that affect our future as a co-op and as Vermonters. We will continue to be diligent concerning our long-term planning for power, the equipment we purchase for our distri-bution and transmission infrastructure, in our internal operations, and working with our membership to help each household and business conserve and use electricity efficiently.
Generation Coventry – With five engines on
line, a total capacity of 8 megawatts
(MW) –enough to eventually supply 75 percent of our members’ power needs – WEC Director of Operations and Engineering Dan Weston has been working with Casella Waste Management (owner of the landfill that provides our methane fuel) and Innovative Energy Solutions (IES, our contracted plant operator) to maximize our production using the landfill’s methane. We are presently running at the equivalent of four engines at 100-percent-plus capacity, rotating among the five engines.
Wrightsville Hydro – Our 900-kilowatt (kW) Wrightsville hydro site has been in service since 1985 and historically has produced 3 percent-to-5 percent of our energy requirements. A drier summer and fall in 2012 reduced that output. We expect the result to be a slight decline (to 2.7 MW) in the five-year average.
First Wind Sheffield – The 40-MW, 16-turbine wind-power facility located in Sheffield began generating and supplying your Co-op with power nearly 14 months ago. We are contracted to receive 10 percent of the output from the project for the next 20 years. Several of the WEC Directors and staff visited the site in the fall and feel that First Wind has managed the construction and operations of the project well. WEC will monitor and work with First Wind to ensure that the project continues to be well-managed. Burlington Electric Department and our sister co-op, Vermont Electric Cooperative, receive the other 90 percent of the power generated at Sheffield, which means all of the output stays in northern Vermont and is used by Vermonters.
Staff In November two of our senior
linemen, Tim Pudvah and Dennis Bador, retired. Tim began working for WEC 39 years ago, when he was just out of high school, while Dennis had 41 years of service and began in his early twenties. We also said farewell this fall to another valuable employee, Member Services Rep. Shawna Foran, a Co-op member from Williamstown. WEC and our members owe thanks to these dedicated workers, who served our Cooperative extremely well. A story on these staffing changes appears on page 3 of this issue.
Right-of-Way Your Board of Directors has
continued to support a strong ROW-clearing program, including a special danger-tree removal program and systematic inspection/treatment of our 24,000 distribution poles, which reduces outages and extends the life of our system’s infrastructure. Maintenance of our right-of-way, utilizing skilled contractors, is carried out under the direction of Right-of-Way Management Coordinator Mike Myers. ROW maintenance is critical to our reliability, as a utility serving a primarily rural territory. We extend our special thanks to Mike, to Ed Schunk who conducts the pole-inspection program, and to our ROW contractors, for their dedication, especially during storms, to keeping the lights on.
Special Thanks and Season Greetings
I want to thank my fellow Directors and also Board officers Vice President Roger Fox, Treasurer Don Douglas, and Secretary Marion Milne; our Co-op management (General Manager Avram Patt, Director of Operations & Engineering Dan Weston, Director of Finance Cheryl Willette, Director of Products & Services Bill Powell, Member Services Supervisor Susan Golden, and Administrative Assistant Debbie Brown) for their hard work and dedication over the past year.
WEC employees in the office, the line crew, the engineering crew, our IT team, our staff and contractors who maintain the right-of-way, our consultants, and our General Counsel Josh Diamond all give many collective hours of work that ensures that our electric cooperative runs effectively and serves our members. THANK YOU to all these folks, from the WEC Board and membership.
Please remember that we always look forward to hearing from you, our members – the owners of our Co-op. We are fortunate to have a great Co-op and a team effort which I am proud to be a part of.
As 2012 winds down and we prepare to move into 2013, I would like to wish all of our members, your families, and our employees and their families, a very healthy and happy holiday season and a great New Year.
Coventry Open HouseAfter traveling to Coventry for the recent open house at WEC’s generating plant, Co-op member Erika Mitchell posted the following comments on her Facebook page: “How many people can wholeheartedly say ‘I love my electric company’? It’s truly an uplifting experience to be a member of an electric co-op, rather than a ratepayer to an energy conglomerate. Today, our little Washington Electric opened its doors so we could see our electricity being made from landfill gas.” At right, she poses with fellow WEC member Conrad Smith. Both live in Calais.
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