The Department of Agriculture on March 25 announced next steps to release previously obligated funding under key programs that will help electric cooperatives modernize their systems.

The announcement advances the Trump administration’s review of funds awarded through the USDA’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA), Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) and Rural Energy for America (REAP) programs. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is giving co-ops 30 days to review and make voluntary changes to New ERA and PACE project plans so that they better align with the letter of the law and President Donald Trump’s policy agenda.

“These programs provide important tools for co-ops to invest in their systems, unleash American energy and help meet skyrocketing energy needs,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. “We thank Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration for recognizing the importance of these programs and outlining next steps to release these funds.”

The move comes after NRECA and over 40 co-ops delivered nearly 50 letters to Rollins on March 20 describing energy projects that will benefit from the $9.7 billion New ERA and $1 billion PACE programs. The programs, which Trump paused as part of a Jan. 20 executive order, provide grants and low-interest loans for co-ops to pursue generation, energy storage and other projects to provide reliable, affordable power.

The letters followed Rollins’ appearance at NRECA’s PowerXchange and TechAdvantage in Atlanta earlier in the month, where she vowed to move quickly on the program reviews.

The New ERA and PACE projects “will help electric cooperatives leverage diverse energy portfolios to reduce costs and meet the future energy demands of rural communities,” the co-ops said in their letters. The projects will also “address growing power supply needs in rural areas by creating a more reliable power grid,” they added.

Bloomington, Indiana-based Hoosier Energy and Wolverine Power Cooperative in Cadillac, Michigan, were awarded New ERA grants to help cover power purchase agreements with the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan. The PPAs will help plant owner Holtec International restart the idled 800-megawatt nuclear facility and provide reliable baseload power to Midwestern consumers.

“Palisades’ restart is vital to electric reliability in the Michigan region and will demonstrate a proven path to U.S. energy dominance,” Wolverine Power CEO Eric Baker said. “The essential baseload energy produced at Palisades will power nearly 100 rural counties in Michigan and Indiana.”

Hoosier said the PPAs will also give Holtec the confidence to proceed with developing small modular reactors at the site, with Hoosier and Wolverine holding the rights to power from the planned SMRs.

“The certainty required by Hoosier Energy, Wolverine Power, and Holtec International to continue making these investments is bolstered by continued federal support through the New ERA program and awards like ours,” Hoosier Energy CEO Donna Walker said in her letter.

Since its selection for a New ERA grant, the Indiana co-op has also moved forward with other generation investments for its system.

“Hoosier Energy’s New ERA award allows us the freedom to invest even more in what America needs: an affordable, reliable, and resilient electric grid,” Walker said.

New ERA funding would also help Grand Forks, North Dakota-based Minnkota Power Cooperative deploy a “world-leading” carbon capture and storage project. Project Tundra is aimed at capturing and permanently storing 4 million tons per year of carbon dioxide and could help maximize use of coal reserves while furthering efforts to use captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery in North Dakota’s Bakken oil formation.

“Projects like [Tundra] would strengthen U.S. energy security, create jobs and fuel economic growth in energy-producing regions,” Minnkota CEO Mac McLennan said.

Altogether, the co-op projects highlighted in the March 20 letters will unleash over 13 GW of energy in rural communities and “help realize the Trump administration’s goal of American energy dominance,” Matheson said.

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement after U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced next steps to release previously obligated funding under the Rural Energy For America Program (REAP), Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) programs. 

“These programs provide important tools for co-ops to invest in their systems, unleash American energy and help meet skyrocketing energy needs,” Matheson said. “We thank Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration for recognizing the importance of these programs and outlining next steps to release these funds. ” 

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $15 billion annually in their communities. 

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ATLANTA—Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is pushing to quickly wrap up the Trump administration’s review of infrastructure project funding for co-ops, including the New ERA program, she told electric cooperative leaders at PowerXchange.

“I’m pressing to wrap up the review of the obligated New ERA, PACE, and REAP projects … as quickly as possible,” she said in her remarks during the closing general session of NRECA’s annual meeting on March 12. “I know this is very important to a lot of you and my team is working day and night with the goal of bringing you the certainty you deserve.”

Co-ops that were selected for funding from those programs are waiting to find out if they can proceed with their projects.

New ERA is a $9.7 billion voluntary energy innovation program created exclusively for co-ops. The funding will help co-ops invest in new energy resources to meet tomorrow’s energy needs.

The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program provides partially forgivable loans for co-op energy projects in rural areas. The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) funds renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.

Less than two months after the start of the second Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service has already approved 14 “core” Rural Electrification Loans valued at more than $1.27 billion, Rollins said.

“These projects include investments in a natural gas plant, upgrades to an existing coal facility, transmission and distribution infrastructure,” she said.

Rollins also announced a new initiative aimed at boosting the economies of rural communities.

“You’re the first Americans to hear this, and I’m excited to share it with you: We’re working with our federal, state and local partners to develop a bold strategy to revive rural America,” she said. “You’ll be hearing more from us on this in the weeks to come.”

Rollins, who served as director of the Domestic Policy Council in the first Trump administration, said she will continue to support the USDA’s ReConnect program to help rural communities get connected to high-speed internet service. The program began during President Donald Trump’s first term and “has proven to be a tremendous success,” she said.

“Your rural electric cooperatives were essential to this success” by bringing broadband to consumer-members, Rollins said.

The USDA is also “actively cutting red tape and leveraging the president’s executive order on the energy emergency to expedite electrical generation and infrastructure projects of direct concern to both rural America and your cooperatives,” she said.

“We are furthermore speeding the turnaround time for environmental and historic preservation reviews, knowing full well that bureaucratic delay is not just morally unacceptable—it risks crippling American vitality if unchecked.”

NRECA CEO Jim Matheson praised Rollins’ support for speeding up the permitting process.

“We especially appreciate Secretary Rollins’ commitment to cutting bureaucratic red tape by expediting environmental permitting reviews for infrastructure projects that allow cooperatives to maintain and expand their energy systems,” he said. “We look forward to working with the secretary to achieve these goals and to our continued partnership with USDA under her leadership.”

Matheson told co-op leaders that the fact that Rollins came to PowerXchange as one of her first official acts as secretary proves just how important electric co-ops are to the nation.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

The 2024 elections were pivotal for policies affecting electric cooperatives. President Donald Trump’s victory and Republicans’ majorities in Congress could bring major changes to environmental rules, permitting requirements, funding programs and tax incentives that touch on co-ops’ daily operations.

On this episode of Along Those Lines, we’ll talk with Louis Finkel, NRECA’s senior vice president of Government Relations, about what those changes could be and what they mean for co-ops. He also offers tips on how co-op leaders can engage with policymakers and ventures a guess on where we could be a year from now in the policy space.

Listen to the episode below:

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Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

Wisconsin-based Dairyland Power Cooperative is upgrading its system with a slate of new investments to bolster electric reliability and affordability, including a recently completed major transmission line that will improve grid flexibility in the Midwest.

The projects underscore Dairyland’s commitment to growth and innovation while mitigating financial risk, said Brent Ridge, president and CEO of the La Crosse-based co-op, which serves 24 distribution cooperatives and 27 municipal utilities.

In late September, the 102-mile Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line entered service after more than a decade of planning and construction. The 345-kilovolt power line, which Dairyland co-owns with ITC Midwest and American Transmission Co., will reduce grid congestion in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region and improve system reliability and flexibility as fossil fuel plants retire.

“The safe completion of Cardinal-Hickory Creek is a victory for energy consumers and the environment,” Ridge said. “As a backbone interconnection, the line will finally serve as the vital link to a long waiting list of regional renewable energy projects. [It] also strengthens grid reliability and resilience at a time of great change in the energy industry.”

As of June 2024, 160 renewable generation projects totaling 24.5 gigawatts across Wisconsin, Iowa and the Upper Midwest were depending on completion of the line to deliver power. That is enough energy to power millions of homes and businesses, according to Dairyland.

The line is “a huge boon to reliability,” said Kevin Nordt, Dairyland executive vice president and chief strategy officer. “By expanding and beefing up the transmission networks across MISO, that is also a very important contributor to the overall reliability of MISO and the Eastern Interconnection and all MISO’s members.”

The project, which involved over 10 years of planning and construction, is a success story for Dairyland and the power sector broadly. Many high-voltage transmission lines can take a decade or longer to complete or are scrapped due to permitting and cost allocation challenges. Those hurdles are slowing efforts to expand the nation’s transmission capacity, which some experts say may need to double or triple by 2050 to meet power demand growth forecasts and accommodate more weather-dependent energy resources such as wind and solar.

To ease permitting challenges, more than 95% of the Cardinal-Hickory Creek line in Wisconsin was co-located within existing infrastructure rights of way. Dairyland and its utility partners also provided opportunity for public comment and sought to minimize environmental impacts to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, including using a robust set of mitigation and restoration measures.

“Getting Cardinal-Hickory Creek approved and bringing it to fruition took longer than we expected,” Ridge said. “Despite litigation that delayed progress, I applaud our teams for being focused on our end goal of building a transmission line to enable the development of more clean, reliable energy and growth for our communities.”

The transmission line isn’t the only new development for Dairyland, which provides power to about 700,000 people through the co-ops and municipal utilities it serves.

Dairyland is part of an NRECA consortium that, along with Georgia Transmission Corp., is negotiating $97.9 million in Department of Energy funding for transmission upgrades, including use of advanced overhead conductors to increase line capacity.

Also last fall, the co-op was tapped for a $15.6 million loan from the Department of Agriculture to build solar-and-storage facilities and $28 million in DOE funding to develop three long-duration battery storage facilities in rural parts of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The co-op’s biggest funding award, announced in September, was $579 million from USDA to help Dairyland purchase over 1,000 megawatts of wind and solar power, and battery energy storage. It will also allow Dairyland to refinance existing coal assets at low interest rates to help pay them off.

The renewable and storage assets will help serve significant demand growth, including from new data center loads, while providing flexible, competitively priced power, said Nordt. They will also make renewable energy represent more than half of Dairyland’s resource mix within the next decade compared with roughly a quarter now.

“Renewables in particular are very nicely priced for us, so much more so with the grant,” he said. And with new storage capacity, “we’re able to store lower-priced energy and avoid having to make a higher-priced purchase to serve our members during peak time. That is a huge economic benefit.”

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

The restarting of a decommissioned nuclear power plant is an unprecedented achievement in the United States, where cost, permitting and safety concerns have marginalized the industry since the early 1980s.  

But a groundswell of new support for nuclear energy, driven by increasing demand for power combined with an ongoing rush to close or curtail fossil fuel generation, has put the mothballed Palisades nuclear station in southwest Michigan on an ambitious path to be repowered by late 2025. 

The 800-megawatt plant, located on the banks of Lake Michigan, was shut down in May 2022 after nearly 50 years of service. But new clean energy funding and other support from the state of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Energy convinced Holtec International, the plant’s owner, to pursue recommissioning of the facility.

The linchpin in this historic project was finding a buyer for the power Palisades would generate. That came in late 2023, when Wolverine Power Cooperative and later Hoosier Energy signed long-term power purchase agreements with Holtec.

On this episode, we’re joined by Eric Baker, CEO of Wolverine Power Cooperative, and Donna Walker, CEO of Hoosier Energy, to talk about how co-ops became involved in this project and how this kind of co-op vision, creativity and leadership is starting to garner worldwide attention.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
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Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

If Hollar & Greene Produce Co.’s cabbages aren’t chilled at just the right temperature, Walmart, one of its largest customers, can’t use them.

“If it’s more than 1 or 2 degrees off, they can reject the whole load. That’d be 1,000 boxes rejected, and that wouldn’t be good,” said Tony Greene, the fleet manager of the Boone, North Carolina-based company, a commercial member of Surry-Yadkin Electric Membership Corp. in Dobson.

But keeping cabbage pulps chilled at 36 degrees Fahrenheit takes a lot of electricity. And until recently, the family-owned business’s food warehouse in Mount Airy burned expensive diesel fuel to run the refrigeration units nonstop.

Now, thanks to an award-winning co-op pilot based on the principles of beneficial electrification, one of the nation’s largest fresh cabbage shippers is spending less on fuel and reducing emissions and noise pollution by switching to an electric transport refrigeration unit (eTRU) to chill the produce. Wedged between the driver’s cab and trailer, the unit plugs into equipment at a company warehouse.

Annual savings per trailer in fuel and operations and maintenance “are expected to be significant,” according to co-op estimates.

“It’s a no-brainer,” Greene said. “It works really well for us because when we were using diesel, we’d load the trucks in the morning and the driver wouldn’t be leaving until as late as 9 or 10 p.m. that evening for delivery the next day. On hot days, the trailer traps the heat from the outside, so you have to keep the unit running.”

Encouraged by the pilot’s success, North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives wants to take the project statewide, creating a playbook that key accounts advisers at the state’s 26 co-ops can distribute to commercial and industrial members next year.

While only about 10% of co-op key accounts in North Carolina are transportation-related, co-ops can find ways to package the technology with other energy solutions.

“We want to put our distribution co-ops in a position where they can be ahead of the curve and help their members achieve goals” of reducing emissions, noise and fuel prices, said James Musilek, vice president of innovation and business development at the Raleigh-based statewide association and generation and transmission cooperative.

Last year, the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster awarded Surry-Yadkin EMC and Hollar & Greene an innovation award in the transportation category.

“Because transportation sources account for 36% of North Carolina’s greenhouse emissions, this type of program has the potential to help meet the state’s carbon targets,” according to the group’s website.

Key accounts managers at North Carolina co-ops are working with other businesses to electrify agricultural and commercial processes through irrigation and equipment and, at a local community college, agricultural hydroponics.

Burgaw-based Four County EMC and James Sprunt Community College launched a smart farm inside a shipping-container-turned-greenhouse. They are testing agricultural hydroponics, a method of growing plants in a nutrient-rich water solution instead of soil.

“A large portion of our members work in the agriculture field, and we saw this partnership as an opportunity to introduce technology that could benefit an industry that is very important to eastern North Carolina,” said Greg Sager, vice president of member services at Four County EMC.

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson issued the following statement on the election results.

“We congratulate President Trump on his election, and we look forward to working with him and Congress on a pro-energy agenda that protects affordability and reliability,” Matheson said. “America is at an energy crossroads and the reliability of the electric grid hangs in the balance. Critical generation resources are being retired faster than they can be reliably replaced. At the same time, electricity demand is skyrocketing as power-hungry data centers and new manufacturing facilities come online. Smart energy policies that keep the lights on are more important than ever.”

Among electric co-ops’ ongoing policy priorities:

• Safeguarding Electric Reliability. Protecting the electric grid from increasing threats to reliability, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Power Plant Rule.

• Reforming Federal Permitting. Modernizing and streamlining the federal permitting and siting process in a manner that eliminates excessive regulatory burdens and ensures more predictable and timely decisions from federal agencies.

• Enhancing Wildfire Protection. Passage of legislation such as the Fix Our Forests Act (H.R. 8790) that includes crucial improvements to grid hardening and wildfire mitigation procedures that will help co-ops better address wildfire hazards on utility rights-of-way.

• Protecting the Lower Snake River Dams. Preserving the Lower Snake River dams, which provide a critical source of reliable and affordable carbon-free electricity in the Pacific Northwest.

• Defending Direct Pay. Maintaining direct pay tax credits, which provide direct federal payments to electric co-ops when they deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, renewables and more.

• Maintaining New ERA Funding. Protecting funding for innovative energy projects from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America (“New ERA”) Program.

• Promoting Infrastructure Modernization. Improving the nation’s electric infrastructure, including transmission facilities critical to maintaining a reliable electric grid.

• Deploying Rural Broadband. Delivering quality, affordable broadband to rural communities through programs such as the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $15 billion annually in their communities.

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ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson today welcomed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s second round of awards for electric cooperatives under its Empowering Rural America (New ERA) Program.

The roughly $1 billion in new funding was announced by Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Xochitl Torres Small today in Colorado, along with $2.5 billion in grants and loans to Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association under the first funding round, announced last month.

“Electric cooperatives excel at finding innovative ways to meet the needs of their members and power their communities, while strengthening America’s electric grid,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. “The New ERA program is a transformative opportunity for electric co-ops that allows them to tailor energy solutions to meet local needs.

“We are grateful to USDA and our allies in Congress for working with us to ensure the program supports a wide variety of co-op projects and delivers tangible benefits to the communities they serve.”

NRECA was heavily involved in shaping the $9.7 billion New ERA Program, which was created specifically for electric cooperatives interested in purchasing or building new energy systems. The wide range of eligible projects – including carbon capture, renewable energy, storage, nuclear, and generation and transmission efficiency improvements – allows each cooperative to determine its path based on its unique circumstances. 

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $15 billion annually in their communities.

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Electric cooperatives have always been leaders on energy innovation, but a surge in public funding is taking that innovation to the next level.  

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 contained nearly $10 billion for the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, an initiative to support clean energy and efficiency projects in rural areas. The IRA also created the $1 billion Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program, which provides partially forgivable loans for projects that reduce emissions. These two programs represent the largest single investment in rural electrification since the New Deal.  

In addition, the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 funded a wide range of programs that benefit co-ops, including the Department of Energy’s GRIP program to enhance grid flexibility and reliability.  

To learn more about how co-ops are leveraging these opportunities, we’ll hear from Lauren Khair, senior director of energy research and resilience with NRECA’s Business and Technology Strategies department, as well as Travis Million, president and CEO of Golden Valley Electric Association in Alaska, and Jason Williams, assistant general manager for engineering operations and power at Flathead Electric Cooperative in Montana.  

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

NRECA supports members seeking government grants through a separate legal entity, NRECA Research.

Two Midwestern electric cooperatives will receive over $1 billion in federal support to help reopen the idled Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, a project the co-ops say will bolster reliability and deliver carbon-free power in the region.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday that Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy will receive a combined $1.3 billion from the USDA’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program to fund power purchase agreements with Palisades’ owner, Holtec International.

Once reopened, Palisades will be the first nuclear plant in the U.S. to be recommissioned.

“The New ERA program showcases what is possible when the government prioritizes voluntary, flexible decision-making and allows electric co-ops to take a tailored approach to respond to local needs,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said.

The Sept. 30 announcement included an awards ceremony at the 800-megawatt plant attended by co-op officials, Deputy Agriculture Secretary Xochitl Torres Small, Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk and other Biden administration officials.

 NRECA was heavily involved in shaping the New ERA Program, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It was designed specifically for electric cooperatives to purchase or build new energy systems and is being administered by USDA’s Rural Utilities Service.

Wolverine will receive over $650 million to buy about 435 MW of energy from Palisades. Hoosier will receive more than $675 million to support the purchase of about 370 MW of Palisades’ capacity as well as about 250 MW of solar energy to serve members in Indiana and Illinois.

The awards will cover about a quarter of the co-ops’ power purchase agreements with Holtec, a senior Biden administration official said during a call with reporters.

The Palisades restart is also receiving federal support from the Department of Energy. The DOE said Monday that it had closed on a previously announced $1.52 billion loan guarantee for Holtec to support recommissioning Palisades. The loan guarantee was the first to close under the IRA’s Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program, which provides financing to repower or replace closed energy infrastructure or reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions at existing energy facilities.

“The New ERA grant opportunity inspired Wolverine to think big about decarbonization,” said Eric Baker, president and CEO of the Cadillac, Michigan-based generation and transmission cooperative. “The power purchase agreement, essential for the historic restart of the Palisades plant, required an innovative and creative spirit that I believe is unique to cooperatives.”

Donna Walker, CEO of Bloomington, Indiana-based Hoosier, said the Palisades project “is a tremendous win for electric cooperatives and demonstrates our ability to collaborate and innovate for our members and the hundreds of thousands of member-consumers we serve.”

Holtec suspended operations at the Palisades plant in May 2022, with plans to decommission the facility. But the need for reliable baseload power and Michigan’s clean energy goals—eventually culminating in a state mandate for 100% carbon-free energy by 2040—prompted Wolverine and Hoosier to look at helping Holtec revive the plant.

The two G&Ts have roughly 30-year power purchase agreements with Palisades, with each committed to buying about half the plant’s electric output.

“The primary elements of our strategic objectives are all addressed with this,” Baker said. “It’s price stability, price competitiveness, electric reliability … investment in our local communities, and our goals to advance decarbonization efforts. This deal is the best opportunity we have to address all five of these objectives.”

The member-owned nature of co-ops also allowed the G&Ts to act swiftly on the plan, he added.

“I can’t imagine another business structure that could move as quickly as cooperatives when we work together,” Baker said.

Walker echoed those sentiments. “The Palisades agreement is an ideal fit for Hoosier Energy’s long-range resource plan priorities, delivering baseload reliability and resource adequacy, portfolio diversity, rate stability and predictability, low wholesale rates, and environmental sustainability,” she said.

Baker said Holtec is aiming to reopen the plant in the fall of 2025. The plant’s restart is projected to create or retain up to 600 jobs in Michigan and support more than 1,000 jobs during the facility’s regularly scheduled refueling and maintenance periods every 18 months, according to the DOE.

The Palisades New ERA awards are part of $7.3 billion in funding under the first round of the program, with more announcements expected soon.

Molly Christian is a staff writer at NRECA.

Sixteen electric cooperatives from throughout the nation have been selected for more than $7.3 billion in grants and loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s New ERA program to finance new and innovative clean energy systems, federal officials announced Thursday.

The first co-op to be chosen was Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which has been awarded $579 million to purchase solar and wind power, putting the co-op on track to slash its carbon emissions by over 70% by 2031.

The funding—secured by NRECA in the Inflation Reduction Act—will make it much faster and more affordable for Dairyland to transition to a cleaner energy future, said Brent Ridge, the generation and transmission co-op’s president and CEO.

Dairyland hosted President Joe Biden, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Rural Utilities Service Administrator Andy Berke and NRECA CEO Jim Matheson at Vernon Electric Cooperative in Westby, Wisconsin, on Thursday afternoon to make the announcement. Vernon EC is one of Dairyland’s member co-ops.

“If we look at what we were able to accomplish prior to receiving New ERA funding, it was similar to driving 20 mph on a country road versus getting on the interstate going 70,” Ridge said in an interview.

The 16 co-ops selected for funding will leverage private investments of more than $29 billion to build more than 10 gigawatts of clean energy for rural communities across the country and will reduce and avoid at least 43.7 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, the USDA said. That’s equivalent to taking more than 10 million cars off the road each year, the agency said.

Dairyland Power had set a goal of reducing its carbon emissions 50% by 2030, but it will now be able to achieve a reduction of at least 70% by 2031, he said.

And it can keep consumer rates down in the process while also creating new job opportunities in the region by attracting large manufacturers and data centers looking for affordable rates and sustainable power, Ridge said.

“It’s a win-win-win,” he said. “It’s good for Dairyland members, the environment and the economy of rural communities.”

New ERA—short for Empowering Rural America—is a $9.7 billion voluntary program created exclusively for co-ops after strong lobbying by NRECA, which convinced Congress to include it in the IRA in 2022.

The program proved popular with co-ops, which flooded the USDA with requests for funding. New ERA provides grants and loans to co-ops for new and innovative clean energy systems, including carbon capture, energy storage, renewables, nuclear energy and generation and transmission efficiency.

“The New ERA program showcases what is possible when the government prioritizes voluntary, flexible decision-making and allows electric co-ops to take a tailored approach to respond to local needs,” said Matheson. “It is a transformative opportunity for electric cooperatives.”

Dairyland Power, which serves 24 distribution co-ops and 27 municipal utilities, currently gets 37% of its power from coal, 39% from natural gas, 16% from wind and solar, 6% from other renewables and 2% from other sources. By 2031, renewables will rise to be around 50% of the co-op’s resource mix, Ridge said, and coal will be less than 25%.

The New ERA funding will also allow the co-op to refinance its coal assets at very low interest rates to pay them off, he said.

Dairyland Power will contract with developers through power purchase agreements to acquire 593 megawatts from four wind installations, 427 MW from four solar installations and 60 MW of battery energy storage—enough renewable energy to power 240,000 homes.

The co-op is still negotiating with developers in the four states it serves to finalize those deals. Some of the installations already exist while others are emerging, Ridge said.

Two more rounds of New ERA funding will be announced in the months to come. In addition to Dairyland Power, the co-ops selected for this first round of funding are:

• Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc., Pennsylvania and New Jersey
• Arizona Electric Power Cooperative Inc., Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico
• Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota
• Buckeye Power Inc., Ohio
• CORE Electric Cooperative, Colorado
• East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Kentucky
• Golden Valley Electric Association, Alaska
• Great River Energy, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin
• Hoosier Energy, Indiana and Michigan
• Minnkota Power Cooperative, North Dakota and Minnesota
• San Miguel Electric Cooperative Inc., Texas
• Seminole Electric Cooperative Inc., Florida
• Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc., Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska and Wyoming
• United Power, Colorado
• Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative, Michigan

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

A pair of cooperative projects in Nevada that will provide clean energy while bolstering grid resilience and reliability received a new loan award through the Department of Agriculture’s $1 billion Powering Affordable Clean Energy program.

USDA awarded an $80.3 million PACE loan to Valley Electric Association to help build a 35-megawatt energy storage system to serve Pahrump and a 2-megawatt solar power and energy storage system to serve the Fish Lake Valley region. The projects will produce enough electricity to serve around 3,500 homes and help mitigate price volatility and grid resilience risks in the area.

Fish Lake Valley is fed by a 55-kilovolt radial line that crosses an area of extreme wildfire risk, raising the potential for public safety power shutoffs for co-op members.

The investment was part of $140 million in new PACE support announced Aug. 29 and follows a string of co-op awards under the program.

“These projects are projected to greatly benefit Valley’s members. Resiliency and reliability concerns will be addressed specifically at Fish Lake Valley,” Valley Electric CEO Mark Stallons said in a joint statement with Gabe DeGuzman, the co-op’s director of transmission services and load management.

Construction on the projects is slated to start in the second half of 2025 and finish by the first quarter of 2027.

The PACE program, created through the Inflation Reduction Act, provides partially forgivable, low-interest loans for new clean energy and storage projects in rural America.

Valley Electric will receive 20% loan forgiveness as part of its PACE award. In addition, the projects can qualify for direct-pay tax credits championed by NRECA for inclusion in the IRA. The projects are expected to get a 30% direct-pay investment tax credit, with one project also eligible for a 10% bonus incentive for being located in an “energy community” that has lost jobs or revenue from the energy transition.

The partial loan forgiveness and federal tax incentives will cover about $47.3 million of the $80.3 million investment, Valley Electric said.

“With the passage of direct pay legislation and cooperative access to the PACE initiative, our path to owning power supply assets became obvious,” Stallons and DeGuzman said. “Advocacy and policy efforts from NRECA laid the foundation for Valley Electric to receive this award. It truly has been a team effort.”

So far, the USDA has announced more than $655 million in PACE investments, including awards for several co-ops. The department said it expects to announce additional awards through the program in the coming months.

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

Related Content

• Co-op Energy Storage Projects Get Boost From New PACE Awards
• Ag Secretary Announces $81 Million for Colorado Co-ops’ Solar Projects
• ‘Backbone of America’s Power Delivery’: Vilsack Details USDA Funding for Co-ops

Electric cooperatives are among the 68 organizations chosen to host clean energy fellows under the latest round of a U.S. Department of Energy program. 

The fellows will support co-op efforts to evaluate or deploy battery storage, distributed energy resources, microgrids and other clean energy innovations. 

“These fellowships really are a win-win—by providing cooperatives with additional staff to support innovative projects underway while also developing the workforce of the future and highlighting the benefits of being a part of the cooperative family,” said NRECA Regulatory Affairs Director Stephanie Crawford. 

DOE’s Clean Energy Innovator Fellowship (CEIF) program recruits recent college graduates and energy professionals to spend up to two years backing host organizations’ projects. The 2024 fellowship class, which the DOE announced Aug. 21, is the largest to date. 

As part of that round, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. in Colorado will host a fellow to analyze battery storage as a distributed energy resource for disadvantaged rural communities. The fellowship will be Tri-State’s third under the CEIF. 

“Our fellows have been instrumental in helping create innovative energy solutions for our members, bringing a fresh perspective and energy that is making a real difference for our members,” Tri-State Chief Energy Innovations Officer Reg Rudolph said. “Our fellows offer refined skill sets for using data and analytics for more informed and strategic decisions and are purpose-driven, which resonates with our cooperative business model and vision of the future.” 

Also on Aug. 21, the DOE said North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. will host a new fellow to deploy a proof-of-concept microgrid. 

The decision gives the state’s co-ops “another way to deliver on a commitment to powering a brighter future for our 2.5 million members and rural communities,” said Lee Ragsdale, senior vice president of energy delivery for NCEMC. 

The fellow “will help accelerate the deployment of microgrids across the state by working with our team to implement a simplified, templated design for these innovative systems, ultimately enhancing grid resilience in communities throughout North Carolina,” Ragsdale added. 

Other co-ops receiving new fellows include Farmers Electric Cooperative in Greenville, Texas, to expand its DER program; Rappahannock Electric Cooperative in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to grow its commercial/industrial clean energy DER integration programs for grid resilience and optimization; and Ahoskie, North Carolina-based Roanoke Cooperative to support efforts to operationalize its data analytics plan. 

“Having a DOE fellow means Farmers has access to additional insights and valuable new work on projects as we build our distributed energy programs,” said Samantha Crouch, Farmers’ general counsel and senior director of power supply and energy services. “We’re also excited about the opportunity to encourage the professional growth and education of a future energy industry professional.” 

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

Roanoke Cooperative has helped bring the first electric school buses to two of the most economically distressed school districts in North Carolina, giving children a cleaner ride to class while they learn more about EV technology. 

“This initiative is not just about advancing technology; it’s about educating our students and community on the importance of renewable energy and sustainability,” Marshall Cherry, the co-op’s president and CEO, said at a recent ceremony unveiling a new 60-kilowatt, dual-port DC fast charger that Roanoke will use to power the first electric school bus in its service territory. 

The bus, based with its charger at Bertie County High School in Windsor, is the first of five electric school buses that the Bertie County Schools system is slated to receive, Cherry said.  

“The electric buses and this charging station will act as powerful learning tools, inspiring the next generation to explore careers in green energy and sustainable practices,” he said. 

Halifax County Schools, also served by Roanoke, was close behind Bertie County in acquiring an electric bus—the second in the co-op’s territory. Halifax County is expected to get three more. 

“Within the next two to three years, we should have nine buses total that we will be electrifying on our system,” Cherry said. “We’re really looking forward to that. The environmental friendliness of the buses is important to us.” 

Roanoke Cooperative reached out to all the school districts in its territory to see if they were interested in acquiring electric school buses, Cherry said. The Aulander-based co-op then worked with school officials to support their applications for federal grants, and it helped arrange installation for the charger at the high school. 

The Bertie County bus and charger, which cost a total of about $400,000, were funded at no cost to co-op consumer-members or taxpayers. The money came from the Volkswagen Clean Air Act Settlement. The German auto manufacturer agreed to spend $2 billion to promote zero-emission vehicles after the Environmental Protection Agency sued it in 2016 for falsifying emissions data about its diesel vehicles. 

The remaining buses for both school districts are being funded by the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which was created by the bipartisan infrastructure law and provides $5 billion over five years to school districts throughout the nation. 

“Roanoke serves one of the most economically distressed regions in the state, and these two school districts are among the most distressed in North Carolina,” Cherry said. “They have limited resources, so it’s especially gratifying to see them get these buses.” 

It also helps the co-op, he said. 

“Any kilowatt-hour that we sell benefits our members,” Cherry said. “It provides some growth on our system, and the source of that growth is cleaner transportation for kids in our community.” 

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

The power sector and government are best at solving industry challenges—including how to ensure a stable, reliable grid—when they work together, a top Department of Energy official told electric cooperative leaders at an NRECA gathering in Arlington, Virginia. 

Gene Rodrigues, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Electricity, spoke Aug. 21 at an inaugural meeting between NRECA’s Strategic Technology & Advisory Council and Member Advisory Groups (MAGs).  

The council and MAGs are made up of co-op representatives and have leads within NRECA’s Business & Technology Strategies division. The MAGs focus on areas of innovation, including distributed energy resources, cybersecurity, generation and data analytics. Representatives of the Transmission and Distribution Engineering Council also attended the meeting. 

As the power sector rapidly transforms due to emerging technologies and new demand sources, Rodrigues said four principles should anchor what DOE and co-ops do: reliability, resilience, security and affordability. 

“The thing that makes NRECA effective … is that we work together around those four things,” he said. “Those principles are what I think are really important.” 

But ensuring those attributes is increasingly difficult, according to Rodrigues. 

“Reliability and resilience are no longer things that we can forecast accurately,” he said. “And that means we have to get better in this industry about being not just adaptable, but actually being a little more able to … allow judgment to replace a regulator’s economic model for what to do and how to approve it.” 

Addressing those challenges also means collaborating across policy divides. 

“As we think about all those things that are important to fight against, let’s find a way for this industry to come back to an area of … agreement,” said Rodrigues. 

As an example, he pointed to a successful collaboration among DOE, NRECA and other stakeholders to craft final new energy efficiency standards for electric distribution transformers to provide stability to industry after DOE’s problematic initial proposal amid the ongoing supply chain crisis. 

“In a perfect world, we would address every issue that way, instead of litigating and regulating, et cetera,” the DOE official said. “We don’t live in a perfect world. So, what we have to do is try to push the balance to as much upfront collaboration around those four principles as we can and just recognize that there are always going to be things that we argue about.” 

That cross-sector cooperation will be key as the U.S. prepares for elections in November that could have a big impact on national energy policy. 

“There is so much common ground,” Rodrigues concluded. 

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

Electric cooperative energy storage projects in Alaska and Arizona have been chosen to receive a combined $255 million in loan funding under newly announced awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The awards stem from the Inflation Reduction Act’s Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program, a $1 billion initiative to provide partially forgivable loans for renewable power, storage and other clean energy projects serving rural areas.

As part of the USDA’s June 26 announcement, Alaska Electric and Energy Cooperative Inc. will get a $100 million loan to install a 45-megawatt, four-hour battery energy storage system near its Soldotna substation. The co-op is a subsidiary of Homer Electric Association in Homer, Alaska.

Declining supply and steep prices for natural gas in south-central Alaska are driving HEA to pursue more renewable resources for its system, and battery storage is crucial to adding that capacity.

Battery storage technology “really is that bridge to allow us to seek alternative [energy sources],” said Homer Electric CFO Sarah Lambe.

Under the terms of its award, HEA qualified for maximum loan forgiveness of 60%. And thanks to the IRA’s direct-pay option for federal tax incentives, the co-op plans to seek up to 40% in investment tax credits for the roughly $112 million project, Lambe said.

Without support from the PACE program, “there’s no way our members could afford [this project],” said HEA General Manager Brad Janorschke.

The USDA also tapped Fairbanks, Alaska-based Golden Valley Electric Association Inc. to receive a $100 million loan for a 46-MW battery system that will interconnect with GVEA’s Wilson substation. As part of the proposal, the co-op will also enhance its Nenana substation and install a half-mile long circuit to support a 16-MW solar power purchase agreement with the Nenana solar farm.

In February, GVEA’s board adopted an updated generation plan that included adding an energy storage system capable of integrating large-scale renewable resources—a goal furthered by the PACE award.

“This funding will allow GVEA to significantly advance initiatives under our strategic generation plan, benefiting our members and the broader community,” GVEA CEO Travis Million said in a press release. “We are committed to creating a sustainable energy future for Interior Alaska.”

GVEA said it also obtained the maximum 60% loan forgiveness and that the project can qualify for federal tax credits covering 30-50% of project costs.

The final co-op award announced June 26 was $55.2 million for Sierra Southwest Cooperative Services Inc. to finance three storage projects in Arizona totaling 35 MW with four hours of duration. Sierra is part of Benson-based Arizona G&T Cooperatives.

The awarded funds will support Trico Electric Cooperative’s 10MW/40MWh battery system in Sahuarita, Arizona; a 10MW/40MWh system in Cochise, Arizona, for Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative; and a 15MW/60MWh system in Fort Mohave for Mohave Electric Cooperative.

Both the Trico and Sulphur Springs Valley facilities have begun operation, with MEC’s project to be deployed before the end of summer.

“This support significantly bolsters our ongoing efforts to implement smart, affordable and reliable clean energy initiatives for the benefit of our cooperative membership and rural Arizona communities,” Sierra Southwest CEO Patrick Ledger said. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the USDA in driving these essential projects forward.”

The USDA said it expects to make additional PACE awards in the coming months.

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

Related Content

• Ag Secretary Announces $81 Million for Colorado Co-ops’ Solar Projects
• ‘Backbone of America’s Power Delivery’: Vilsack Details USDA Funding for Co-ops

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack traveled to Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association in Fort Collins, Colorado, on Monday to announce $81 million in special loan funding to help PVREA and Delta-Montrose Electric Association in Montrose, Colorado, develop innovative clean energy projects that combine solar power and battery storage.

“The projects we’re announcing today will create good-paying jobs, lower energy costs for consumers, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen the resiliency of our nation’s electric grid,” Vilsack said during a news conference at the headquarters of Poudre Valley REA.

Delta-Montrose Electric Association will receive a $72 million low-interest, partially forgivable loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program to help finance a huge 20-megawatt solar photovoltaic array with an additional 80 megawatt-hours of battery storage. It is the second-largest PACE award in the nation so far, USDA officials said. The excess electricity generated from solar power can be stored in the battery and used as needed to ease peak demand.

The solar array will make up about 10% of DMEA’s overall load and produce enough energy to power about 7,000 homes when it is completed—most likely in 2030, the co-op estimated.

The total cost of the project is $96 million. The USDA is forgiving 40% of the co-op’s $72 million loan and—with additional funding opportunities from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that created the PACE program—DMEA will be seeking up to another 50% of the project costs in federal tax incentives, co-op leaders said.

“This is a monumental win for DMEA and our members,” said CEO Jack Johnston. “This investment not only enables us to produce affordable energy, further stabilizing member rates, but it also improves local grid reliability. The energy we generate right here at home can be efficiently delivered to our members, bypassing the reliance on distant power plants and extensive transmission lines.”

Poudre Valley REA will receive a $9 million loan from the PACE program to build two separate projects. The first will be a 1.5-MW utility-scale solar power distribution system that will be coupled with battery storage, said Jeff Wadsworth, the co-op’s president and CEO.

The second project will be a 2-MW community solar farm that will also be paired with battery storage. It will be the co-op’s fourth and largest community solar farm, he said.

“In the state of Colorado, it’s important to our members that we work through the energy transition in a responsible way that ensures reliability and affordability as well as a more sustainable grid,” Wadsworth said. “These are legacy projects that are going to benefit our community for years to come.”

PACE will provide a total of up to $1 billion to fund clean energy projects and energy storage in rural America. The program offers low-interest loans with up to 60% loan forgiveness to rural energy providers—including electric cooperatives—for projects that use wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass.

Earlier this year at NRECA’s PowerXchange in San Antonio, Texas, Vilsack announced four PACE applications totaling $139 million that were moving forward. USDA officials said they expect to announce more awards in the coming months.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Freeborn Mower Electric Cooperative in southern Minnesota has partnered with the local community college to transform the co-op’s World War II-era work truck into an electric vehicle that will soon make its debut in area parades.

“I think it will show the co-op’s initiative and dedication in looking at new technologies that might eventually benefit our members,” said Jim Krueger, the 18,000-member co-op’s president and CEO.

“Converting this vintage truck to electric shows us bridging the old times to the new times as co-ops adopt the latest innovations.”

The green 1946 Chevy delivery truck was sitting largely unused in a corner of the co-op’s warehouse when employees came up with the idea to turn it electric during a brainstorming session about a year ago, Krueger said.

Mary Nelson, Freeborn Mower’s director of cooperative relations, reached out to Riverland Community College in Albert Lea, where the co-op is also based, to see if the school would be interested in having its automotive technology students work on the project. The co-op also provided $30,000 to cover the cost of the transformation.

Olle Gladso, an automotive technology instructor at the college, and a half-dozen of his students took up the challenge.

“When you take something that old and try to marry it to modern components, there are going to be some problems along the way,” said Gladso, who started working on the truck conversion with his students in August of last year.

“The first thing we had to do was take it apart, remove the old engine, and then start over. It took a while to get all the different parts.”

One of the biggest challenges, he said, was the fact that the replacement transmission was taller than the original one, so it couldn’t be mounted in the same place. That made it necessary to have a longer drive shaft, which was difficult to find.

Despite such obstacles, the students were able to complete the project earlier this month, driving the newly electric truck in the college parking lot for the first time on May 2.

Gladso estimates that the truck—which could only accommodate a limited number of batteries—will have a modest range of about 50 miles when fully charged and will perform well when driven slowly in parades.

“I commend the students for their dedication and persistence,” he said. “They have really grown from this experience, and they have a tremendous sense of accomplishment.”

Now that the co-op has its truck back, it’s looking at ways to give it an exterior makeover to reflect the dramatic overhaul it has undergone on the inside, said Al Stadheim, the co-op’s director of engineering and operations.

The co-op expects the truck to be used in about six parades a year—the Fourth of July parade in Albert Lea and citywide parades in the small communities it serves.

“It’s been about 25 years since the truck has had any paint,” Stadheim said. “We need to decide whether we’re going to wrap it with graphics representing the new co-op logo. We’ll work with a vendor to fix it up. Now that it’s electric, our old truck should be quite the conversation piece.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Six electric cooperatives were among the 19 energy project developers picked to potentially receive almost $80 million in combined grant funding as part of an April 30 announcement from the Department of Energy.

The awards, which are still subject to negotiation, stem from the $1 billion Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) program managed by the DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. The program, created through the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, seeks to address energy challenges in areas with fewer than 10,000 people by providing funds for clean energy projects and infrastructure improvements.

Altogether, co-ops were selected for $28.5 million of the funding announced April 30.

The ERA awards are “another great example of our members taking advantage of federal funding for much-needed investments in their grids and for other innovative technologies,” said Lauren Khair, NRECA senior director of energy research and resilience.

The two biggest awards for co-ops involved clean energy and grid improvement projects.

Camp Point, Illinois-based Adams Electric Cooperative was selected to receive $5 million to help install a 1-megawatt wind turbine and 1-MW solar photovoltaic array to provide power to about 7,500 families in former coal mining communities in the state. The project is expected to cut energy costs by about $200,000 annually for rural co-op members in seven counties.

The funding will also help Adams Electric partner with schools on a renewable energy curriculum.

With the award, the co-op “will be able to install very low-cost renewable energy generation for our members,” General Manager Jim Thompson said. “The grant also provides the added benefits of enhancing our educational opportunities and creating construction jobs in the community.”

DOE also announced a $5 million grant for Gunnison, Colorado-based Gunnison County Electric Association. The money would support replacing 30 miles of aging overhead distribution lines, with the goal of reducing outages and improving grid resilience and reliability. In the last two years, the co-op’s service territory experienced 76 outage events related to extreme weather and the threat of wildfires.

The potential government funding would pay for about 72% of total costs and minimize the impact on member rates for the project while “significantly improving grid reliability,” the co-op said in an April 30 press release.

“This is the first phase of a project to improve reliability and community resiliency for members south of Gunnison and in Lake City,” CEO Mike McBride told NRECA. “We are extremely excited about this grant for which there were 659 applicants and only 19 applications selected!”

The other co-op projects are:

• Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (Anchorage, Alaska): $4.3 million to install a 500-kilowatt solar photovoltaic array, a 540-kilowatt-hour battery energy storage system and a microgrid controller in southwest Alaska, as well as support workforce development efforts.
• PNGC Power (Clackamas, Oregon): $4.9 million to help build a battery storage system in Montana and promote education, mentoring and job-shadowing opportunities for local at-risk youth. The battery storage system will be at the Woodside substation owned by Ravalli Electric Cooperative, based in Victor, Montana.
• Cumberland Valley Electric (Gray, Kentucky): $4.9 million for grid improvements, including vegetation management and replacement of inefficient fuses with self-restoring reclosers.
• Randolph Electric Membership Corp. (Asheboro, North Carolina): $4.4 million for grid improvements, such as replacing deteriorating wooden transmission poles with galvanized steel poles. The money will also help Randolph Electric partner with Raleigh-based North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. on a transmission apprenticeship program.

The ERA program is one of several federal initiatives launched in recent years to help rural cooperatives deploy clean energy and upgrade grid infrastructure.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture could announce awards late this summer for its $9.7 billion Empowering Rural America (New ERA) Program, which will provide grants and loans for new and innovative clean energy systems. The USDA is also overseeing the $1 billion Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program to support renewable power and energy storage projects in rural America.

Both programs were created through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.

WASHINGTON—Electric cooperatives that have applied for funding under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $9.7 billion Empowering Rural America Program could begin to see award announcements in late summer, Rural Utilities Service Administrator Andy Berke told co-op leaders at NRECA’s Legislative Conference.

Projects proposed by 17 generation and transmission co-ops—representing more than 100 distribution co-ops—have so far been given the go-ahead by RUS to move to the next level in the application process, Berke said.

“We’re seeing amazing proposals from the co-op community,” he said.

The New ERA clean energy program, which is exclusively for electric co-ops, debuted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. It provides grants and loans to co-ops for new and innovative clean energy systems, including carbon capture, energy storage, renewables, nuclear energy and generation and transmission efficiency.

“It’s the next type of forward-facing infrastructure that rural America needs,” Berke said April 23 at the conference attended by more than 1,200 co-op leaders.

The co-op response to the program has been overwhelming, with about $46 billion in requests coming in—or about five times the available funding. Project ideas, detailed in 160 letters of interest from co-ops, have included solar, wind, nuclear and carbon capture, Berke said.

“We are neutral about which technology co-ops should use,” he said. “We wanted to ensure you can do what works best for you.”

Berke said he hopes Congress will provide more money for co-ops in the future, given the intense interest.

“A lot of great ideas are not going to get funded because there’s just not enough money,” he said.

Co-ops have also tapped into the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program, which provides a total of $1 billion for energy projects that use wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, biomass or renewable energy storage.

Berke cited Trico Electric Cooperative in Marana, Arizona, which is in line for $83.5 million in PACE funding to expand its battery energy storage system capacity.

“It’s inspiring to get to travel the country and talk to co-op leaders and see the areas you serve,” he said. “Co-ops just get it done every day.”

The core RUS program—the Electric Infrastructure Loan and Loan Guarantee Program that helps finance the construction of distribution facilities in rural areas—reached a record in funding obligations of $6.88 billion last year, Berke said.

“That is a huge amount of funding to ensure you can do the work you need to do,” he said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

WASHINGTON—More than 1,200 electric cooperative leaders gathered in the nation’s capital this week to meet with members of Congress and Biden administration officials and push for policies that ensure reliable, affordable electricity for rural America.

“Your voices matter,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson told co-op leaders Monday at the association’s 2024 Legislative Conference on Capitol Hill. He cited a list of recent policy victories that include unprecedented funding opportunities for co-ops to invest in innovative energy technologies.

Co-ops bring a unique message to Congress and federal agencies because they are not-for-profit and are owned by the consumer-members they serve, said Louis Finkel, NRECA’s senior vice president of Government Affairs.

“We’re about people, not profits,” he said.

That message was reinforced by Deputy Agriculture Secretary Xochitl Torres Small as she addressed the conference. She said the USDA listens to co-ops because they are so connected to their communities.

“You are deeply respected—not only in rural development, but across USDA,” she said.

As co-ops tap into an unparalleled amount of new federal infrastructure funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, “we are sharing an historic moment with you,” Torres Small said.

“This is the single largest infrastructure investment since the Rural Electrification Act in 1936,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important we’re partnering today.”

As part of advocacy efforts by NRECA and its members, Congress included a provision in the IRA that created the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, which provides $9.7 billion in grants and loans to co-ops for new and innovative clean energy systems. Co-ops have embraced the opportunity, submitting applications for more than $46 billion in projects.

The legislation also included direct-pay tax credits to help deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, renewables and more.

“Electric cooperatives have been remarkably successful in this challenging political environment,” Matheson said.

NRECA recently helped convince the Department of Energy to dramatically scale back a proposed rule that would have made it difficult for co-ops to get the distribution transformers that are essential for them to modernize their systems and help communities recover from disasters.

But, as the demand for electricity grows, challenges to reliability “are being exacerbated by bad public policy,” Matheson said.

The top priority for co-op leaders this week was to voice strong opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant proposal, which threatens reliability by setting unrealistic deadlines and relying on technology that is not yet ready for wide-scale use, Matheson said. The EPA is expected to issue its final rule soon.

“We believe it’s unlawful, unreasonable and unachievable,” he said.

Co-op directors, CEOs and leaders of their statewide associations took that message to Congress as they met with lawmakers and their staffs.

Carolyn Turner, executive director of the Nevada Rural Electric Association, said it’s important for co-op leaders to meet regularly with their senators and House members, both in Washington and their home states, to ensure that the co-op message is heard.

“You’ve really got to make that personal connection,” she said, speaking as part of a panel at the conference’s Women in Power luncheon Monday. “It can make the difference in having that win at the end of the day.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Seven electric cooperatives will join a nearly $58 million cost-share program with the Department of Energy to build a range of microgrids to improve grid resiliency and reliability for remote and economically challenged communities across the country.

DOE announced Feb. 27 that it will negotiate $45.2 million in funding for the co-ops under the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations’ Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) Program, part of the bipartisan infrastructure law. The co-ops will provide an additional $12.6 million. The final budget for the five-year program will be determined after award negotiations are completed this year.

NRECA led the seven-co-op consortium in applying for funding for the Microgrids for Community Affordability, Resilience, and Energy Decarbonization (CARED) project. Project technologies will include solar PV and battery energy storage systems with distribution upgrades.

“These electric co-ops will build microgrids so vulnerable communities can mitigate extreme weather risk and end-of-the-line connectivity issues and support essential and emergency services,” said Tolu Omotoso, director of energy solutions at NRECA and principal investigator/program manager for the project.

“Without this investment by DOE, these critical projects would not happen.”

The seven microgrid consortium co-ops are:

• Anza Electric Cooperative in Anza, California.
• Blue Ridge Energy in Lenoir, North Carolina.
• Flathead Electric Cooperative Inc. in Kalispell, Montana.
• Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative in Jordan, Minnesota.
• Missoula Electric Cooperative in Missoula, Montana.
• Trico Electric Cooperative in Marana, Arizona.
• Volunteer Electric Cooperative in Decatur, Tennessee.

In addition to improving grid resiliency and reliability in needy areas, CARED objectives include establishing a forum for sharing information and creating new jobs that support the local economies served by the participating co-ops.

The project team estimates, for example, that the Volunteer Electric’s microgrid may provide an annual electricity savings of $400,000 for the town of Decatur, while Flathead Electric’s microgrid in Cooke City may slash power outages by 70%.

DOE also selected Brighton, Colorado-based United Power for $6 million in funding from the ERA program to build a microgrid with PV and battery storage to replace an aging diesel generator at a water treatment plant for the city of Fort Lupton. The microgrid will ensure reliable clean water for the community, and a 20-year agreement will keep the project affordable with United Power owning the microgrid and the city paying for its upgrades.

“This funding is an important step as electric co-ops work to improve access to affordable and reliable energy in rural America,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “By deploying microgrids in communities across the country, co-ops are exploring new ways to keep the lights on and meet tomorrow’s energy needs.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – NRECA and a consortium of seven electric cooperatives across the country were today selected for negotiations for more than $45 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) program.

NRECA’s consortia bids enable smaller co-ops to work together to submit competitive applications for infrastructure funds. This specific consortium project will deploy microgrids to improve grid resilience and reliability in seven rural communities. The participating cooperatives will also leverage their experience to share learnings with other electric co-ops across the country.

“This funding is an important step as electric co-ops work to improve access to affordable and reliable energy in rural America,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “By deploying microgrids in communities across the country, co-ops are exploring new ways to keep the lights on and meet tomorrow’s energy needs.”

A microgrid is a power system that is detached from the main electric grid either full time or for a specific event, like a power outage. The seven consortium participants include:

• Anza Electric Cooperative, Inc in California.
• Blue Ridge Energy in North Carolina.
• Flathead Electric Cooperative, Inc in Montana.
• Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative in Minnesota.
• Missoula Electric Cooperative in in Montana.
• Trico Electric Cooperative in Arizona.
• Volunteer Electric Cooperative in Tennessee.

Examples of the anticipated impact from the microgrid projects include the potential for annual electricity savings of up to $400,000 in the town of Decatur, Tennessee and an up to 70% reduction in power outages in Cooke City, Montana.  

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $15 billion annually in their communities.

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San Miguel Power Association is exploring community-scale microgrids to boost resiliency for four remote towns in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains where blizzards and avalanches have threatened reliability.

Silverton, one of those communities, sits nearly 10,000 feet above sea level along a single mountain road. Last winter it was hammered by what locals call a “snowpocalypse” that took out electricity for several hours.

“The snow was blowing sideways. It really was blizzard conditions,” said Alex Shelley, communications executive for the Nucla-based co-op. “All access to the town was cut off, and folks were cold.”

Fortunately, SMPA had seen the forecast and, to stem an eventual outage, sent a lineworker to Silverton prior to the storm to work with another lineworker, one of the town’s 650 residents. When disaster struck, the pair managed to repair the line and restore electricity within several hours. They later received a commendation from the mayor.

But the experience spurred the co-op to find a solid resiliency solution to meet the power needs of the whole community during an emergency.

“We’re owned by our members, and we are laser-focused on providing the best service that we can for them, and that includes reliability and safety and resiliency as well as affordability and environmental responsibility,” said Shelley. “All of those are parts of our mission, and microgrids have the potential to tick every one of those boxes.”

Microgrids provide temporary, limited electricity by employing small local generation and batteries for energy storage when there is a disconnection from the main power grid.

Electric co-ops nationwide have installed and operated custom microgrids for targeted resiliency at medical facilities, military bases, schools or specific neighborhoods during power outages.

SMPA has assisted with microgrids for the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office and a school in Telluride, but “the ones we are proposing are all meant to back up the power needs of the entire community so if the grid went down, that system could isolate and produce power,” said Shelley.

In addition to Silverton, SMPA is proposing microgrids to provide four hours of power to the towns of Ophir, population 195; Rico, population 347; and Ridgway, with over 1,200 residents.

These larger microgrids could help people stay warm and charge their devices until repairs to the power lines can reconnect their communities to the grid, Shelley said.

The co-op obtained grant money for the Silverton microgrid from the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and from the state Department of Local Affairs for the other three.

SMPA is working with a consultant to propose the microgrid projects and account for variables of size, location and capabilities. “There’s no one-size-fits-all solution,” said Shelley.

After pre-build design, engineering and community outreach is completed this year, SMPA hopes to obtain construction grants from the state to break ground in 2025.

“For several reasons like increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, proliferation and decreasing costs of DERs, microgrids are becoming essential building blocks of the future of the grid,” said Tolu Omotoso, NRECA energy solutions director. “Microgrids offer multiple ways to integrate renewables, improve reliability and support resilience of remote communities. It’s great to see electric cooperatives leveraging federal and state funding opportunities to develop microgrids to serve their members.”

Co-ops exploring microgrids can join NRECA’s Microgrid Consortium for unique opportunities to share ideas and lessons learned from deployments and find out about funding programs and ways to leverage innovative partnerships with technology.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Bandera Electric Cooperative is enhancing the value of its distributed energy resources portfolio by adding affordable battery storage to the options it offers members who subscribe to its Energy Saver program.

“We launched Energy Saver in 2020, and now have about 663 Energy Saver customers and 553 Distributed Generation customers, all using Apolloware,” said John Padalino, general counsel and chief administrative officer of the Bandera, Texas-based distribution co-op. “Our battery storage program will provide subscribers with ‘whole house’ electricity for eight hours or more during extended power outages and help reduce our peak demand under normal operating conditions.”

Since November, the co-op has installed 10 battery storage systems, made available to subscribers at a very low cost, and hopes to increase overall subscriptions to 75 units soon.

“Our vision would be that every member will be eligible for this program over time,” said Padalino. “We’re a typical rural community with some high-income members, but most of our members are low to moderate income. Adding subscription storage to our Energy Saver program we’ve offered since 2020 will give members access to backup power without making large initial investments.”

The Apolloware energy assessment and monitoring application developed by BEC helps subscribers control their energy use. The app provides access to stored electricity it can tap for peak shaving and wholesale power cost control and diverts its full production and output to the subscriber’s systems whenever problems arise with the grid.

BEC officials say the new services offer a meaningful expansion of energy options and improvements initially financed with $35 million in Rural Utilities Service zero-interest loans. The co-op is leveraging tax credits authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act to finance its battery storage subscription program.

“As a nonprofit, our goal is always to earn more than we spend so we can return the savings to our members,” Padalino said. “Our Apolloware platform gives them a bill credit to make sure that they’re made whole and that we incur the cost to charge the battery.”

The subscription program is designed to be scalable so that commercial and industrial customers who maintain some of their own generation will eventually be able to subscribe to help control their power costs.

“Some of our area auto dealerships have solar arrays in the 200- to 300-kilowatt range, so the batteries are ‘stackable,'” said Padalino. “We see this as an outage resiliency program that over time will allow members to offset their consumption and help ensure service reliability when power outages occur.”

Overall value from the subscription program includes options granting the co-op access to subscribed energy storage when wholesale costs are high and the ability to fully charge the batteries during off-peak periods. The subscribers have full access to both the storage and their daytime solar energy production whenever grid-based power is unavailable.

On top of that, BEC became the first cooperative or municipal-owned utility to register the subscription battery fleet with the Public Utility Commission of Texas for participation in the aggregate distributed energy resource pilot in the Energy Reliability Council of Texas. The ERCOT program enables the co-op to create additional revenues from the subscription batteries by offering the resource into the wholesale electricity market as a virtual power plant.

“Over time, we want to learn how can we offer more benefits from battery storage to the member behind the meter to help offset their consumption,” Padalino said. “We’ll have the aggregate savings in energy to regularly offset our wholesale power costs and the individual subscribers will benefit from improved reliability tailored to their individual needs.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

The North Carolina Zoo has a new all-electric tractor that will help electric cooperatives gather data about the vehicle’s potential use for the state’s dairy farms, horse farms and greenhouses.

North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives and Randolph Electric Membership Corp. reached out to the zoo early this year to see if it would be interested in partnering with them on a yearlong pilot project to learn more about how the electric tractor performs. The data to be collected includes how much energy the vehicle consumes, how often it needs to be charged, how well it does the job and how much money it saves on fuel and maintenance costs.

Michael Trent, vice president of member services and public relations at Randolph EMC, came up with the idea to collaborate with the zoo.

“I started out reading meters for the co-op 28 years ago, and I used to read meters at the zoo and knew that they do a lot of horticulture work there,” Trent said. “I thought the zoo would be a great fit.”

Zoo officials agreed, deciding to participate after Asheboro-based Randolph EMC and the statewide association arranged for employees to test drive the small, sub-compact tractor at the zoo. The zoo paid about half the $39,000 cost of the Solectrac e25 tractor and the co-ops covered the rest.

The project will help the zoo reach its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2025, said Bob Langston, the zoo’s sustainability and conservation outreach coordinator.

The zoo has seven greenhouses where it grows plants native to North America and Africa to use in the habitats of animals from those regions. The new tractor—which has been in use since October—helps employees tend the plants and move them around the property. It will soon be in even more demand as the zoo expands to include exhibits featuring plants and animals from Asia, Langston said.

“The electric tractor is much quieter than the old diesel-powered tractor it replaced, and that’s great for the animals and great for our guests,” he said. “It also benefits our employees, who don’t have to wear PPE to protect their ears from the noise.”

Jim Musilek, vice president of innovation and business development at North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives, said the project is part of the association’s focus on the electrification of the economy, especially agriculture—the state’s biggest industry.

“A huge number of our members’ consumers are farmers,” he said. “And one of the most iconic things you see on a farm is a tractor.”

Although large electric tractors for big crop farms aren’t readily available yet, the smaller tractors like the zoo’s model could work well for livestock operations, greenhouses and municipal maintenance crews, Musilek said.

The data collected from the zoo tractor’s computer will help co-ops advise farmers about what to expect, he said.

“You want them to know that they have another option, and that they can electrify if they want.”

Langston said the zoo also plans to reach out to farmers to provide tractor demonstrations.

“We want to be a model for others in our community,” he said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

NRECA and its member cooperatives are working with national labs, researchers and other key groups to help shape the planning tools needed to prepare for rising electricity demand as more electric vehicles hit America’s highways.

“We want to make sure that co-ops are prepared for the transition to electric vehicles as it grows at different rates throughout the country,” said Stephanie Crawford, NRECA’s regulatory affairs director.

“We want our members to have the tools they need to answer crucial questions around where and when they should expect EV charging infrastructure to be needed.”

Jennah Denney, NRECA’s manager of electric vehicle strategy and solutions, organized two recent webinars featuring federal officials and researchers who are developing tools to smooth the EV transition. A total of nearly 500 electric cooperative employees interested in using—and improving—those tools participated in the webinars to ask questions and offer suggestions.

“Fostering these relationships at the NRECA level helps co-ops have access to these resources to ensure that they have the right programs in place to manage EVs, whether they’re personal vehicles, school buses or the Domino’s EV fleet bringing us pizza on football night,” Denney said.

The first webinar gave co-op leaders a chance to review a tool called the EV U-Finder that the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation is updating to link utilities with businesses, school districts or local transit agencies that are planning to go electric with their car, truck or bus fleets. It’s crucial that fleet operators connect with their co-ops long before they want to begin charging their new EVs, Denney said.

“If they’re only talking to charging providers and haven’t reached out to their co-op early in the planning process, they could be waiting longer for new transformers and infrastructure upgrades,” she said.

A second webinar focused on the Department of Energy’s Caldera simulation tool, which will forecast EV charging demand on the grid. The tool, which is expected to be publicly available by year’s end, would allow utilities, fleet managers and charging companies to prepare for the best way to meet and manage demand.

By getting a preview of the tool, co-op leaders have a chance to help fill in gaps that could make it more useful to rural communities, Crawford said.

“As the government develops these tools, we want to make sure our members’ unique needs and interests are represented,” she said. “We want there to be a two-way conversation, where co-ops have a chance to highlight their specific needs and the government has a chance to ask us questions and get feedback about ways to make their tools better.”

Co-op feedback helped shape a new Rural EV Toolkit recently released by the Department of Transportation. About 60 members of NRECA’s EV consortium of co-op leaders came together in a kind of focus group to make sure the toolkit reflected the realities on the ground in co-op communities, Crawford said.

“It was a great show of co-op interest in EVs, and it highlighted the unique needs of rural areas,” she said. As of this month, the EV consortium had 216 members representing 131 co-ops in 38 states.

For another project, NRECA is represented on the advisory board for the DOE’s EVs@Scale Lab Consortium, which is bringing together national labs and key stakeholders to research ways to overcome barriers to providing high-power EV charging and wireless charging solutions and defending internet-connected EV charging infrastructure against cyberattacks.

NRECA is also represented on the advisory board of the EVs2Scale 2030 initiative by the Electric Power Research Institute. The three-year initiative is a collaboration among more than 500 government agencies and businesses, including Amazon and other companies with large fleets. It aims to prepare the grid to support an accelerated development of EV charging infrastructure and produce tools that utilities can use to plan for the new loads.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Five generation and transmission cooperatives are poised to receive a total of nearly $30 million from the Department of Energy to test long-duration energy storage technologies in geographically diverse and remote areas in a project led by the National Renewables Cooperative Organization.

The co-ops will use the funds to buy and install vanadium flow batteries (VFBs) capable of discharging between 700 kilowatts and 3.6 megawatts of electricity for up to 20 hours. DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations will fund up to 50% of each project.

“Electric cooperatives are innovators, and the five sites our members have selected will help demonstrate to other utilities the many beneficial uses for long-duration energy storage,” said Mike Keyser, CEO of Carmel, Indiana-based NRCO, which was formed by electric co-ops in 2008.

Participating G&Ts and their VFB demonstration sites are:

• Central Electric Power Cooperative Inc., Blair Hamlet in Fairfield County, South Carolina.
• Central Iowa Power Cooperative, Meswaki Indian Settlement in Tama County, Iowa.
• Dairyland Power Cooperative, Waterville in Allamakee County, Wisconsin.
• North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives, Hamlet Plant Power Station in Richmond County, North Carolina.
• Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, Smith Island, Maryland, and Tangier Island, Virginia.

“NRECA appreciates DOE’s recognition of electric co-ops as capable and mission-driven recipients of these funds to pursue VFB technology and continued support of co-ops for infrastructure project funding,” said Tolu Omotoso, NRECA’s energy solutions director.

VFBs may provide energy storage significantly longer than lithium-ion batteries’ typical two- to four-hour duration, and that can be critical in rural areas when outages occur due to extreme weather or other events, he said.

Long-duration energy storage “will enable ODEC to provide more reliable, clean power during hurricane season, winter storms and other outages to our most remote members at the end of the line,” said Chris Cosby, senior vice president at the Glen Allen, Virginia-based wholesale power supplier.

“Batteries that have the ability to store and release energy at controlled times have great potential to benefit Smith and Tangier islands,” added Butch Williamson, president and CEO of ODEC member A&N Electric Cooperative, which serves the Chesapeake Bay communities from Tasley on Virginia’s remote Eastern Shore.

“While this selection for federal funding is a win for North Carolina’s electric cooperatives, it’s a major win for the members who rely on cooperatives to help power their lives,” said Jimmy Wilkins, vice president of energy portfolio for Raleigh-based NCEMC.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will conduct techno-economic analyses of the entire NRCO project to examine the potential benefits of VFBs, and DOE’s Rapid Operational Validation Initiative will collect data from the battery sites. The technology provider is Invinity Energy Systems, a global producer of high efficiency VFBs.

Electric cooperatives flooded the U.S. Department of Agriculture with interest in a new $9.7 billion clean energy program, submitting proposals for hundreds of projects that would require at least twice that amount and launch $93 billion in new investment across rural America.

USDA announced on Sept. 27 that it had received 157 letters of interest from electric co-ops for 750 projects seeking grants and loans from the Empowering Rural America program, also known as New ERA.

“The demand for the New ERA program illustrates the innovative spirit of electric cooperatives as they explore new ways to meet tomorrow’s energy needs and prepare for a future that depends on electricity to power more of the economy,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson.

“It’s no surprise to see electric co-ops oversubscribe the program, which is an exciting and transformative opportunity for co-ops and their local communities.”

USDA closed its 46-day window to file letters on Sept. 15 and is preparing to send application invitations to co-ops whose projects are deemed technologically viable, reliable and resilient.

Awards are expected to be made early next year. Grants may be up to 25% of a project’s cost, with a maximum amount of loans and grants limited to $970 million for any one co-op.

Eligible projects may include carbon capture, renewable energy, energy storage, nuclear energy and generation and transmission efficiency improvements.

USDA said the co-op proposals emphasized plans to serve the country’s most disadvantaged communities and would create a total of $93 billion in public and private investments in rural America.

NRECA provided in-depth recommendations to USDA as it shaped the New ERA program, which was created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, and encouraged prioritizing grid reliability, electricity affordability and project flexibility.

“The program rightly prioritizes voluntary, flexible decision-making that allows electric co-ops to take a tailored approach to respond to local energy needs,” Matheson said.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack praised co-ops for their interest in New ERA and other programs for clean energy projects in their communities.

“The response from rural America and rural electric cooperatives to these programs is a resounding ‘Yes’ to federal funding for clean energy infrastructure to provide relief to farmers, rural small businesses and individuals by lowering energy costs and creating economic opportunity for generations to come,” he said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement after overwhelming interest by electric cooperatives in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) $9.7 billion New ERA program to promote energy innovation.

“The demand for the New ERA program illustrates the innovative spirit of electric cooperatives as they explore new ways to meet tomorrow’s energy needs and prepare for a future that depends on electricity to power more of the economy,” Matheson said. “It’s no surprise to see electric co-ops oversubscribe the New ERA program, which is an exciting and transformative opportunity for co-ops and their local communities. The program rightly prioritized voluntary, flexible decision-making that allowed electric co-ops to take a tailored approach to respond to local energy needs.”

USDA announced record demand by electric co-ops for the New ERA program. According to USDA, co-ops submitted letters of interest for the program that are more than double the amount of available funding for grants and loans through the program.

NRECA worked to help shape the program, which was passed by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It is designed specifically for electric cooperatives interested in purchasing or building new energy systems and will be administered by USDA’s Rural Utilities Service.

The wide range of eligible projects – including carbon capture, renewable energy, storage, nuclear, and generation and transmission efficiency improvements – allows each cooperative to determine its path based on its unique circumstances.  Co-ops will be eligible to receive a grant for as much as 25% of their project cost, with a maximum amount of loans and grants limited to $970 million for any one entity.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

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NRECA, Cobb EMC and three national laboratories have won global recognition for their work on microgrid control modeling software that can boost grid reliability by using distributed assets to mitigate power outages.

R&D World recently selected the PowerModelsONM tool for a 2023 R&D 100 award, a worldwide science competition judged by 45 industry professionals.

PowerModelsONM development was led by Los Alamos National Laboratory with contributions from NRECA, Cobb EMC in Marietta, Georgia, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

The software helps distribution operators evaluate a grid’s resilience against extreme events and plan for recovery and restoration using every asset available—distribution automation, microgrids, and other distributed generators and controls.

“We appreciate the honor from R&D World and enjoyed collaborating with the national laboratories and Cobb EMC,” said David Pinney, NRECA principal for analytical tools and software products.

“We look forward to being a resource for co-ops that apply this tool to microgrids as they plan for challenges to a reliable grid.”

Cobb EMC provided a network model for a microgrid system where lab researchers could test the software. NRECA calculated the costs and benefits of the outage reduction, visualized the control action results, and integrated the tool with widely used cooperative grid-planning software.

“PowerModelsONM has the potential to be a very useful tool for any electric utility planning to develop single or networked microgrids integrating diverse distributed energy resources,” said Manish Murudkar, Cobb EMC’s director of DER strategy.

In a worst-case scenario such as the loss of a feeder, the PowerModelsONM system can help distribution operators call on all available DERs to restore power.

“This approach can significantly enhance the reliability of the system in various fault scenarios or line disturbances, ensuring that members receive a more dependable supply of electricity,” Murudkar said.

The project team conducted “hardware-in-the-loop” testing, which validated the software results against detailed grid models and real microgrid hardware.

“This allows engineers to thoroughly understand the performance of the inverters and the overall system prior to its deployment in the actual field environment,” Murudkar said.

“That will save utilities a significant amount of time and money because testing a microgrid is a challenging task. Simulation testing will simplify that challenging task.”

Cobb EMC began operating a microgrid in September 2022 at its headquarters. The system can function in both grid-connected and island modes. It comprises a 1.5-megawatt solar array, a 1-MW/4-megawatt-hour battery energy storage system, and a 1-MW natural gas generator.

“The award is really exciting news,” said Tim Jarrell, the co-op’s vice president of power supply rates and DER strategy. “We are thrilled about this award and the opportunity to work on such an innovative project.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

New Hampshire Electric Cooperative is giving a modern twist to the classic car cruise, swapping out vintage hot rods and muscle cars for electric vehicles that are proudly shown off by their owners in the parking lot of a 1950s-style roadside diner.

Co-op members receive email invitations to attend the annual “EV Cruise Night” to learn more about EVs and the rebates the co-op offers to members who drive them.

If participants are lucky, they may be offered a chance to ride in or drive an electric car or truck owned by one of their fellow co-op members. People seem to enjoy hearing directly from local EV owners, said Alicia Melanson, the EV program coordinator for the Plymouth-based co-op.

“It’s just a more real event for the members; it’s not like the car dealers talking in their faces,” she said. “The EV owners talk candidly about their experiences—the good, the bad and the ugly.”

The co-op came up with the idea in 2017 and has been holding the event each year—except during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Details of this year’s event are still being worked out, but the co-op will hold it at the Route 104 Diner in New Hampton on a Wednesday or Thursday in late September in conjunction with National Drive Electric Week.

The theme seemed perfect for New Hampshire, where cruising vintage cars down the main thoroughfares is a popular pastime, said Gary Lemay, the co-op’s director of facilities and renewable energy engineer.

“There’s at least one cruise a week during the summer somewhere in the area,” Lemay said. “Some of them focus on specific vintage cars, like Corvettes or Mustangs.”

Last year, the co-op’s EV Cruise Night featured about three dozen EVs driven in by co-op members. About 40 people showed up on a weeknight to view them.

“We’ve had great success with people buying EVs after these events,” said Lemay, who brings his own Tesla to cruise night.

NHEC estimates that, based on the number who have received rebates, about 1,000 of its 83,000 members own EVs, although that does not include members who have vacation homes in New Hampshire and register their EVs in their home states. The co-op offers rebates to any member who owns or leases a new or used electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle or electric motorcycle. It also provides reduced rates for EV owners who charge their vehicles during off-peak hours.

The co-op reaches out to members who have received EV rebates to invite them to bring their vehicles to EV Cruise Night. They are rewarded with gift cards to eat at the diner, and everyone who attends is eligible to enter a raffle for prizes such as an Apple iPad or a car cleaning kit.

The diner provides cookies or brownies to participants, and about a half-dozen co-op employees are there to answer questions and hand out bottles of water and educational pamphlets. The co-op also invites representatives from charging companies and car dealers who sell EVs or plug-in hybrids.

“In New Hampshire, our residents are stubborn, and they need proof that something is worthy of their money,” Melanson said. “EV Cruise Night is a fun part of our education campaign to show them the benefits of EVs.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Microgrid feasibility study projects proposed by NRECA on behalf of three of its member cooperatives have been awarded a total of $100,000 following Phase I of the Department of Energy’s Energizing Rural Communities initiative.

The grant to NRECA will be used to advance projects that could improve overall reliability for co-op members and help maintain vital services when major outages occur.

“We expect microgrids to boost our overall reliability by as much as 80%, reducing prolonged outages and inconveniences after storms, and improve power quality in sparsely populated areas,” said Jimmy Sandlin, CEO of Holston Electric Cooperative. “They could also improve our broadband services, which are more important than ever with so many of our members working remotely.”

The Rogersville, Tennessee-based co-op has proposed a project that features a 10-kilowatt solar array and 20 kilowatt-hours of battery storage, backed up by generators. The co-op’s goal is to improve service to about one-third of its 31,000 meters, primarily for residents of one of its outlying districts.

“When the federal government makes funds available to advance new and emerging technologies, rural areas should be well represented,” said Sandlin. “Projects like the one we’ve proposed will provide meaningful operational experience that could improve power grid performance in the future.”

The DOE opened a juried competition for its Energizing Rural Communities initiative in February. Sixty-seven awardees are sharing about half of the $15 million available from the initiative, which is part of the $1 billion Energy Improvements in Rural and Remote Areas program created under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

“The awards will be used to pay for preliminary engineering studies for these microgrids,” said Tolu Omotoso, NRECA’s energy solutions director. The association’s Business and Technology Strategies unit looked at proposals from several distribution co-ops and selected three for inclusion in its grant application, based upon DOE criteria.

“Microgrids are becoming cheaper alternative solutions to expensive and time-consuming transmission and distribution projects,” Omotoso said.

South Carolina’s Horry Electric Cooperative has proposed siting a microgrid near the Conway High School campus, which serves as a community shelter during and after hurricanes and other major weather events.

“They have room for a solar field and, as a designated shelter, they also have backup generation in place,” said Reed Cooper, the Conway-based co-op’s manager of engineering. “We envision a project that could provide sustainable power for up to four weeks while major restoration could be under way.”

A microgrid could also help the school system charge electric school buses and other vehicles and provide electricity to nearby stores and service stations following major storms, he said.

“Power could also be available to community members who live nearby, and electricity being available in the area would help members get supplies and fuel during a storm if we had a microgrid in place,” Cooper said. “Officials are discussing building a middle school and hospital nearby in the future.”

Sumterville, Florida-based SECO Energy has proposed a microgrid at Lake-Sumter State College. The 40-acre site has the potential to improve service to many of the co-op’s members living nearby, said SECO CEO Curtis Wynn. The co-op is working with the college on workforce development projects and training local residents for jobs in the energy sector.

The Smart Energy Campus Microgrid Project will consist of a 1.40-MW solar photovoltaic array that is sized to generate at least as much energy as the facility consumes on an annual basis.

“That could make the LSSC campus net-zero [for carbon emissions], based on the college’s land space for the scalable array and battery system,” said Wynn. “In addition to the solar PV, the microgrid will incorporate an 876-kWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system to provide the facility with reliable power for up to three days.”

Phase II of the Energizing Rural Communities competition continues until next July. Awards of $200,000 each will be granted to winners based on their success in identifying community partners and potential investment that could help make their proposed projects financially feasible.

“Co-ops are focused on cost savings to their memberships, operational efficiencies and lower emission energy sources for facility hosts,” said Omotoso. “These studies will lay down a solid foundation upon which investment grade decisions can be made on whether to proceed with these projects and what the best mix of technologies should be.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

A Basin Electric Power Cooperative coal-based power plant in Wyoming is advancing efforts to ease the environmental impact of carbon dioxide and attracting international participation from both corporate and scientific researchers.

Representatives of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the Japan Carbon Frontier Organization and Newark, California-based Membrane Technology and Research joined co-op and state officials in Gillette for a groundbreaking event at the Wyoming Integrated Test Center earlier this month for two facilities designed to use CO2 captured from the flue gas produced at Basin Electric’s Dry Fork Station.

“We are excited to be a part of the pursuit to find a means of reducing carbon while continuing to use coal to power the economy,” said Basin Electric CEO and General Manager Todd Telesz.

Launched as a public-private partnership in 2016, the $21 million Wyoming ITC is designed to collect CO2 from flue gas produced by the 405-megawatt, coal-based Dry Fork Station. It’s supported by funding from Bismarck, North Dakota-based Basin Electric, Denver, Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, NRECA and the state of Wyoming.

“Carbon capture will be absolutely essential to ensuring baseload power continues to be available to the grid,” said Jason Begger, managing director of ITC, during the groundbreaking event.

MTR President Brett Andrews said his company will build and operate a large pilot program at the Wyoming ITC capable of processing 150 tons of CO2 a day. “This will be the largest non-solvent-based capture plant in the world, and it represents our final step toward commercial deployment.”

Kawasaki is teaming with Japan Carbon Frontier Organization to produce sorbent, a dry product used to absorb or adsorb liquids or gasses, attaching them to more substantial solid molecule.

“We shall focus on our efforts to promote zero-CO2-emissions technologies for coal utilization and not on coal phase-out,” said Tomohiko Sugimoto, general manager of Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

While many carbon capture technologies are being developed and studied in laboratory settings, the ITC is one of the few research facilities at an operating coal-fired power plant. That allows for real-world testing and alleviates typical concerns over being able to transfer technology from a lab to a plant.

“Partnerships such as these with Japan and the [U.S. Department of Energy] underscore the global leadership Wyoming has to offer regarding transitioning traditional energy development through the reduction of carbon emissions,” said Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon at the groundbreaking.

While Dry Fork Station has only been in operation for a dozen years, Basin Electric has invested millions in projects designed to protect its investment and mitigate environmental impacts.

“Dry Fork Station is our newest power plant, and it made the most sense to continue with the research on that plant site,” said Jim Sheldon, Basin Electric’s manager of mechanical engineering. “We’re involved in these projects to educate ourselves, not only about capturing and storing carbon dioxide generally, but also specifically for the plant.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today applauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) workable guidance for electric co-ops seeking to access $9.7 billion in energy innovation funding.

“This is an exciting and transformative opportunity for co-ops and their local communities, particularly as we look toward a future that depends on electricity to power more of the economy,” Matheson said. “USDA has smartly structured this program in a way that will help electric co-ops leverage new tools to reduce costs and keep energy affordable while meeting the future energy needs of their rural communities. I’m grateful to USDA for listening to us throughout this process and for settling on rules that ensure the program is flexible and accessible to all electric cooperatives.”

NRECA worked to help shape the program, which was passed by Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It is designed specifically for electric cooperatives interested in purchasing or building new clean energy systems and will be administered by USDA’s Rural Utilities Service.

The wide range of eligible projects – including carbon capture, renewable energy, storage, nuclear, and generation and transmission efficiency improvements – allows each cooperative to determine its path based on its unique circumstances.  Co-ops will be eligible to receive a grant for as much as 25% of their project cost, with a maximum amount of loans and grants limited to $970 million for any one entity.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

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Electric school buses are becoming a more common sight in rural school districts, thanks in part to new federal funding created by the bipartisan infrastructure law. For electric cooperatives that serve these districts, what are the opportunities and challenges posed by this new demand for electricity?

In this episode, we’ll hear from NRECA Regulatory Affairs Director Stephanie Crawford, Bradley Cherry, president and CEO of Grayson Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. in Kentucky, and Travis Mathes, manager of member services and government relations at Lewis County Rural Electric Cooperative in Missouri.

Listen to the episode below:

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Rhode Island’s Block Island Utility District is receiving a new electric bucket truck this month thanks to the generosity of one of its original members—and the family of the late Donald McCluskey is hoping that his legacy inspires others living in electric cooperative communities to help fund clean energy projects.

The truck donation is among $3 million in contributions from McCluskey for clean energy community projects over the past four years, said Jeffery Wright, the founding CEO of Block Island Utility District. The distribution co-op is a former investor-owned utility that became an electric cooperative in 2018 and joined NRECA a year later.

“Don’s impact on the co-op is making a tremendous impact on the island,” said Wright. “His quiet contributions not only improved our overall performance, helping us control our costs, but they also are helping to turn the island into a model environment for proving beneficial electrification concepts and reducing our overall environmental impact.”

At 33,000 pounds, the full-sized bucket truck from Terex Utilities has a charging range of 135 miles. The 55-foot boom has the reach to handle most work required on the co-op’s system, and with just 35 miles of paved roads in the 10-square mile community, Wright says it is ideal for daily use.

“With a sticker price of $620,000, there is no way we could have made the purchase on our own,” said Wright. “We can charge it once or twice a week, and it is ready and available anytime we need it.”

The co-op’s new bucket truck will be seen around the island by many of its 700 to 800 permanent residents. McCluskey also bought an electric school bus to transport local students, replacing costly diesel fuel with electric power costs of about $100 a month.

“During the summers, when the bus is not in use, we can back feed power from it to meet about 1% of our peak, shaving demand for power,” said Wright.

While McCluskey’s community support came without expectations for repayment, he always made it clear that any revenues or savings generated from his contributions be reinvested in green energy projects offering direct benefits to residents and visitors to Block Island.

“We take those revenues and we put them into a capital fund,” said Wright. “He also gave money for a pilot program for solar panels on poles. We will install them to see if the panels will hold up in our weather and use the power they produce as no-cost electricity to feed into our grid.”

McCluskey, a former electrical engineer who founded and operated a successful electronics consulting firm, was 100 years old when Wright visited him for their first and only face-to-face meeting at his Block Island home in 2021. He sat on his porch and listened with keen interest to details of the modernization and upgrades that Wright, his staff and contractors pursued soon after the co-op was established. He smiled at hearing how some of his previous gifts were helping to make Block Island better, said Wright.

“He funded a 90-kilowatt solar array we built on the roof of our building. He also paid to have solar arrays installed on 20 affordable housing units and subsidized installation of heat pumps on more than 80 of the island’s homes,” said Wright.

Block Island was the Connecticut native’s adopted hometown. McCluskey sailed there with childhood friends and visited several times with his wife before building his retirement home there in 1978.

With his home off the grid and beyond the investor-owned utility’s lines, he adopted solar early and tried unsuccessfully to harness wind power, replacing noisy generators with the technology available at the time. Before he finally got connected to power lines, McCluskey hosted neighbors at his home while they waited for power to be restored during many outages. Once the co-op was founded, his interest in its operations offered him opportunities to actively express his commitment to cleaner energy.

The projects he funded were undertaken with little fanfare, with McCluskey requesting no acknowledgement and preservation of his privacy. It wasn’t until after his death last October at age 101 that his children began offering public details of his financial support.

“His gifts for green energy were an anonymous end-of-life effort,” said Martha McCluskey, one of his three surviving children. “He recognized that his generation was not leaving the planet or the island in good condition. He hoped to inspire a broader commitment to addressing the climate crisis, bridging the divisions that are hindering that work.”

But Block Islanders will learn more about the late World War II veteran this summer when the electric bus and the electric bucket truck are decorated for the annual Independence Day parade. Wright plans to drive the truck, with Martha McCluskey in the passenger seat.

A message permanently painted on the vehicle will note her father’s interest and support of the co-op: “This truck, and the solar energy used to power it, are tributes to the vision and generosity of Don McCluskey. May his example inspire others!”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Electric cooperatives in Kansas are helping the next generation learn more about renewable energy through sponsorship and support of the KidWind Challenge, in which students hone their science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills by building small wind turbines.

The Kansas Corporation Commission supports the KidWind Challenge, which is managed by Kansas State University’s Kansas Energy Program, with teacher training, materials and coordination of statewide activities. Electric co-ops assist with some of the expenses that are not covered by the state.

“We’re seeing entire schools embrace this program, and we’re reaching so many young minds, which hopefully will encourage participants to consider careers in science or engineering,” said Shana Read, director of education and training for Kansas Electric Cooperatives. The state’s Touchstone Energy® cooperatives have helped fund local KidWind projects and provided technical support for participating middle school and high school students.

Working with Kansas State University, student teams have access to 3D printers and portable wind tunnels for testing and refining their projects, including some that have taken more than a year to develop.

Six regional competitions involving about 400 students from 55 schools were held in the state earlier this year. The statewide finals, held in Topeka on March 25, included 22 teams from 12 middle schools and 10 high schools. Six teams—the top three middle school teams and the top three high school teams—were invited to compete in the national competition at the University of Colorado Boulder in mid-May.

“We learned quite a bit about gear ratios. There’s a lot of math, and we have to determine what is more efficient,” said Charlie Burke, a high school student from Beloit.

During the tournament, judges scored the teams on various factors, including blade design and power output, and quizzed students about their projects.

“We learned to work together and communicate better,” said Zoey Schletzbaum, a student from STEM Magnet School in Hutchinson, adding that the project required students to recognize their individual strengths. “When we don’t communicate, it’s just chaos.”

Co-op support of KidWind in Kansas has been widespread, with a helping hand from the statewide association and direct sponsorships by the state’s 20 Touchstone Energy cooperatives. The Touchstone Energy co-ops funded development of another mobile wind tunnel, enabling more schools to offer the program to their students.

Nearly a dozen co-op staff from around the state have served as judges or provided support at the regional events. Co-op involvement has also included facilitating a day at the state capitol, where the students display and demonstrate their projects for lawmakers.

At last year’s Kansas Capitol event on Sept. 21, 2022, Lt. Gov. David Toland had scheduled five minutes with each winning team for photo opportunities, but he spent about 45 minutes with each of the three groups, said Read. “He was so fascinated with their projects and how enthusiastic and knowledgeable the kids were.”

The KidWind initiative operates much like FFA/4H programs, providing opportunities to develop interests that could influence future educational and career decisions for the students. In addition to the teams represented at the state finals, hundreds of younger students and their families turned out to support the event and hear from participants.

“We learned how wind energy works and how gear ratios work. We learned how to do more stuff and how to work as a team,” said Callen Bogard, an elementary school student from Paola. “I now want to be an electrical engineer. Challenges are fun and I like problem solving.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Motivated by its members, an Arizona electric cooperative is taking on its third battery project in two years to boost reliability, reduce carbon emissions, save money and deliver revenue from the wholesale electric power market.

Trico Electric Cooperative, headquartered in Marana, plans to have a new 10-megawatt/40-megawatt-hour battery system operational by end of this year. The facility just south of Tucson will be adjacent to the co-op’s Sahuarita distribution substation. Trico is a partial-requirements member of Arizona Electric Power Cooperative and receives most of its energy and capacity from AEPCO. Trico and AEPCO are working together to develop the Sahuarita battery project.

Trico first installed a 15-MW/30-MWh battery system in 2022 at its Chirreon 10-MW solar and battery facility near a growing retirement community north of Tucson. This spring, the co-op plans to complete installation of an identical system at its Avion 10-MW solar farm in Marana. Both these projects are owned by Trico through subsidiaries.

Trico CEO Brian Heithoff cites members’ demand for innovation and value as the main driver for pursuing energy storage. Industry trends toward decarbonization, decentralization and digitization also prompted the co-op’s projects, he said. Trico has committed to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2032.

“One of Trico’s core values is innovation, and so we have a history of continually trying to improve ourselves for our members’ benefit,” Heithoff said. “When we serve our members with our battery resources, we reduce our peaking resource needs and often we can free up our other resources to sell to other energy providers.”

With energy storage, Trico can use its excess capacity “to save members money by strategically selling resources into the wholesale power market during non-peak months,” he said.

“A typical deployment strategy might be to discharge the batteries during the evening peak,” Heithoff said. “But if we see that there’s going to be a peak and/or higher prices the next morning, we will hold some of that in the batteries and deploy it at a more beneficial time.”

Heithoff said he expects battery storage to grow in importance and encourages electric co-ops to explore the technology now.

“What is now strategic for us is going to become standard operating procedure in five or 10 years,” he said.

“It’s kind of like computers. When co-ops bought their first desktop computer back in the 90s, that was probably a strategic decision. Then in five to 10 years, almost everybody had a personal computer. What is new in energy storage to a lot of cooperatives is just going be a routine skillset.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – NRECA Research, the research and development arm of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), today applied for Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

If approved, the application will accelerate the deployment of next-generation smart grid technologies at 69 electric co-ops that serve 6.5 million consumers across 26 states. Co-ops will use the funds to complete high-priority grid modernization projects and increase the reliability and resilience of their electric power systems.

“Electric cooperatives are hubs of innovation and are always exploring new ways to meet their consumers’ evolving energy needs,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “This is an important opportunity for co-ops to partner with DOE to accelerate the adoption of new technologies to improve the resilience and affordable operation of the nation’s electric grid.”

NRECA Research’s consortium bid enables smaller co-ops to work together and submit a competitive application for infrastructure funds. It’s also the most effective way to ensure the funding benefits rural disadvantaged communities, a high priority for the administration.

Specific co-op projects in the consortium application cover a range of technologies, including advanced analytics, distribution automation, unmanned aerial systems and second-generation advanced metering infrastructure.

NRECA Research has organized consortia to foster collaboration between co-ops and submit competitive infrastructure funding applications. These consortia are organized around five topics: 

• Electric vehicles
• Microgrids
• Cyber and physical security
• Natural hazards mitigation
• Smart grids and data

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

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Last year, electric cooperatives saw a major legislative victory with the inclusion of a provision for direct-pay incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act. The new law gives co-ops and other tax-exempt entities the ability to receive reimbursements from the government for deploying certain new energy technologies, putting them on a playing field with for-profit providers.

How did co-ops secure this groundbreaking change in the tax code, and how does it change the game for them going forward? Hear from Paul Gutierrez, NRECA legislative affairs director, Mac McLennan, CEO of Minnkota Power Cooperative in North Dakota, and Eric Jung, CEO of Northeastern REMC in Indiana.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

For more than a decade, members of Flathead Electric Cooperative have benefited from their own household waste as a source of electricity, and the co-op’s landfill gas project has been so affordable that it’s doubling the capacity.

The Kalispell, Montana-based co-op developed its methane-gas-to-energy project with zero-interest loans obtained through the Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Renewable Energy Bonds program after negotiating an agreement with the Flathead County Department of Solid Waste in 2008.

The $3.5 million loan enabled the co-op to contract with SCS Energy to develop the site for energy production. Methane, previously vented and flared from the 275-acre site, is collected through wells and vacuum pumps, filtered and used to operate a 1.6-megawatt generator.

“Our landfill project is one of the top-performing and most efficient landfill projects in SCS Energy’s fleet of projects they manage,” said Mark Johnson, CEO of Flathead EC. “The project has a capacity factor of over 93%, which means our original generation set has produced electricity at close to its maximum level.”

After 109,000 hours of operation, the original unit was pulled for overhaul in late 2022 as the co-op acquired and installed a second generation set at the landfill. The combined capacity of the two units, drawing methane from the same intake system, is expected to provide enough electricity to meet the needs of 3,200 average homes on the co-op’s 73,000-meter system.

“We are able to generate additional electricity for our members’ use at an economical cost and diversify our power portfolio,” said Jason Williams, Flathead EC’s assistant general manager for engineering, operations and power. “We handle the environmental compliance on an ever-growing landfill facility that continues to generate more and more methane.”

About 100 acres at the site are designated for solid waste disposal, and the landfill receives nearly 150,000 tons of solid waste per year. There are now 61 collection wells at the landfill, including some that were decommissioned as methane production declined due to fuel stock depletion near their locations. New wells are added to tap methane produced from decomposition as new collection pits are developed. Methane production achieves generation quality in about two years and increases over time. Landfill usage at the site increases at a rate of about 3,000 tons per year.

The co-op’s contributions to the project have included design, installation and maintenance of collection wells, piping and other support equipment. Leaching agents used to enhance the rate of decomposition improve the quality and consistency of the methane gas used for generation.

“We live in a fairly arid region, so that aids in the decomposition of the garbage,” said Williams. “This is basically a 24/7 production site, so there is quite a bit of maintenance to perform not only on the generator engine but also continuous tuning of the well-field to optimize methane production.”

While landfill gas generation is not the least expensive energy source available to meet the co-op’s demand, hosting the sites has been a modest enterprise for the county, offsetting some of the costs of waste disposal. It is also recognized as a renewable energy resource by the state of Montana and the co-op’s members.

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

As more electric cooperatives pursue energy storage, a generation and transmission co-op is offering a trial battery rate to help members deliver peak savings and learn more about the technology.

Bismarck, North Dakota-based Basin Electric Power Cooperative, which supplies electricity to 131 co-ops in nine states, incorporated a member-owned trial battery rate into its rate schedule in 2020. The special rate allows Basin’s all-requirements-contract members to try out energy storage technology to reduce peak demand costs.

Basin Electric said it benefits by learning how energy storage impacts its overall system.

“The rate gives our members the ability to own and operate batteries, up to a certain size limit, and share their monthly data with us, which then allows Basin Electric to gain a better understanding on how the batteries are performing for load management,” said Elizabeth Erhardt, Basin Electric’s rate and load analyst.

The rate provision allows up to 150 kilowatts of battery storage per distribution co-op and lets participants decide when to charge and discharge their batteries, which must be located within their service territory and below Basin’s point of delivery.

Other requirements include keeping the battery output under the load level on the portion of the system it serves. Participating co-ops must also pay all costs of delivering the batteries’ output to the grid.

Two members of Basin Electric are taking advantage of the incentive so far.

Corn Belt Power Cooperative recently installed a 1.425-megawatt Tesla® Megapack at its Hampton Substation under the plan. The G&T, based in Humboldt, Iowa, pooled its 10 member co-ops’ individual allocations to qualify for the large system under the battery rate.

Corn Belt said the storage system will allow it to avoid peak demand charges for up to six hours and recover its $3.5 million cost by 2035. A ribbon-cutting with members is slated for spring.

“We will use the battery project as a load-management resource to reduce peak demand costs,” said Jacob Olberding, Corn Belt’s vice president of power supply. “By doing so, we hope the batteries pay for themselves in 12 years.”

Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative combined allocations from its six member co-ops to deploy a 975-KW battery system at its Lawton Substation in 2021. The Le Mars, Iowa-based G&T has discharged its battery about 74 times over the past 14 months to help shave peak demand costs.

“Discharging the battery helps to hold rates stable between NIPCO and members and between members and member-consumers,” said Chris Larson, NIPCO system planning and protection engineer.

The G&T sees the battery system as essential to meeting its members’ values and future needs for affordable and reliable power.

“The project is testimony to one of the seven cooperative principles at work: cooperation among cooperatives,” said Matt Washburn, NIPCO executive vice president and general manager.

“Without our member distribution cooperatives agreeing to combine their respective battery allocations, and Basin Electric’s member rate policies, this project would not have occurred.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Minnesota’s electric cooperatives have been hosting electric vehicle safety training for first responders throughout the state to help dispel misconceptions about EV dangers and boost the confidence of drivers and emergency crews.

Great River Energy, a Maple Grove-based generation and transmission co-op, worked with its member-owner co-ops to host more than two dozen training sessions over the last year for local fire departments and other first responders.

More than 1,200 firefighters, emergency medical technicians and police officers from over 200 agencies have attended the evening training, which lasts about three hours and provides hands-on experience with EVs. Great River Energy, which has about 5,000 EVs in its territory, started the training last December and will continue through January.

“We were thinking about creative ways to get in touch with people who aren’t driving EVs,” said Rodney De Fouw, Great River Energy’s member electrification strategist. “We kept hearing about first-responder organizations that didn’t have good information about EVs. With more EVs hitting the road, we thought this was a good opportunity to educate people.”

To conduct the training sessions, Great River Energy reached out to Jack Volz, a longtime volunteer firefighter and owner of Safety and Security Consultation Specialists. The Minnesota Lake-based company has been providing various types of safety training to first responders for a decade.

Volz said safety information about EVs was sparse, so he contacted vehicle manufacturers to gather more knowledge about what first responders should do if an EV is involved in an accident or fire.

Volz said that, despite misconceptions, getting electrocuted from an EV is “almost impossible to do.”

Most EV manufacturers install a simple wire loop that first responders can cut with scissors to disconnect the battery, Volz said. They even mark the loop with a yellow tag with a picture of scissors on it. If an EV ends up in a lake or other body of water, the entire battery system shuts down and it doesn’t short out, he said.

The battery is encased in a metal shell and, if it catches on fire, it can be cooled with water poured over the shell, Volz said. He said people often use way too much water to extinguish a battery fire. EV manufacturers provide emergency response guides with detailed information about how much water is needed to put out a blaze, Volz said.

EV fires happen much less often than fires in gas-powered vehicles, he said.

“There will be one EV fire in California and one in Vermont and one in Texas and all of those make headlines all over the nation,” he said. “Internal combustion engine fires happen every day all day and rarely make the news.”

EVs are also less likely to roll over in car accidents because of the weight provided by the batteries located on the bottom center of the car, Volz said.

There was some initial concern that Great River Energy might inadvertently scare people away from EVs by holding EV safety training, De Fouw said.

“But it helps to get good information out into the community instead of letting misconceptions grow,” he said. “By training first responders, we’re making things safer for people who drive EVs and we’re spreading accurate information to others. Anybody who is going to buy an EV wants to know that people are going to be there to help them if they need it.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Six electric cooperatives are among 19 utilities and energy providers selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for a Clean Energy Innovator Fellowship to boost advanced low-emission energy solutions.

Under the new $6 million program, DOE provides a paid energy professional or recent graduate to a host utility to work on state-of-the-art projects for up to two years.

The electric co-ops plan to use their fellows to accelerate initiatives that will meet their distributed energy resource and efficiency goals while saving members money.

“Like any cooperative, we’re trying to navigate a complex and dynamic world of partners and solutions all in a manner that is cost-effective for our members,” said Cyril Brunner, innovation and technology leader at Vermont Electric Cooperative. “This is a great resource addition to the VEC team as we continue our energy transition.”

In addition to Johnson-based VEC, co-ops chosen to receive fellows were Brunswick Electric Membership Corp. in Supply, North Carolina; Connexus Energy in Ramsey, Minnesota, Farmers Electric Cooperative in Greenville, Texas; Rappahannock Electric Cooperative in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association in Westminster, Colorado.

Tri-State said its fellow will help uncover energy inequities in the rural Rocky Mountain West and find ways to address them through demand management, energy efficiency and electrification.

“If we can work to minimize this burden by employing programs such as the installation of more energy efficient appliances, we can help these consumers decrease their energy bills and increase their cash flow to provide for other goods and services they may need,” said Reg Rudolph, the G&T’s chief energy innovations officer.

Farmers Electric said the DOE fellowship meshes well with the co-op’s new power supply and DER department and will help fast-track rooftop solar, energy storage and electrification projects to benefit members who are struggling financially.

“The cooperative was already making great strides in this area, but programs are still being evaluated, which makes the fellowship program a good fit for Farmers Electric,” said Mark Stubbs, the co-op’s general manager. “The program couldn’t have been timed any better.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative in Idaho is helping create an electric vehicle fast-charging network along major corridors in the intermountain West.

On Sept. 15, co-op leaders joined with state officials from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to launch the “West Electric Highway” through eight western states, which also include Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Participants say it is the largest EV corridor collective in the nation, and they have dubbed it ChargeWest.

The kickoff event was held in Fall River REC’s territory in Island Park, Idaho, to highlight the fact that the Ashton-based co-op will be receiving nearly $865,000 in grants from the state to install a total of five DC fast chargers in three different locations to serve members and visitors. Motorists will be able to charge an EV battery to 80% in about 20 minutes.

“We see a lot of vacation travelers coming to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and they come through our service territory to get there,” said Clint Washburn, the co-op’s human resources manager who applied for the grants on behalf of Fall River.

“We just see there’s a huge need for it. I think there are a lot of travelers who don’t bring their EVs now because of the lack of chargers.”

Co-op members have also been requesting public chargers, Washburn said.

“We have a lot of out-of-state members who own cabins in our territory and the Level 1 chargers they have at those cabins can’t charge enough overnight for them to go to Yellowstone the next day.”

The eight states that have come together for ChargeWest want to leverage public-private partnerships to install chargers every 50 miles to ease range anxiety among EV drivers and give them confidence to head into the Rocky Mountains or across wide open stretches of land.

“The intermountain west is becoming one of the most visited places in the United States,” said Tammie Bostick, executive director of Utah Clean Cities and the project lead. “We want the modern traveler to experience the same highways and byways of our western heritage with today’s new electric fuel horsepower.”

EV drivers will pay a per-minute price to plug in to the Fall River REC chargers, which should be in place by the end of next summer. All three sites are near major highways.

“In addition to providing these chargers for the public’s use, operating them will provide Fall River with valuable insight into how chargers affect the grid and better prepare us to safely and economically provide reliable energy and other services which bring value to our membership in the future,” Washburn said at the network launch.

He said the co-op’s goal is not to become the dominant EV charger owner in the region.

“We’re just getting the ball rolling,” Washburn said.

Co-op CEO Bryan Case said Fall River REC’s participation in the charging network is just the latest program by the co-op to showcase clean energy.

“Fall River’s expansion toward providing our members with fast chargers follows our recent efforts of developing a community solar array, building solar and wind demonstration units at area high schools as educational tools for our students, and having our members rent, at no cost, our Tesla EV so they can experience firsthand driving an electric vehicle.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

From enabling more renewable energy resources to saving consumer-members money during peak demand, three Arizona electric cooperatives anticipate significant benefits next summer from local energy storage made possible by their generation and transmission co-op.

Arizona Electric Power Cooperative in Benson and its sister organization, Sierra Southwest Cooperative Services, are buying three lithium-ion batteries totaling 35 megawatts to operate as 140 megawatt-hours of stand-alone energy storage on three rural co-ops’ distribution systems. The project marks the first of its kind for Arizona co-ops.

“Each co-op will be able to develop its own a la carte operating protocol for these batteries to meet the specific needs of their distribution systems while we still meet the reliability needs of our grid overall,” said AEPCO CEO Patrick Ledger.

The battery project plans include:

• Mohave Electric Cooperative: 15-MW/60-MWh battery near its solar fields and distribution system in Fort Mohave.
• Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative:10-MW/40-MWh battery near its Mesquite Substation.
• Trico Electric Cooperative: 10-MW/40-MWh battery near its Sahuarita Substation.

The co-ops plan to charge the batteries during off-peak hours and distribute their stored power during summer peak periods to avoid buying electricity on the open market when prices are at their highest. The storage projects will also help back up intermittent solar power supplies.

“These local projects will help keep costs low for our members as well as sustain MEC’s commitment to reliability,” said Tyler Carlson, CEO of Mohave EC, based in Bullhead City.

The partnership with AEPCO will “allow us to take advantage of new technology in a responsible way, work with our co-op partners and cover our members’ needs,” said Eric Hawkins, chief operating officer and general counsel at Marana-based Trico, which recently installed its first 15-MW battery system.

“We plan to couple our battery storage with existing solar generation resources,” said Daniel Wilson, senior vice president of operations at Willcox-based SSVEC. “This technology will allow us to shift that energy production into peak demand hours when it is needed the most. Having dependable sources of energy during extreme weather events is critical.”

SSVEC currently utilizes approximately 7% solar energy with plans to exceed 20% by 2025. “Battery technology will allow us to optimize renewables into our power mix without sacrificing reliability,” Wilson said.

Bolstering grid reliability while diversifying the location and type of generating sources and providing co-ops flexibility to serve their members are “long-term goals for AEPCO” that the battery project will help fulfill, Ledger said.

“Our members know their systems best, and we’re here to collaborate on solutions that can meet their specific needs while benefiting our membership as a whole and contributing to the stability and reliability of our state and region,” he said. “It really showcases the value of the G&T and distribution cooperative partnership.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

The iconic bucket truck is increasingly going electric.

Maple Grove, Minnesota-based Great River Energy recently held a Utility Fleet Electric Vehicle Demonstration Day that featured a plug-in hybrid electric bucket truck. A diesel truck was equipped with a bucket and aerial lift apparatus that runs on an electric motor and batteries manufactured by Odyne Systems in Wisconsin.

When lineworkers reach a job site, they can turn off the truck’s diesel motor, push a button and switch to all-electric mode to power the bucket arm and provide export power for tools, eliminating the need for the truck to idle and reducing noise and pollution. The electric mode can even power the air-conditioning or heating in the truck’s cab while lineworkers eat lunch.

Great River Energy, a generation and transmission cooperative, invited all 28 of its member co-ops to get an up-close look at the hybrid bucket truck, and about 100 people showed up to the daylong demonstration on Aug. 2. One co-op, East Central Energy in Braham, Minnesota, already has a hybrid truck on order and Great River Energy is researching the possibility, said Rodney De Fouw, GRE’s member electrification strategist.

“There’s been a lot of positive conversation that came out of this event,” De Fouw said. “A lot of people didn’t realize that these trucks existed.”

Leonard Lincoln, director of sales at Odyne Systems, said the company has been making hybrid bucket trucks for more than a decade but has seen an uptick in interest from co-ops and other utilities in recent years. Odyne, which also installs the system in garbage trucks, street sweepers and other vehicles, has sold more than 200 hybrid bucket trucks, Lincoln said.

“A lot of it has to do with climate change and incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and utilities trying to do the right thing,” Lincoln said.

He said the system cuts costly diesel consumption by two-thirds, reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 65% and slashes smog-creating nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 90%. It also lowers decibel levels by as much as 50%, making it easier for co-op crews to communicate.

Basically, the process works like this: A co-op would bring a manufacturer of the hybrid electric system together with the manufacturer or dealer for whatever type of truck it wants to buy. The chassis is built first, then the electric system is installed, then the truck goes to final stage manufacturing to add the bucket apparatus.

If a co-op chose a traditional diesel truck, it would be fitted with one or more batteries and an electric motor attached to the transmission that inverts DC power into AC power, Lincoln said. If a co-op buys an electric truck, there would be no transmission, and everything would work off of the electric motor.

The price varies for hybrid bucket trucks, but they can cost tens of thousands of dollars more than conventional trucks, De Fouw said. It would take a co-op six to seven years to get a full return on investment from fuel savings and lower maintenance costs, Lincoln said. Utilities would likely keep the trucks 12 to 15 years.

After GRE’s demonstration day, three of its member co-ops borrowed the hybrid bucket truck to try it out, De Fouw said. On Sept. 8, the G&T will partner with four of its member-co-ops to host the North Country Electric Vehicle Show and Tell Event in Duluth, Minnesota. The event will once again feature the hybrid bucket truck along with several other commercial and light-duty EVs.

“This is just the start,” De Fouw said. “We’re spreading the word. We want to get good info out there to our members and expose them to things that will benefit their businesses and their lives.”

For more information, see a diagram courtesy of Odyne Systems of the electric battery and motor on these trucks.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

A Colorado electric cooperative has begun offering a monthly electric vehicle charging service to make driving an EV more affordable for its members and enable the co-op to reduce demand for electricity during peak hours.

For $19 a month, members of Brighton-based United Power can enroll in United EV, a pilot program that provides complete equipment and installation of a wall-mounted ChargePoint Home Flex Level 2 home charger that can fuel an EV in as little as two to four hours. The price also covers all maintenance and repairs.

The co-op is also offering rebates of up to $1,000 for installing make-ready wiring and outlets to accommodate the chargers, which require a 240-volt outlet and a 50-amp circuit breaker.

“We want to make the upfront costs cheaper for our members who want to adopt EVs,” said Joel Danforth, energy programs director at the 102,305-meter co-op. “The good news is that once they install the charger, they basically have the equivalent of a gas station in their garage.”

The co-op owns and operates the chargers on behalf of its members, allowing it to collect data on when people are charging and where charging clusters are forming, Danforth said.

“It helps us plan for upgrades to transformers and load growth in the future,” he said.

The data can also be used to help steer EV users to charge their vehicles after 10 p.m., when the peak demand for electricity is over and rates are cheaper, Danforth said. Charging during off-peak hours saves money for both EV users and other members because the co-op pays less for power during off-peak periods. United Power buys wholesale electricity from Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association in Westminster, Colorado.

The five-year pilot program will begin with 50 residential members who have four options for charging their EVs. They can agree to let United Power turn the charger on only after 10 p.m.; throttle the Level 2 charger down to a less power-intensive Level 1 charger between the peak hours of 2 p.m. and 10 p.m.; keep the charger off until after 10 p.m. with the ability to opt out of that requirement temporarily through a smartphone app; or create their own charging schedule with the understanding that peak rates may apply.

The co-op hopes to expand the number of participants beyond 50 during the first year of the pilot program, if the board approves, Danforth said.

“Our goal is to pursue charging as a service that provides flexibility to the grid and to the members in a way that is simple, low-cost and gets our foot in the door on transportation electrification,” he said.

In Colorado, EV adoption has grown rapidly over the past few months because of high prices for gasoline, he said. There are about 6,000 registered EVs in United Power’s service territory, representing about 6% of its residential meters.

“Consumers are voting with their wallets and opting for EVs,” Danforth said. “We want to be an active participant.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today applauded the inclusion of major electric cooperative policy priorities in the House-passed Inflation Reduction Act.

“Electric cooperatives are leading the charge to reliably meet America’s future energy needs amid an energy transition that increasingly depends on electricity to power the U.S. economy,” said Matheson. “As co-ops continue to innovate, access to tax incentives and funding for investments in new energy technologies are crucial new tools that will help reduce costs and keep electricity affordable for consumers.”

Two provisions in the bill are of particular interest to electric cooperatives:

• Direct Pay Tax Incentives: Under the bill, electric cooperatives—for the first time—would have direct access to energy innovation tax credits, and parity with industry counterparts, when they deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage and traditional renewables. The direct payment would be available for all existing technologies for which clean energy tax credits are currently accessible and creates a direct payment for a new slate of technologies.
  
  
• Grants for Clean Energy Systems: A new voluntary $9.7 billion grant and loan program designed specifically for electric cooperatives that purchase or build new clean energy systems.  The wide range of eligible projects – including carbon capture, renewable energy, storage, nuclear, and generation and transmission efficiency improvements – allows each cooperative to determine its path based on its unique circumstances.  Co-ops would be able to receive an award for as much as 25% of their project cost, with a maximum amount of $970 million for any one entity.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

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Updated: Aug. 16

The House passed a budget bill Friday that includes direct-pay tax credits for electric cooperatives to deploy new energy technologies.

House approval came just five days after the broad legislative package, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, was passed by the Senate. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Tuesday.

Providing direct-pay incentives to co-ops has been one of NRECA’s top legislative goals. The bill passed by Congress will provide direct federal payments to co-ops when they deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, renewables and more.

“Electric cooperatives are leading the charge to reliably meet America’s future energy needs amid an energy transition that increasingly depends on electricity to power the U.S. economy,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson.

“As co-ops continue to innovate, access to tax incentives and funding for investments in new energy technologies are crucial new tools that will help reduce costs and keep electricity affordable for consumers.”

Direct-pay incentives will have a major impact on Northeastern REMC’s plans to develop utility-scale solar in Indiana, said Eric Jung, president and CEO of the Columbia City-based distribution co-op.

“It’s going to be absolutely huge in helping us own these assets,” Jung said.

Without direct federal payments, co-ops have had to partner with for-profit businesses that are eligible for tax credits.

“We could sit down at the table to negotiate a deal, but it’s difficult to get a good deal when the other side knows that only they can take advantage of the tax incentives,” Jung said. “Now, we can negotiate on equal footing.”

With passage of the legislation, co-ops have parity with for-profit utilities, which have long enjoyed tax credits to develop wind, solar and other renewable energy projects. Historically, not-for-profit co-ops have not had access to those credits because most of them do not pay federal income taxes.

Jung said Northeastern REMC may decide to develop utility-scale solar on its own since it will be able to receive the direct-pay tax credits. He estimates that the incentives will pay for 22% to 28% of the capital expenditure. That’s a big help to a co-op that has already invested more than $30 million in five battery storage projects.

“This will allow us to do more faster as we continue to deploy renewables and invest in our rural communities,” Jung said. “It’s enormously good news.”

Mac McLennan, president and CEO of Minnkota Power Cooperative in Grand Forks, North Dakota, said direct-pay incentives could help the generation and transmission co-op develop groundbreaking carbon-capture technologies.

The co-op is evaluating Project Tundra, an effort to build the world’s largest carbon-capture facility at its coal-fired Milton R. Young Station power plant near Bismarck.  The $1 billion project is designed to capture 90% of carbon dioxide emissions from flue gas—equal to removing 800,000 gasoline-fueled cars from the road. The CO2 would be stored more than a mile underground near the plant site.

“Passage of this legislation is certainly a positive and will be beneficial to us as we continue to look at Project Tundra,” McLennan said. “It greatly improves the prospect of seeing projects like Tundra move forward.”

McLennan has been working for 20 years to achieve parity for co-ops on tax incentives, and he is gratified to see Congress finally act on the issue.

“This is a very good day not just for Tundra but for all co-ops,” he said.

The legislation also creates a voluntary $9.7 billion grant and loan program designed specifically for electric co-ops that buy or build new clean energy systems. It will be administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The program will provide funding for a wide range of projects, including renewable energy, carbon capture, battery storage, nuclear power and improvements to generation and transmission efficiency. Interested co-ops will be eligible to receive an award for up to 25% of their project costs, with a maximum of $970 million going to any one co-op.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

The Senate passed a budget bill Sunday that includes direct-pay tax credits for electric cooperatives to deploy new energy technologies.

The provision was included in a broad legislative package dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. Debate now moves to the House, which is scheduled to return from recess Friday for consideration of the bill. Though the outcome in the House is uncertain, current indications are that it will likely pass.  

In addition to direct-pay incentives, the legislation would create a voluntary $9.7 billion grant and loan program designed specifically for electric co-ops that buy or build new clean energy systems. 

“Electric cooperatives are leading the charge to reliably meet tomorrow’s energy needs at a cost consumers can afford,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson.

“Several provisions in this bill provide electric co-ops with crucial new tools as they navigate the ongoing energy transition and prepare for a future that depends on more electricity to power the American economy.”

Providing direct-pay incentives to co-ops is one of NRECA’s top legislative goals. The Senate-passed bill would provide direct federal payments to co-ops when they deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage, renewables and more.

The legislation would give co-ops parity with for-profit utilities, which have long enjoyed tax credits to develop wind, solar and other renewable energy projects. Historically, not-for-profit co-ops have not had access to those credits because most of them do not pay federal income taxes.

The separate $9.7 billion grant and loan program for clean energy systems would provide funding for a wide range of projects, including renewable energy, carbon capture, battery storage, nuclear power and improvements to generation and transmission efficiency. Interested co-ops would be eligible to receive an award for up to 25% of their project costs, with a maximum of $970 million going to any one co-op.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today heralded the inclusion of major electric cooperative policy priorities in the Senate-passed Inflation Reduction Act.

“Electric cooperatives are leading the charge to reliably meet tomorrow’s energy needs at a cost consumers can afford,” Matheson said. “Several provisions in this bill provide electric co-ops with crucial new tools as they navigate the ongoing energy transition and prepare for a future that depends on more electricity to power the American economy.”

Two provisions in the bill are of particular interest to electric cooperatives:

• Direct Pay Tax Incentives: Under the proposal, electric cooperatives—for the first time—would have direct access to energy innovation tax credits, and parity with industry counterparts, when they deploy new energy technologies, including carbon capture, nuclear, energy storage and traditional renewables. The direct payment would be available for all existing technologies for which clean energy tax credits are currently accessible and creates a direct payment for a new slate of technologies.

• Grants for Clean Energy Systems: A new voluntary $9.7 billion grant and loan program designed specifically for electric cooperatives that purchase or build new clean energy systems.  The wide range of eligible projects – including carbon capture, renewable energy, storage, nuclear, and generation and transmission efficiency improvements – allows each cooperative to determine its path based on its unique circumstances.  Co-ops would be able to receive an award for as much as 25% of their project cost, with a maximum amount of $970 million for any one entity.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

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Federal energy incentives have supported Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative’s transition to renewable energy and more stable electric rates. They should continue to be a tool used to spur co-op innovation, KIUC CEO and President David Bissell told a Senate committee Wednesday.

Federal incentives such as the investment tax credit have been key to the co-op’s success, Bissell said. He urged members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy to support direct payments for not-for-profit electric co-ops to develop new energy innovation technologies.

“Currently, we have to use very complex project structures, or have for-profit entities build and own our renewable projects to receive essential tax credits,” Bissell said. “A direct-pay option for not-for-profit cooperatives could likely lower costs for our members from the same levels of federal tax incentives.”

Bissell said the cost of capital is another key factor for co-op infrastructure development. “Cooperatives are eligible to borrow from Rural Utilities Service,” he said. “One problem with RUS borrowing is that it is prohibitively expensive to refinance when RUS interest rates decline.”

Bissell told the senators that he supports enactment of the Flexible Financing for Rural America Act to allow co-ops to refinance their loans without prepayment penalties when interest rates decrease.

Hawaii’s strict renewable portfolio standard mandates that all utility electricity sales come from renewable energy by 2045. Recent partnerships with Tesla and AES Corp. on three large-scale solar-plus-storage projects helped KIUC reach 70% renewable energy last year when combined with previous investments in a biomass plant and utility-scale solar projects, Bissell testified.

The co-op, unique in that it provides electricity to 70,000 island residents, 20,000 visitors and 5,000 businesses on a fully isolated grid, has led the state in both renewables and reliability for the past three years.

The transition to renewables has benefited the co-op’s members financially.

“Since early 2021 when oil prices started spiking, rates for KIUC members have increased roughly 10%. That’s compared to increases of between 35% and 45% for the other Hawaiian Islands,” Bissell said. “This is primarily due to bringing on renewables via competitively priced, long-term power purchase agreements to replace oil, with its associated price volatility.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Two wind turbines that provided a wealth of utility-scale renewable energy and hands-on experience to Basin Electric Power Cooperative were toppled in March, 20 years after they first became curious new features on North Dakota’s landscape.

“They were at the end of their useful life, and parts to keep them running are no longer available,” said Joe Fiedler, Basin Electric’s manager of distributed generation.

Commissioned in November 2002 and affectionately dubbed “Willy” and “Wally,” the two Nordex wind turbines were designed to produce 1.3 megawatts of electricity each and were the first two constructed for the Bismarck-based generation and transmission cooperative. Over their lives, they produced nearly 135 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and provided key experience and training for technicians supporting Basin Electric’s renewable energy operation.

The March 14 demolitions used a “chop and drop” technique, felling the structures like giant trees.

“A contractor ran two lines up to apply pressure to [each] tower and then used cutting torches to cut the bases so they could be pulled over,” said Patrick Hurt, supervisor of operations and maintenance for Basin Electric’s Prairie Winds generation facilities. “They made a heck of a boom when they hit the ground.”

Basin Electric’s initial foray into wind energy was considered ambitious and even risky at the time.

“Wind was met with a fair amount of skepticism in the beginning,” said Basin Electric Member Services Specialist Jeremy Woeste, recalling how some industry veterans questioned whether even demonstration projects were a waste of time and money. 

“It’s an intermittent resource, but we had member co-ops that had an interest in finding out if this would work. Those turbines gave us an opportunity to determine if we could add wind to our generation portfolio and what we needed to learn to make the technology viable and affordable.”

The G&T now owns 189 wind turbines in North Dakota and South Dakota and contracts for production from nearly 950 additional turbines located in four Upper Midwest states, where some of the nation’s most reliable conditions exist for utility-scale wind operations.

“We have definitely been able to rely on the wind development within our service territory,” said Becky Kern, Basin Electric’s vice president of resource planning and rates.

“Wind technology has significantly improved and matured during the last decade, and we work with developers when it makes good economic sense for our members.”

Being wind power pioneers has given Basin Electric crews unique opportunities to build their skills maintaining turbines, which run on an array of gears and sensors that must be constantly monitored and calibrated.    

“We have about one technician for every 10 turbines,” said Joe Fiedler, Basin Electric’s manager of distributed generation. “We don’t do any of the major repairs like dropping a blade or doing a gearbox exchange, but our crews do all the other troubleshooting and maintenance on the wind turbines and collectors.”

Basin Electric has worked with some of its purchase power providers to repower some older turbines, refitting them with newer systems to increase their efficiency and prolong their use.

But as some of its oldest units are taken out of service, the G&T plans to return the land to its original use. That includes removal of the turbine and blade assemblies plus the 25,000 pounds of steel and 188 cubic yards of concrete used to support each structure.

“Basin Electric advocated responsible reclamation practices long before it was required by law, and our commitment to a clean environment continues today,” Fiedler said. “This project, like all of our others, includes a decommissioning plan that supports returning the land it was built on to its traditional use.”

Most of Willy and Wally’s original structures are now gone, cut down and hauled away for refurbishment or scrap. But the knowledge and experience they helped provide live on as the foundation of Basin Electric’s ambitious renewables program.

“Our commitment to wind dates back 20 years. Since then, wind has grown to be nearly a quarter of our entire resource portfolio, and we’ve been able to meet a 50% load growth largely with renewable resources,” Kern said. “That wouldn’t have been possible without the knowledge we gained from those original two turbines.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Hydropower plants produce up to 100,000 megawatts of zero-carbon power for America’s homes and businesses. They are marvels of engineering that have helped bring development and prosperity to the many regions they serve. But they’re also in the crosshairs of interest groups that say they should be closed because of their environmental impacts and others who want to sell the facilities to private industry.

In the latest episode of Along Those Lines, hear more about hydropower’s benefits and challenges from Kurt Miller, head of Northwest RiverPartners, a not-for-profit based in Vancouver, Washington, that advocates for the region’s hydropower users; Troy Berglund, community development and member relations manager at Benton Rural Electric Association in Prosser, Washington; and Ashley Slater, NRECA’s vice president of regulatory affairs.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
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Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

An Arizona electric cooperative is pursuing a plan to meet the future needs of the rapidly growing Tucson metropolitan area while serving members who are taking more control of how they use energy.

“Within 10 years we want to be positioned to serve our members with a fully functioning bidirectional grid,” said Brian Heithoff, CEO and general manager of Marana-based Trico Electric Cooperative. “That will not only allow us to sell power, but we will also be able to effectively receive power from and manage capacity with our members.”

The co-op’s investment in that strategy begins with a commitment of $70 million by 2025 to connect more than 4,100 new services to its distribution system and upgrade 49 miles of power lines.

“This is an investment in our communities and a significant commitment to providing our members with cost-effective energy when they need it,” said Heithoff. “Trico is growing, along with many of the communities we serve. To keep up with that growth and maintain an excellent standard of reliability, we are investing in the facilities that deliver power to our members’ homes and businesses.”

The co-op’s service territory covers portions of Arizona’s Pima County that surround Tucson. It also includes parts of Pinal County north of the city and Santa Cruz County south and east of Tucson.

According to the University of Arizona Economic and Business Research Center, nonfarm-related job growth in the area will exceed 4% in 2023. Between now and 2040, population growth and development in Arizona is expected to lead to a Sun Corridor merger of the Tucson area with metropolitan Phoenix.

Trico is seeing changing electricity usage patterns becoming more of a factor in the co-op’s future, with many new homes in its service territory having onsite solar. That trend began about 15 years ago and is accelerating, said Heithoff.

“We have 50,000 accounts, and 4,000 of those are interconnected and sell back to us,” he said. “We have seen strong interest in solar for years and it continues to grow, and interest in energy storage is also beginning to take off.”

With a growing number of members connected to the co-op’s lines having the capability to sell electricity to the co-op, Trico is seeing a leveling in residential demand for power, so Heithoff and his staff are considering innovative strategies. Those include time-of-use rates, promotion of smart energy systems that place more control in the hands of members, and co-op-owned or joint-ventured electric vehicle charging.

“We estimate that close to 1,000 of our members now have electric vehicles,” said Heithoff, adding that his next vehicle purchase could be an EV.

“Service upgrades and panel changes from 200 amps to 400 amps will be essential for some members as they rely more heavily on electricity for their energy needs,” Heithoff said. The co-op’s investments in modernization are just the first of a series of improvement plans to be announced over the next few years.

“We know costs are important, and we work hard to keep down our costs and the amount of our monthly bills,” said Heithoff. “The way to do that over the long run is with a steady and continuous preventative maintenance and investment approach where we annually address the needs of our system and prepare for projected growth.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Solar power makes up most of San Luis Valley REC’s renewables portfolio, but the showstopper of its renewable generation mix is a 100-year-old dam with a 90-foot concrete arch in the Colorado wilderness that for the past decade has helped power a remote town through a modern generator.

“It’s probably one of our more unique renewable sources, and it would be hard to imagine that there are more private hydroelectric facilities this size. Think of it as a miniature Hoover Dam,” said Loren Howard, CEO of the Monte Vista-based co-op.

The Humphreys Dam, the co-op’s only hydro source, celebrated its 10th anniversary recently in Creede, the town that it helps power. Fed by Goose Creek, the dam’s output accounts for about 1% of the co-op’s renewables portfolio, said Howard.

For dam operator Ruthie Brown, 65, the milestone also marked her first decade as an independent power producer. She is credited for her tireless efforts to modernize the dam, built by her great-grandfather in the 1920s, into a cost-effective facility with a single-phase generator capable of producing up to 340 kilowatts of hydropower.

“I gave the project a face,” said Brown. “I never hesitated to get to the person who would help me and ask, ‘I don’t understand this. Why do we have to do this? What is this about?’”

San Luis Valley REC just renewed a 10-year power purchase agreement with Wagon Wheel Associates, a company Brown’s family founded to operate the dam.

Brown hit upon the idea to transform the facility in 2008 into a money-making business to pay for the family ranch’s considerable upkeep and create more clean energy.

She navigated bureaucracies, forged alliances with engineers and federal regulators and ultimately won $900,000 in U.S. Department of Agriculture funds to install the project’s unique cross-flow turbine with a single-phase generator and other equipment.

“The experts all came on board,” said Brown. “They really took pride in this woman who really had no idea what she was doing but still took on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”

At one point, Brown even rolled up her sleeves and joined the crews.

“Ruthie was great to work with and very hands on, stripping concrete forms and out there helping where she could. It’s one of my favorite projects,” said Gary Boring, the retired owner of a construction company that coordinated installation of the facility’s penstock and generator in 2010 and 2011.

Brown transformed herself into an authority on single-phase power systems. Recently, she advised a company in Greenland on a similar setup.

“I’m not a banker. I’m not an attorney. I’m not an engineer,” said Brown. “I’m a citizen who wanted to do what was right for the world we live in now, and bringing more renewables online is definitely the right thing to do.”

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.

This summer, North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives will pioneer a utility-scale energy storage plan by coordinating 10 batteries hosted at co-op substations across the state that, operating together, will enhance reliability, offer a platform for innovation and help manage peak demand.

“Energy storage technology will enable us to enhance reliability that will benefit our consumer-members now and in the years to come,” said Amadou Fall, chief operating officer at the statewide association and wholesale electricity provider headquartered in Raleigh.

North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. will own and operate the lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are built by Durham-based FlexGen and will total up to 40 megawatts of storage.

NCEMC will charge the batteries when electricity demand is low and discharge them during peak demand periods, said Louis Duke, a communicator for the statewide association.

These batteries will complement the nearly 500 MW of renewable, distributed and “edge-of-grid” resources that are “integrated or pending integration to N.C. cooperatives’ grids,” Duke said.

The co-ops, which are already involved in innovations such as solar and microgrids, are working together to achieve their “Brighter Future” vision to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and provide benefits to their rural communities and members through coordination of distributed energy resources, new energy services and continued community support.

“It matches so well with the education of our members,” said Don Bowman, vice president of engineering and operations at Wake EMC in Wake Forest. Wake EMC will host one of the batteries and also previously developed a microgrid for a 31-house subdivision.

“NCEMC, which provides all of our wholesale power, will put their finger on the pulse of the market for us and choose when to charge and discharge. We are basically deferring the need for future generation to be built.”

Brunswick EMC, based in Supply, will also host one of the batteries and sees the project as meeting its members’ priorities that grid innovation must be sustainable, carbon reducing and cost-saving. The co-op has pursued several projects, including a microgrid for a small neighborhood.

“This battery program aligns with our tenets,” said CEO Josh Winslow. “We will continue to lead the integration, management and optimization of resources and technologies that benefit our community.”

NCEMC said the following co-ops are also participating in the battery project in addition to Wake EMC and Brunswick EMC: Carteret-Craven Electric, Central Electric, Four County EMC, Jones-Onslow EMC, Pee Dee Electric, Randolph EMC, South River EMC and Tri-County EMC.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

When Missouri’s Knox County R-1 School District welcomed an electric school bus to its fleet, it had a problem: What do you do with an old, diesel-burning school bus?

If you’re one of the district’s creative high school teachers and students, the answer is simple. Instead of hauling the bus to a scrap yard, turn it into a café.

Business is brisk at the Knox County School Bus Café, which made its debut this school year. Located just inside the high school’s breezeway and open on weekday mornings, students serve drip and specialty coffees to anyone needing their morning caffeine fix and a quick bite.

“It doesn’t matter how cold it is,” said Andy Turgeon, superintendent of the Edina-based school system. “There’s a line of people, students, adults and community members who show up and get their drinks.”

In its move toward phasing out diesel buses, the school district got a big assist from its local electric cooperative, Lewistown-based Lewis County REC. Missouri co-ops have been instrumental in helping usher in a new era of school transportation, lobbying state legislators to earmark funds from the $14.7 billion Volkswagen emissions fraud settlement for electric school buses. Lewis County REC helped Knox County R-1 apply for grants for the buses, which cost about $300,000, nearly three times more than diesel-powered models.

Knox County R-1’s repurposed diesel bus satisfies a key condition of using the VW settlement money—and takes it a step further.

“The whole idea behind the VW money is you’re improving air quality, so you have to promise to destroy the bus and take that diesel off the road,” said Turgeon. “In years past, we might have said, ‘Well, we’ll just take it to the scrap yard.’”

Turgeon said the bus café “was the perfect answer” for teachers looking for real-world, hands-on experiences for their students. “The business teacher had been asking me for three years to cut a hole in the classroom’s concrete wall so her students could have a store and simulate business situations.”

Teachers and students brainstormed and came up with the café concept. Business students designed the layout, ordered the equipment and figured out how to make coffee. Industrial tech students gutted and repainted the bus, added insulation, redid wiring and removed the engine to install a grill large enough to fit 150 burgers.

The school’s creativity could inspire others in the state as they incorporate electric buses into their fleets.

“The state has received 10 applications, and 10 electric school buses are going to be funded in the state of Missouri, half of which will be on electric cooperative systems,” said Travis Mathes, manager of member services and government relations at Lewis County REC.

Two more electric buses are headed to Knox County schools this spring. And just as they did with the café, students and teachers will transform the old diesel vehicles.

“There are some ideas floating around,” including an outdoor classroom and a tiny home, said Turgeon. “We’ll see what they come up with.”

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.

Electric vehicle sales are skyrocketing in the U.S. as Americans begin to embrace these highly efficient, fun-to-drive machines and more and more car manufacturers commit to releasing all-electric models.

But the popularity of EVs has largely been centered on urban and suburban areas, and enthusiasm has been slower to catch on in rural America. What are the reasons for this dynamic, and what are electric cooperatives doing about it? Hear from NRECA’s Brian Sloboda as well as Wendy Youngren, chief operating officer of WH Holding, a subsidiary of Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association in Minnesota.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
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Related Content:

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Co-op Program Will Rate, Educate Car Dealers On Electric Vehicles

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

A North Carolina electric cooperative has been awarded a $6 million loan from a new U.S. Department of Agriculture program to help the nation’s rural businesses fight climate change, create jobs and expand access to renewable energy technologies.

Roanoke Electric Cooperative, headquartered in Aulander, will use the funds to expand an existing pass-through loan program that helps members pay for energy-efficiency improvements. The funds will also help Roanoke Connect, the co-op’s broadband subsidiary, finance buildouts to remote homes.

The award comes from $633 million appropriated to the USDA for funding rural programs as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden last month.

Roanoke Electric is one of 43 local businesses to receive a slice of the $141 million in Rural Energy Savings Program funds from USDA to the state. The announcement was made at a Dec. 6 press conference at the Raleigh headquarters of North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives.

Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Jewel Bronaugh said the awards are meant to reduce the impacts of climate change on rural communities through investments in energy-efficiency projects. She noted that North Carolina has endured several major hurricanes in recent years.

“There is no question that rural America is feeling the impact of climate change, and our communities desperately need investments that will strengthen our resilience,” said Bronaugh.

Roanoke Electric will use the award to broaden its Upgrade to $ave program, which offers loans and long-term on-bill financing to help members make costly home efficiency improvements such as installing new lighting, insulation, electric water heaters, HVAC equipment or electric vehicle charging systems.

“I can’t underscore enough its importance for the rural member-owners we service, many, if not most, of whom can’t afford to invest in changes that will make the biggest difference,” said Chief Operating Officer Marshall Cherry.

Since the program began as a pilot in 2015, some 650 co-op members have financed total energy retrofits for their homes, resulting in annual savings of around $600 per residence, Cherry said. The retrofits include duct sealing and repairs, air sealing, attic and floor insulation, and for many homes, a high-efficiency heat pump.

“Everything we do is aimed at furthering the best interest of our members and paving the way for a brighter future in the communities we serve, and we appreciate the support of the USDA through this loan,” said Cherry.

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.

Renewable energy technologies pose both opportunities and challenges for rural America, the president of Georgia’s Green Power EMC told a House panel Tuesday.

“Georgia’s rural communities have reaped financial benefits from solar projects, which have created thousands of construction jobs and boosted tax revenue for local governments,” Jeff Pratt testified at a House Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy and Credit hearing on the renewable economy in rural America.

Despite the economic benefits brought by the growing number of solar projects, “some communities have been challenged to find a balance between the competing interests of solar land use and traditional farming operations,” Pratt said.

To help remedy that, Green Power EMC and its members are employing regenerative agriculture practices, Pratt said.

“Herds of sheep reside part-time at the solar farms and graze beneath the solar panels,” he said. “As sheep bite off the tops of plants, keeping vegetation from shading the solar panels, they fertilize the soil, causing more plants to grow. This agricultural practice is designed to improve soil health, sequester carbon, and boost water quality on land used for solar power generation.”

Green Power EMC is a not-for-profit cooperative founded 20 years ago to help 38 of Georgia’s electric co-ops secure renewable energy resources.

“In the past six years, Georgia’s cooperatives have grown their solar portfolio by 8,000%, utilizing approximately 15,000 acres of land in rural Georgia,” Pratt testified. “These solar projects will collectively produce enough electricity to serve more than 270,000 households each year.”

There are inherent challenges in relying on the sun for power, Pratt said.

“While solar is among the lowest cost of energy in Georgia, its intermittent nature presents technical and economic challenges as it becomes a larger percentage of our electricity generation portfolio,” he said.

The growing volume of solar power means that more investment is needed in technologies such as battery storage and energy management control systems to maintain reliability, Pratt said.

“To manage intermittency, Georgia co-ops maintain reliable base load energy, such as nuclear generation, to serve as a foundational resource necessary for periods when sunshine is not available—such as night hours or during cloudy conditions,” he said.

While Georgia’s co-ops continue to expand their use of renewable energy, they need access to direct-pay incentives from the federal government to reduce the cost of energy innovation, Pratt told lawmakers.

“As not-for-profit businesses, current law does not allow electric co-ops to access the full value of clean energy tax incentives available to taxable businesses,” Pratt said. “Electric cooperatives need access to direct-pay tax incentives to reduce the cost of energy innovation projects, including the deployment of renewables, nuclear energy and other emerging technologies; the expansion of energy storage projects; and installation of electric charging infrastructure.”

NRECA worked to ensure that direct-pay incentives for co-ops are included in the current draft of the Build Back Better Act, which awaits a vote in the House. If passed, it would go to the Senate for approval.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Middle Tennessee Electric is launching an electric vehicle car club for its members that will serve as a national pilot project for hundreds of other Touchstone Energy® cooperatives.

The club will give members the chance to meet with EV enthusiasts and drivers to share information and experiences, participate in club events and receive perks to be designed by the co-op.

Middle Tennessee Electric will kick off its club with special events this fall. After learning from the co-op’s experience, Touchstone Energy will create a national EV car club, most likely in the first quarter of next year, and provide resources to help its other 700-plus member co-ops form local chapters.

“It’s a great concept,” said Mary Ann Cristiano, Touchstone Energy’s senior director of consumer marketing. “It’s a wonderful way for co-ops to create community with members by bringing people who are early EV adopters and enthusiasts together to educate people about the benefits of electric vehicles. Members have the chance to learn from their neighbors and their friends, and it reinforces the co-op’s role as a trusted source of energy information.”

Brandon Wagoner, of Middle Tennessee Electric’s strategy execution and analytics team, said the idea for an EV car club originated with his father-in-law, who once belonged to a club for owners of classic British cars.

“People who own EVs are just as passionate about their cars as classic car owners are,” he said.

Co-op leaders discussed it internally and then reached out to Touchstone Energy for help with creating a national EV car club brand and a unique logo.

The Murfreesboro-based co-op is in the process of finalizing its participation in three fall events in three different counties to encourage members to join the club. In September, the co-op plans to staff a booth at a Rotary Club fish fry and car show. In October, it will participate in an Oktoberfest celebration. And in November, it will attend a “cars and coffee” event in Williamson County, where the headquarters for Nissan North America is located. Nissan makes the all-electric LEAF, and MTE plans to bring one of the cars to the event, Wagoner said. Co-op employees who drive EVs will be invited to show off their vehicles on each occasion.

The co-op, which serves more than 320,000 members in a four-county area just south and east of Nashville, has about 4,000 members who drive EVs and expects that number to jump in the next few years as more and more auto manufacturers produce electric cars and pickup trucks, Wagoner said.

“We’ve got the right demographics for it,” he said. “We’re obviously very supportive of EVs, and they’re coming whether we do anything or not. The more we can do to inform our members, the better experience it will be for everybody.”

Wagoner said he is both excited and nervous about his co-op serving as the pilot project.

“It puts a lot of accountability on us,” he said. “If some other co-op calls us in a year, I’m sure our first response is going to be, ‘Here’s what we learned not to do.’ Everyone can learn something from what we learn the hard way. But it’s also a great opportunity for us to build a good relationship with our members and create a long-lasting bond.”

Co-ops interested in learning more about how to create a car club chapter should contact Mary Ann Cristiano at MaryAnn.Cristiano@nreca.coop.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

South Carolina’s electric cooperatives are adding more than 300 megawatts of utility-scale solar to their portfolios through several power purchase agreements to help meet the electricity needs of their members and satisfy their demands for renewable energy.

“Prices for renewable energy have declined to the point where well-planned and adequately capitalized projects make good economic sense,” said Jim Lamb, senior vice president of planning and power supply at Central Electric Power Cooperative, a generation and transmission co-op. “We’ve found our own solar suppliers and designed contracts that give us flexibility in how we meet the energy needs of our member co-ops.”

Five agreements call for design, deployment and construction of new solar arrays in four counties. Commissioning and energy production are slated to begin by late 2023.

The new solar facilities represent a significant expansion of Columbia, South Carolina-based Central Electric’s wholesale power portfolio, and the projects collectively represent a nearly 40% increase in the state’s solar capacity.

“We’ve gone from two wholesale power suppliers to six with these solar contracts,” said Gerry Fleming, Central Electric’s director of power supply operations. “Our main reasons for doing this are technology diversification and economic considerations, and these solar contracts meet both of these goals.”

Nashville, Tennessee-based Silicon Ranch, a platinum associate member of NRECA, will develop two projects totaling 200 MW in South Carolina’s Georgetown County.

The remaining projects are:

• A 75-MW array in Williamsburg County being built by Durham, North Carolina-based Ecoplexus.

• A 75-MW array in Aiken County being built by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Birdseye Renewable Energy.

• And a third 75-MW array in Dorchester County being built by Spartanburg, South Carolina-based Johnson Development Associates.

Co-op officials cite performance, reliability and declining costs as factors driving the G&T’s strategic planning, which could eventually include utility-scale storage as South Carolina struggles with constrained access to natural gas generation due to limited pipeline infrastructure.

“We’re focused on meeting the needs of our 20 member co-ops, and that means we need to be flexible with our investments and prepared to harness technologies that diversify our generation portfolio,” said Rob Hochstetler, Central Electric’s CEO. “Continuous improvement of our portfolios has to be the goal.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Lee Middle School’s Tim Johnson has been a teacher for more than 30 years, but he still gets a charge learning about the world around him—and passing that knowledge on to his eighth-grade students in Sharpsburg, Georgia.

As the school year gets underway, Johnson is looking forward to sharing insights picked up at Alternative Energy Summer Adventure, a three-day workshop for K-12 educators focusing on STEM education sponsored by Coweta-Fayette EMC and the Coweta County School System. About 30 participants engaged in hands-on activities and took field trips to local examples of sustainable development and energy efficiency, including Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Building.

Johnson says the program will also enhance his curriculum on Georgia studies. “We look at the state from a lot of different angles, and being able to add one more piece to my toolkit allows me to better relate where we came from and where we’re going both economically and career-wise in Georgia.”

Held in mid-July, the teachers’ camp fills several needs, said Chris Stephens, CEO of the Palmetto-based co-op. “The future of the energy industry is changing. Not only will this experience bring new opportunities to the classroom, this partnership will help equip and engage our future workforce.”

The project stems from the co-op’s successful bid in 2018 to serve a new middle school under the state’s “Customer Choice” program. As an added incentive, the co-op proposed an energy innovation learning center at the school that included a solar array, an electric vehicle charging station and curriculum support on STEM from Green Power EMC’s SPARK Energy Education Program.

At the suggestion of the school system’s STEM specialist, the co-op expanded the training and curriculum to include other schools, said Maggie Reenstra, Coweta Fayette’s community and economic development coordinator.

The co-op and school district collaborated on the “teach-the-teacher” program. School officials selected participants, and co-op employees taught the program and led tours. Retired teachers, who had developed the SPARK curriculum, taught the classroom portions.

The co-op plans to offer the camp next summer “for local educators to learn about the importance and growing demand of alternative energy options,” said Reenstra.

Take a look at highlights from the workshop:

Day One: Visit to Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Building

Day Two: Visit to Co-op Solar Plant

Day Three: Hands-On Learning

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.

NRECA has joined with 17 of its member electric cooperatives to apply for $8 million in federal grants to bring electric vehicles to low-income rural communities.

Most of the proposed co-op projects would install public EV charging stations at key locations such as low-income apartment complexes, medical facilities, parks and highway corridors, said Brian Sloboda, NRECA’s director of consumer solutions.

“In some cases, these would be the first public chargers that anyone in the community has ever seen,” he said.

The proposal also includes innovative ideas from two co-ops about ways to use EVs for business purposes, Sloboda said.

Great River Energy, a generation and transmission co-op based in Maple Grove, Minnesota, plans to buy electric work vans to provide to electricians who serve low-income co-op members. Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, a distribution co-op in Taos, New Mexico, wants to purchase several Ford F-150 Lightning all-electric pickup trucks for its broadband command center to help keep high-speed internet service running for its members during natural disasters and other emergencies.

“It’s really a great mix of projects that address the Vehicle Technologies Office of the Department of Energy’s forward-looking vision of how to bring the benefits of electric vehicle technology to underserved, low-income and rural communities,” Sloboda said.

The DOE will fund 50% of the cost of the projects, leaving co-ops and any community partners to pay the rest. The agency will announce a maximum of five winners at the end of the highly competitive process in October. The co-ops are competing as one unit, rather than as individual businesses, with NRECA as the project leader.

“I don’t think you can find another team that represents such a diverse group of utilities, projects and communities and that meets the ambitious goals of the Department of Energy,” Sloboda said.

When NRECA announced in April that it was seeking co-ops to apply for the DOE grants, more than 50 expressed interest, he said. However, the fast turnaround time for proposals—which had to be completed in about eight weeks—quickly narrowed the field.

“There are going to be other funding opportunities for EVs, but they all require a very quick turnaround,” Sloboda said. “I would urge co-ops to develop their project ideas now.”

Despite increasing interest in EV charging by for-profit companies, “few companies are building this infrastructure and trying to grow EVs in the rural areas except these non-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives,” he said.

“It’s a long-haul investment that’s not going to pay off overnight,” Sloboda said. “This is where we need the leadership from the DOE in recognizing the needs of these underserved rural communities. Without co-ops working with the DOE, we probably won’t see rapid progress.”

In addition to Great River Energy and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, the co-ops participating in the NRECA-led proposal are:

• San Isabel Electric Association (Pueblo West, Colorado)
• United Power (Brighton, Colorado)
• Egyptian Electric Cooperative Association (Murphysboro, Illinois)
• Southwestern Electric Cooperative (Greenville, Illinois)
• Jay County Rural Electric Membership Corp. (Portland, Indiana)
• Flint Hills Rural Electric Cooperative (Council Grove, Kansas)
• Nemaha-Marshall Electric Cooperative Association (Axtell, Kansas)
• Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. (Bowling Green, Kentucky)
• Lincoln County Power District No. 1 (Pioche, Nevada)
• Roanoke Electric Cooperative (Aulander, North Carolina)
• Hancock-Wood Electric Cooperative (North Baltimore, Ohio)
• A&N Electric Cooperative (Tasley, Virginia)
• Columbia Rural Electric Association (Walla Walla, Washington)
• Inland Power and Light Co. (Spokane, Washington)
• Dairyland Power Cooperative (La Crosse, Wisconsin)

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

With electric cooperatives leading the way, Minnesota recently passed landmark energy policy reform that benefits consumers with reduced costs, greater efficiency and incentives to meet greenhouse gas goals.

The new Energy Conservation and Optimization Act replaces the state’s Conservation Improvement Program and its outdated requirement that co-ops and other utilities spend 1.5% of their annual revenue to reduce their electricity sales by at least 1.5% each year.

It also embraces beneficial electrification, which promotes the use of electric-powered devices that boost consumer savings and reduce pollution while improving grid resiliency and quality of life.

“Our energy savings goals are no longer measured by how much we spend,” said Darrick Moe, president and CEO of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. “ECO allows us to grow our load, but because it’s beneficial electrification, you reduce total energy use.”

The law allows co-ops and other utilities to offer incentives for consumers to switch from carbon dioxide-emitting devices to electricity-based ones like electric vehicles, heat pumps and commercial and agricultural equipment.

“Minnesota’s stakeholder-driven update to its flagship energy efficiency programs is a milestone of national importance,” said Keith Dennis, NRECA vice president of consumer member engagement in the Business and Technology Strategies department.

“By harnessing the benefits of electrification, the environment will benefit and the energy system will be more efficient.”

ECO also provides for three-year plans to deploy programs and measure progress, replacing an annual process.

MREA made state energy policy reform a priority in 2017 and gathered a multi-stakeholder, bipartisan coalition to advocate for change. The resulting legislation passed the Democratic-controlled state House and the Republican-led Senate this spring. Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, signed the bill into law May 25.

Walz heralded the bill for its energy conservation and “beneficial fuel switching” that will allow “homes and businesses to run more efficiently and have a lower impact on our environment” while creating good-paying jobs.

MREA praised Rep. Zack Stephenson, a member of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and Republican Sen. Jason Rarick for guiding the legislation through their respective chambers to the governor’s desk.

“This is the most significant energy efficiency legislation to pass in Minnesota in many years, and for that we are thankful for the bipartisan work and leadership of Rep. Zack Stephenson and Sen. Jason Rarick,” said Joyce Peppin, director of government affairs and general counsel at the statewide association.

To ensure widespread support for the legislation, MREA partnered with Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association, investor-owned utilities and the Center for Energy and Environment, a clean energy advocacy group.

“MMUA enjoyed working with MREA to get ECO across the finish line,” said Kent Sulem, director of government relations for the municipals’ organization. “The partnership created a formidable force on behalf of consumer-owned utilities in passing this important modernization of our state’s CIP statutes.”

“We didn’t always see eye to eye as we developed the policy,” said Mike Bull, the center’s director of policy and external affairs. “But the trust that was built … allowed us to work through those differences and led to a much more robust legislative initiative.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the electric utility industry has moved dramatically in the direction of renewable generation. Solar has enjoyed particularly widespread success, with a broad mix of residential, community and utility-scale installations. Wind power has seen equally strong adoption, but nearly all at utility scale, while local and residential installations have been less robust.

But a new program from the Department of Energy called Rural Area Distributed Wind Integration Network Development (RADWIND) is working to change that, enlisting the help of electric cooperatives to broaden the use of wind as a distributed generation resource. In this episode, we talk about the broad potential of wind power with Michael Leitman, NRECA’s system optimization director and the RADWIND project manager, and Aaron Ruschy, vice president of operations and engineering at Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

The Chevy Corvette has been “America’s Sports Car” for nearly 70 years, and it will soon be manufactured with solar power served up from electric cooperative lines.

“Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been the only place Corvettes have been built for more than 30 years, and they are one of our leading commercial and industrial accounts,” said Dewayne McDonald, president and CEO of Warren Rural Electric Cooperative. “So, when General Motors made a commitment to renewable power, we were happy to help make it happen.”

Many of the GM assembly plant’s nearly 1,400 employees are members of the Bowling Green-based distribution co-op. Meeting the energy needs of the 1.7 million-square-foot plant is vital to the co-op-served community. That provided ample incentive for Warren RECC to work closely with the Tennessee Valley Authority to help meet GM’s goal of going carbon-neutral by 2040.

A nearly 175-megawatt solar and storage project under development about 25 miles away from the plant has the surplus capacity to meet the automaker’s needs, and the energy produced will start flowing through the co-op’s distribution lines in 2023.

“The Warren RECC service territory is an industry hub, and we continue to take bold steps to help make our community a competitive location for businesses, like GM, that are pursuing environmental goals,” said McDonald.

The solar and storage project, being developed by NRECA associate member Silicon Ranch, is part of TVA’s Green Invest initiative. The public power provider has pursued several power purchase agreements to enhance the availability of renewable energy resources across its service region to help meet the evolving demand for new and sustainable resources powering homes and businesses.  

“TVA’s Green Invest program is bringing together customers and renewable energy partners who are all investing in our communities,” said Chris Hansen, TVA vice president for origination and renewables.

GM is committed to using 28 MW of the solar array’s output. The remaining 145 MW of its power and much of its 120 megawatt-hours of energy storage capacity is earmarked for Facebook’s regional facilities.

“This solar and storage facility, less than 50 miles from our Gallatin [Tennessee] data center, will be Facebook’s first renewable energy project in Kentucky,” said Urvi Parekh, head of Facebook’s renewable energy operations. 

The Silicon Ranch project is Facebook’s fifth renewable energy project with TVA, representing an investment of more than $1 billion in the region. It’s part of a trend toward diversifying energy resources that co-ops and other utilities are pursuing to help meet consumer expectations and national policy goals.  

“Renewable energy is something that more of our businesses want and something that makes Kentucky more competitive for jobs and investments,” said Gov. Andy Beshear. “Green Invest shows the benefits of TVA’s public power model as we transition to a cleaner energy future.

Construction of the 1,600-acre Logan County project is expected to involve about 450 workers beginning in 2022. Once completed, it will help GM meet its goal of 100% renewable energy for its domestic operations, a full decade before its worldwide commitment.

“This project not only supports the automotive industry, but it also will help meet the needs of a growing digital communications industry and expand regional availability of renewable energy,” said McDonald. “General Motors is one of the best corporate citizens. Over the years, they have invested at least $2 billion in infrastructure here and we’re very proud to have them as a member.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Corn, rye and barley have always played big roles in producing Tennessee whiskey, and solar energy will soon be added to the mix at one well-known distillery with a decades-long connection to its electric cooperative, Duck River Electric Membership Corp.

“Jack Daniel’s has been in Metro Moore County for over 150 years, and they have been a valued member of DREMC for more than 80 years,” said Scott Spence, the co-op’s president and CEO. “As they have grown and modernized, Duck River EMC has been there to support them in achieving their energy goals.”

Early projects included co-op advice on wiring plant buildings for electric lighting, followed by consultations on upgrading plant equipment for electric machinery. When Jack Daniel’s began searching for ways to support renewable energy, it again turned to its Shelbyville, Tennessee-based distribution co-op. The result is an agreement with Duck River and the Tennessee Valley Authority that’s expected to meet nearly 75% of the electricity needs at the iconic Lynchburg distillery.    

“When the Jack Daniel’s team reached out to DREMC regarding their sustainability goals, we immediately began work to find a solution that made sense for their business,” said Billy Tiller, Duck River’s vice president of engineering.

That led to talks with TVA and Nashville-based solar power producer Silicon Ranch, an NRECA platinum associate member, regarding the 200-megawatt solar array under development in Moore County, Tennessee. Silicon Ranch will construct the facility over the next two years on land once owned by the Motlow family, which has ties to distillery founder Jack Daniel.

The 2,500-acre site, once known as Motlow Range, was an artillery training base during World War II. The Motlows were among the earliest members of the co-op, and their descendants are among its consumer-members today. The family owns the Cumberland Springs Land Co., and Silicon Ranch partnered with them to develop the project. 

The land has lain fallow for several years, so development of the solar farm will actually have a net positive impact on the region’s agricultural production, as Silicon Ranch will restore the land to a functioning grassland ecosystem through managed sheep grazing.

Silicon Ranch will design, fund, build, own, operate and maintain the facility, and Metro Government of Nashville is expected to take the largest amount of power produced at the site, along with the Knoxville Utilities Board and Vanderbilt University. About 20 MW of its capacity is included in a power purchase agreement with TVA and reserved for distillery use.

“TVA, Jack Daniel’s and Duck River are excellent neighbors who are valuable assets to our community,” said Mayor Bonnie Lewis of Metro Lynchburg-Moore County. “Each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world tour the distillery, and this solar farm from our newest corporate citizen, Silicon Ranch, will be another attraction as they provide additional construction jobs and tax revenue to Moore County.”

Dubbed the Moore County Solar Project, it is part of TVA’s Green Invest program, which leverages the public power model by matching customer sustainability needs with new, renewable energy projects through a competitive bid process.

“We’re excited to be the first distillery to sign a Green Invest deal that will provide nearly three-quarters of our electricity needs,” said Melvin Keebler, the distillery’s vice president and assistant general manager. “Now the world’s most iconic whiskey is even greener.”

Besides being one of Duck River’s leading commercial-industrial accounts, the area’s major employer and a top regional tourism destination, the distillery has also hosted community events. 

“We have witnessed great things happen over the years through Jack Daniel’s investment in the Metro-Lynchburg, Moore County community, and this is no exception,” said Spence. “Duck River is thrilled to be a part of this project.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative is creating an electric vehicle charging network that will grow to 60 stations over the next four years as the co-op works to help the state achieve its ambitious EV goals.

By the end of May, the 141,000-member co-op will have installed eight charging stations at regional parks and public buildings in Charles and St. Mary’s counties, said Jeff Shaw, SMECO’s vice president of distributed energy and sustainability. It is also working with local officials in the other two counties it serves—Calvert County and Prince George’s County near Washington, D.C.—to find suitable sites there.

About two-thirds of the 60 total chargers will be Level 2, which typically take several hours to charge a vehicle. The remaining third will be DC-powered fast chargers, which can charge an EV to an 80% level in less than half an hour.

“We want to help our members get over any range anxiety they may have by providing them with convenient places to charge so they’ll feel free to move about,” Shaw said.

The state of Maryland has set a goal of having 300,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2025. SMECO has about 1,400 registered EVs in its service area, Shaw said. That number would need to grow to 18,000—more than 10 times the current amount— to meet the state’s target.

“We’re going to struggle as a state to get there, but that’s what goals are for—to push us forward,” he said.

The state Public Service Commission, which regulates SMECO and other utilities, requires that EV charging stations be placed at state, county or municipal government sites that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The co-op’s stations are at public locations that include regional parks, senior centers and libraries. One of the goals is to help boost tourism by bringing people from throughout the area to southern Maryland for recreation, Shaw said.

For example, he said, a regional park with a huge baseball/softball complex could attract families for tournaments.

“If they’re driving EVs, they’ll want to know if they can get some juice to go home after the games,” Shaw said.

In addition to environmental benefits, EVs have the potential to boost business for SMECO and other co-ops by dramatically increasing demand for electricity, Shaw said.

“It’s a load growth we haven’t seen since the advent of air-conditioning,” he said.  “This is a tremendous opportunity, and we need to be thoughtful about how we approach it.”

Shaw’s advice for other co-ops interested in creating an EV charging network is to engage early with local officials and other stakeholders, ranging from environmental groups to automakers.

“Everybody wants to see this succeed, and we need to work together to make sure it does,” he said.

Read More:
Co-ops Create Electric Vehicle Charging Network in Upper Midwest
N.C. Co-ops Invest $1 Million in Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
Oklahoma Co-ops Are Helping Make EV Charging More Convenient

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

In Colorado, the intrepid spirit that led discoverers to conquer the state’s highest peaks lives on in the frontier of energy innovation.

This time, it’s a development of 27 smart homes that’s doing the pioneering. The all-electric, net-zero residences also provide a path to home ownership for the local workforce near the pricey ski town of Aspen.

“It’s an immigrant’s dream to own a house in the U.S., and I like that I can come home after work and live in a home of the future, where everything is powered by the sun,” said Ana Quiceno. The kindergarten teacher originally from Colombia has lived in a townhome in the Basalt Vista housing development served by Holy Cross Energy for almost two years.

Outfitted with rooftop solar panels and on-site battery storage, these ”homes of the future” are also innovative because of the far-reaching and varied partnership led to their construction, said Adaora Ifebigh, who heads NRECA’s Advancing Energy Access for All initiative.

That initiative emphasizes “the power of partnerships and works to identify and help establish partnerships to advance community solutions for NRECA’s co-ops through various research projects,” said Ifebigh. Holy Cross Energy’s partners in the Basalt Vista project include Habitat for Humanity, the Roaring Fork School District, Pitkin County, the Basalt town government and various solar manufacturers.

The Glenwood Springs-based co-op donated 8-kilowatt rooftop solar panels and other energy-efficient equipment, including smart inverters, EV charger hookups, hot water heaters and smart appliances and controllers. Member rebates are also part of the package, and co-op staff meet regularly with homeowners to incorporate the technology into their daily routines.

“There’s a definite learning curve when you move into an all-electric home,” said Chris Bilby, a research engineer at Holy Cross Energy.

“It’s a different beast almost. You can turn everything on and you can end up with extremely high bills, or you can learn how to manage your new home in a way that’s a little bit more grid-friendly and saves money.”

Since the first family moved into the Basalt Vista development in 2019, the project has attracted widespread attention. It’s been the subject of a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study and a finalist for a national magazine’s “solar project of the year.”

Closer to home, the development has served as a learning lab to help the co-op make emerging technologies available to more people as it works toward meeting its goal of 100% green power by 2030. For example, the success of the program’s residential battery component has enabled the co-op to offer all members a chance to buy one through Power +, an on-bill payment program.

“We opened it up March 1, and so far, we’ve had 20 people apply in the last six weeks,” said Bilby, noting that a battery could cost upward of $25,000.

Priced at $250,000 to $345,000, the townhomes have put a dent in Aspen’s affordable housing shortage by being available only to schoolteachers and county workers. Other contributions include $3 million in land from the Roaring Fork School District and $3 million in infrastructure from Pitkin County. Habitat for Humanity provided subsidies to keep the residences affordable.

The focus on public sector employees is a quality-of-life issue, said Jenna Weatherred, the co-op’s vice president of member and community relations. “They come in young and stay when they’re young and when they get a little bit older and start families, very often we lose them.”

Meanwhile, Quiceno has been getting better at “counting and saving kilowatts in the summer and then using them in the winter” for some “sweet” savings on her electric bill. The co-op, she said, has been a big help in the process.

“I feel so lucky and blessed to live in this place,” said Quiceno. “By having this house, I’m doing my part to help the planet.”

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer at NRECA.

An electric cooperative in Colorado is bundling its energy-efficiency programs and many of its consumer services under a single brand and making them available to everyone working or living near its service territory.

“Too many people struggle to pay their electric bills and cannot afford to make energy-efficient upgrades, or can’t find someone to install a product,” said Reg Rudolph, general manager of San Isabel Electric Association. “Everyone should have an opportunity to be more energy efficient and save money.”

That’s the goal of the Pueblo West-based distribution co-op’s Empower program. Launched last autumn, Empower works to identify qualified contractors and suppliers of proven products. It also helps find ways to finance improvements and upgrades for its members and others who live and work in southern Colorado.

“We have an exurban service territory that includes a lot of rural residents. Seventy-five percent of our housing stock is at least 45 years old, so this is fertile ground for energy-efficiency upgrades,” said Rudolph. “It’s also hard to get contractors to commit to projects in remote areas, so we’re helping to identify and develop a base of dependable and qualified service providers.”

San Isabel Electric offers on-bill financing for major mechanicals, including HVAC systems, water heaters and rooftop solar arrays. The co-op includes insulation, window upgrades, electric vehicle charging stations and energy storage systems as eligible improvements.

“We have the ability to access low-cost capital, and when we provide that, we flow the value through to our members,” said Rudolph. “If you’re not a member—we call them ‘energy partners’—we can provide that financing at a lower cost of interest.”

The costs of many of the upgrades can be partially or completely offset by more efficient energy use.

Rudolph and the San Isabel Electric board see this “pay-as-you-save” approach as a major component of the co-op’s beneficial electrification strategy.

“Market penetration for many of the products we’re offering is below 20%, so there are plenty of opportunities for growth,” said Rudolph. “If we have our rates right, we can compete with natural gas and propane, so we see Empower as a way to grow our utility sales and enhance the services available to everyone living in our area.”

The co-op is forging relationships with solar and window contractors interested in expanding sales in their territory. It’s also working with a homebuilder to promote “all electric home” construction. Rudolph hopes to expand the program to include more builders and vendors.

“Every product that we offer has a reason be in the product mix, and we’ve assigned sales goals as well as long-term values of increasing electricity usage,” said Rudolph. “San Isabel Electric is a trusted name in southern Colorado, so we think this is going to help both members and non-members alike.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

A coalition of 29 electric cooperatives has created a regional electric vehicle charging network across Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa designed to encourage co-op consumer-members to drive EVs.

The coalition invested over $100,000 in more than 40 Level 2 and Level 3 chargers provided by ZEF Energy Inc. of Edina, Minnesota, to form the CHARGE EV network. Co-op leaders hope the chargers, installed near major highways and interstates, will assure Midwest drivers that they can take EVs on long drives without fear of running out of power.

“Electric co-ops have brand awareness and a strong relationship with their members and communities,” said Nate Boettcher, CEO of Pierce Pepin Cooperative Services in Ellsworth, Wisconsin. “We want to ensure when EV drivers leave their co-op service area they know other EV charging stations are available throughout the upper Midwest powered by electric co-ops.”

Co-op leaders said they created the charging network to help prepare for future growth in EV use, which has the potential to help co-ops boost the sale of electricity during non-peak periods. Many co-ops provide incentives to members to charge EVs during overnight hours, when overall electricity demand is low.

“Programs like this demonstrate the co-ops’ commitment to improving access to environmentally friendly electric technologies for their members, educate the public about electric transportation and showcase the co-ops’ concern for their regions by investing in a local company that is committed to the citizens of their communities,” said Brian Sloboda, NRECA’s director of consumer solutions.

CHARGE EV’s goal is “to provide EV owners peace of mind driving from Iowa to northern Wisconsin, or from Minnesota to Illinois, knowing there are co-op-powered chargers along their route,” said Jeff Springer, manager of innovation and efficient electrification at Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse, Wisconsin. “That will give people confidence to consider an EV and encourage growth in the EV market.”

The coalition is a big boost for small co-ops, which do not have the resources to invest in EV charging by themselves, said Jesse Singerhouse, general manager and CEO of Dunn Energy Cooperative in Menomonie, Wisconsin.

“Being a smaller cooperative, Dunn Energy jumped at the chance to collaborate with other electric cooperatives to form CHARGE EV,” Singerhouse said. “By working together, we can help our members and non-members alike feel more comfortable purchasing an electric vehicle in our region.”

CHARGE EV will also focus on educating members about installing home chargers and encouraging them to test-drive EVs. The coalition hopes its efforts will inspire other co-ops to join the network.

“We are proving this can be done in the upper Midwest where EV adoption has been slow, but we believe the real value will be in having other cooperatives join under the CHARGE EV brand,” Boettcher said. “We hope in the near future there is a national co-op EV brand and charging network.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

A 109-megawatt-hour battery energy storage system—one of the largest to be owned and operated by an electric cooperative—is forecast to save Northeastern REMC members at least $35 million on their power bills over the next two decades.

“We feel the savings assumptions are conservative,” said Eric Jung, CEO of the Columbia City, Indiana-based co-op. “The value presented to us today is already greater than the additional costs, and this will only rise as transmission and capacity costs increase.”

NREMC in December inked the deal with battery maker FlexGen for a total of 31 MW of lithium iron phosphate batteries to be fully operational by 2023.

A portion of the batteries will be installed at each of the co-op’s five substations, where they will charge off the grid during off-peak hours. NREMC will break ground at two sites this spring to begin using the available storage to help offset this summer’s peaks.

More than 75% of the co-op’s total expenses are in power supply and 38% of those costs are summer peak-related, Jung said. The battery’s instantaneous feed “will reduce those peak costs by approximately 25%,” he said.

NREMC is unaffiliated with a generation and transmission co-op, serving its 33,000 meters largely through a long-term wholesale power agreement tied to the 13-state PJM regional transmission organization. Escalating transmission fees included in power market prices stirred the co-op to act with its board’s support.

“We were looking into battery storage to hedge against increasing transmission costs,” said Jung, citing 14% average annual hikes over the last six years with a 20% increase this year alone. “The batteries will pay for themselves by 2027. We wish we had it in a year ago!”

The co-op not only plans to use the utility-scale battery system as a hedge when prices spike in the wholesale electricity market but also as a revenue stream by bidding into the PJM regulation market, he said.

Should severe weather damage power lines and force outages, the batteries could keep more than 3,200 households online for at least three hours, according to FlexGen.

NREMC will be able to control the storage units from its headquarters through its SCADA system. Jung said the co-op hopes to incorporate solar along with additional storage in the future.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Electric cooperatives are finding ways to quickly develop new sources of renewable energy to help meet member demand for reliable, affordable power.

Distribution co-ops in Kansas are adding more than 20 megawatts of solar power over the next two years through power purchase agreements with a co-op-owned solar developer based in Arkansas, and Minnesota’s Great River Energy has announced a 200 MW agreement with a wind developer.

A dozen Kansas co-ops issued a joint request for bids for development of up to 5% of peaking renewable capacity under the Kansas Cooperative Sun Power Program. The co-ops’ wholesale power supplier recently revised its contracts to allow co-ops to meet up to 15% of their peaking demand with owned or contracted renewable capacity.

The Kansas group accepted proposals from North Little Rock-based Today’s Power Inc. to build, maintain and operate separate projects serving 12 co-ops for a period of 25 years. Construction of the arrays begins in 2021, with all sites expected to be fully operational by late 2022.

“Clean energy will not only reduce our carbon footprint but will help us reach our goal of rate stability by helping the co-op save on the wholesale power bill,” said Steve Foss, CEO of FreeState Electric Cooperative.

The distribution co-op, jointly headquartered in McLouth and Topeka, added a pair of industrial-scale generators at two of its substations in 2018, and co-op management sees the addition of 2 MW of solar capacity as a more economical way of controlling wholesale power costs.

“We look at everything very carefully to determine the feasibly of a project, the investment, and how it will impact our members in a positive way,” said Foss. “This project is about financial savings and rate stability and the solar project will help us achieve that.”

Girard-based Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative is adding 2 MW of solar to help meet member peak demand.

“Everyone in rural Kansas works hard for their money and deserves some of the financial security that these solar projects will provide,” said Heartland CEO Mark Scheibe. “What we do helps feed and fuel America, and this project will help us provide affordable power for our consumer-members.”

Lebo-based 4 Rivers Electric Cooperative is adding two 1-MW solar arrays to serve its 7,000 members. The co-op expects to save money year-round by shaving costs tied to a few hours on the hottest days of the year, because of the influence of peak demand on wholesale rates.

“We have summer peaks, and our highest peak during July and August sets a ratcheted peak for the remaining eight months,” said Dennis Svanes, CEO and general manager of 4 Rivers EC. “A reduction in peak costs translates into lower rates immediately for our members.”

Under the agreements, Today’s Power will monitor production, provide maintenance and upkeep at sites spread across Kansas and guarantee projected output provisions outlined in the contracts.

“For a small co-op like Twin Valley Electric Cooperative, with very few employees, a turnkey agreement is perfect,” said Angie Erickson, CEO of the Altamont-based co-op, which serves about 3,000 meters. She added that the agreement affords the co-op opportunities to provide solar energy to its members without requiring additional training and expertise for its small staff.

Site work is expected to begin within weeks at some locations.

“Engineering and design work are already in progress for these projects,” said Matt Irving, vice president of operations for Today’s Power. “Our technicians can develop and commission a 1-MW solar array within 60 days once land is acquired and prepared and all permits and engineering approvals are in place.”

Today’s Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Inc. Since 2014, the company has built solar arrays for 15 of Arkansas’s electric co-ops and for other co-ops in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Once the Kansas projects are deployed, the company will have more than 70 MW of solar capacity deployed under PPAs in four states.

Meanwhile, Maple Grove, Minnesota-based Great River Energy has signed a PPA for 200 MW of wind energy. The generation and transmission co-op serves 28 distribution co-ops in Minnesota and is committed to meeting 50% of its overall demand with renewable power by 2030.

“Securing beneficial wind energy is a vital component of our power supply strategy,” said Jon Brekke, vice president and chief power supply officer for the G&T. “This project is an important step in our portfolio transition that will benefit our members for decades to come.”

Great River Energy is acquiring the full output from 73 turbines being deployed across South Dakota’s Deuel County by a renewable energy developer. It will begin receiving energy from the Deuel Harvest Wind Farm in 2023.

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Situated on almost 20 acres of land in Virginia’s Rockingham County, Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative’s new headquarters has more amenities than its former site, including a drive-thru member service kiosk, a track for employees and solar panels.

And eventually, a unique arboretum with educational and environmental benefits will grace the grounds, thanks to a project spearheaded by Scott Sorrels, the co-op’s vegetation management supervisor.

“The arboretum will show how the cooperative is committed to caring for the environment,” said Sorrels, who’s also the Rockingham-based co-op’s arborist. “It will have a lasting impact on the valley as a showcase of renewable resources. We can’t wait to have people stop by to learn more.”

Initially, Sorrels envisioned the arboretum as strictly a lush, leafy enclave. But after researching a Virginia Tech program that promotes utility-friendly trees, he settled on the idea of the three-in-one arboretum, which will showcase renewable energy, pollinator habitat and small trees designed not to interfere with power lines. He pitched the plan to Greg Rogers, the co-op’s president and CEO.

Leadership approved the idea, “as long as it didn’t cost the members anything,” he said.

Sorrels is already making good on his promise of keeping it low- or no-cost. He has pulled together an array of public and private partners to help fund his vision. Recently, four rights-of-way contractors donated money and labor for tree plantings, the installation of a pollinator garden, and an acorn-planting project by the Virginia Department of Forestry to promote trees as a renewable resource.

When the project is complete, Sorrels envisions a landscape dotted with a variety of small renewable energy installations—the co-op’s solar panels already are on display—and a habitat to attract butterflies and other pollinators. Low-growing trees—a landscaper recently planted saplings—will adorn the area, and educational displays will educate the public on the co-op’s smart tree growth practices.

Sorrels also wants to educate the public on the co-op’s tree-trimming policies and its Right Tree, Right Place program, which encourages homeowners to plant low-growing trees to avoid interference with power lines.

“People are protective of their trees, and it’s difficult trying to educate them about keeping trees back from power lines,” said Sorrels. “It’s the No. 1 issue with power outages. But no matter how I shake it or bake it, people are never going to be happy with how I trimmed their tree.”

A small-scale demonstration of the Right Tree, Right Place program would feature small trees that would grow under a three-phase power line on the property.

“A grassy meadow under a power line has always been my goal,” he said. “I want the flowers and the grass, just not the overgrown trees and brush.”

Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer at NRECA.

NRECA has won a $1 million, three-year grant from the Department of Energy to research the best ways for electric cooperatives to extend the benefits of solar power to low-income members.

“Eighty-five years ago, when there was no electricity in rural America, rural electric cooperatives were borne out of the need to address the lack of access to electricity in many rural households,” said Adaora Ifebigh, NRECA’s senior manager of research and development engagements and leader of NRECA’s Advancing Energy Access for All initiative.  “Fast forward to today. While the needs are different, changes in the global and U.S. economies have presented new challenges and those communities are at risk of being left behind.”

The DOE grant funds NRECA’s Achieving Cooperative Community Equitable Solar Sources (ACCESS) project, the flagship effort of Advancing Energy Access for All, which spotlights co-ops’ efforts to ensure that grid advancements benefit everyone.

NRECA will work with six co-ops that are already conducting innovative solar projects designed to benefit low and moderate-income consumer-members. NRECA will partner with those co-ops to see what works best and develop resources to share with other co-ops across the country, Ifebigh said.

Co-ops that are participating in the project are: Anza Electric Cooperative in California, Oklahoma Electric Cooperative in Norman, Orcas Power & Light Cooperative in Eastsound, Washington; Roanoke Electric Cooperative in Aulander, North Carolina; BARC Electric Cooperative in Millboro, Virginia; and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative in Taos, New Mexico.

Roanoke EC has received nearly $500,000 in donations from clean energy groups to help low-income households buy solar panels in the co-op’s community solar garden as part of its SolarShare initiative. By earning credits from solar panel subscriptions, co-op members have the leverage to pay for needed health and safety repairs at their homes. These repairs prepare the home for full participation in the cooperative’s energy-efficiency financing program, Upgrade to $ave, said Marshall Cherry, Roanoke’s chief operating officer.

The SolarShare initiative has boosted participation in the co-op’s community solar garden from about 25% of its existing capacity to 100% within one year, he said.

“This is a way for us to bring more engagement in solar while meeting the pocketbook issues faced by member-owners in this economically distressed region,” Cherry said.

Oklahoma EC is helping Norman Public Schools save energy costs by building a 15-acre, 2-megawatt solar farm that will generate about 30% of the school’s power and reduce its costs. About half of the school district’s students are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Construction of the solar farm is expected to be completed in January.

“This project serves to uniquely help the city of Norman meet its 100% renewable energy goal, foster education of renewable energy and STEM education, assist local schools financially, and share the development of these programs on a national level through NRECA and DOE,” said Nick Shumaker, the co-op’s manager of system engineering.

In Southern California, Anza EC will soon complete construction of a 4-MW community solar array and battery storage project that will serve members of the Cahuilla Band of Cahuilla Indians and other low-income consumer-members. The project is expected to be finished by the end of November, said Kevin Short, the co-op’s general manager.

The cost of solar projects has dropped dramatically over the last several years, making it more affordable for co-ops to bring solar power to low-income communities and meet state requirements to boost the use of renewables, Short said.

“I think the historic price barrier is not as much of an obstacle anymore,” he said.

In Virginia, BARC EC’s “Solarize BARC” program combines battery storage, electric vehicle charging and utility-scale, rooftop and community solar programs for its members. By next summer, the distribution co-op will begin getting power from two solar projects totaling 7.5 MW of installed capacity from its generation and transmission co-op, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. BARC is engaged with NRECA’s ACCESS program to leverage a portion of these projects to create a program tailored for low- and middle-income members.

“When we launched Solarize BARC, it was about bringing the benefits of solar to all members,” BARC CEO Mike Keyser said. “Whether the barriers are physical or financial, we’re trying to make it accessible to everyone, and the ACCESS program is providing valuable technical assistance to achieve this mission.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Laura Matney loved her Indianapolis co-op’s Tesla so much that she made the rounds of local car dealers this year looking for an affordable electric car for herself.

What she found instead was a frustrating lack of knowledge among car salespeople about the electric vehicles parked in their lots. They couldn’t tell her the most basic information about how far a specific EV could go on a fully charged battery or what kind of electrical outlet she would need to charge the car quickly.

“I went out for a test drive with a young dealer and I said, ‘Tell me about the range on this car,’” said Matney, marketing manager for Wabash Valley Power Alliance, a generation and transmission co-op. “He said, ‘I’m not really sure what you mean by range.’ Another dealer had no idea that cold and heat can affect the battery’s range … If I hadn’t really wanted to buy an electric vehicle, I would have given up.”

Matney’s story is not unique. NRECA’s online forum for co-op conversations about electric vehicles is filled with tales of car dealers who don’t seem to know the first thing about EVs. That’s especially disappointing for co-ops trying to encourage their members to drive EVs as a way to boost energy sales, reduce maintenance and fuel costs for consumers, and help the environment.

NRECA is looking at ways to address the problem by offering interested co-ops a fee-based service that would assess the EV expertise of the dealers in their territories.

“It’s a brand-new offering spurred in large part by the horror stories we’ve heard,” said Brian Sloboda, NRECA’s director of consumer solutions. “A lot of dealers in co-op territories don’t even have an EV on the lot. And those that do often don’t know enough to give consumers information about the financial incentives available from governments and co-ops to buy an EV.”

NRECA is working with D+R International, a Maryland-based consulting firm, to devise the most affordable way for paid contractors to interview dealers in co-op areas to find out what they know about EVs.

“A dealer assessment like this is valuable so that we as a co-op can find out what’s out there and give that information to our members who are interested,” said Eliana Martinez, energy management specialist at United Power in Brighton, Colorado.

Each dealer would be given a rating, and co-ops would use that information to post a list of the best EV dealers on their websites to help members know where to go. D+R has worked with about half of NRECA’s member co-ops to develop the ChooseEV website, which co-ops such as United Power and Wabash Valley already use to educate members about EVs.

“Co-op members could go straight to ChooseEV websites to see which dealers are ready to go,” Sloboda said.

After they get the survey results, co-ops could host an education program for local dealers that need help. The program will feature a half-hour webinar developed by D+R and NRECA, he said.

“The education program would be delivered by the co-ops so if the dealers have questions, they’ve got a local partner to help them,” Sloboda said.

One car salesman who has been enthusiastic about EVs for years is Nigel Zeid of Boulder Nissan in Colorado. Zeid, Nissan’s top-selling EV specialist in America, says too many dealers still balk at selling electric cars.

“We in the car industry are our own worst enemy as far as EVs are concerned,” Zeid said. “Dealerships in general don’t make money on selling new cars as the profit margins are much thinner than people think, so servicing and selling parts are important. A car with an internal combustion engine has about 3,000 moving parts versus 30 for an electric vehicle, so there’s no revenue stream in an EV.”

Salespeople often don’t want to take the time with a potential EV buyer to explain how the car works or to educate themselves about electric vehicles, Zeid said.

“But we can’t just blame the salesforce for the lack of EV enthusiasm,” said Zeid, who emphasized that he was offering his personal opinion and not speaking for his employer. “It starts at the top, either at the dealership management level or at the corporate level.”

Zeid said he thinks of himself as a “pollinator” spreading EV knowledge among consumers.

“I’ll talk to anyone at length about electric vehicles and, even if they don’t buy anything, they’ll talk to someone else and tell them to come see me,” he said. “That’s how I’ve developed my reputation. Plus, I love driving an EV, so it’s not hard to be genuinely enthusiastic about them.”

Meanwhile, back in Indiana, Matney gave up on her local car dealers and, armed with her own research, bought an all-electric 2017 Chevy Bolt online from Carvana.

“I know it takes time to adopt new technology, but these dealers need to understand that if you don’t keep up with the times, you get left behind,” she said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Eight North Carolina electric cooperatives have been awarded a total of $700,000 by the state to expand the already extensive co-op-owned network of electric vehicle charging stations.

The co-ops will use the money, appropriated by the General Assembly and awarded by the Department of Environmental Quality, to install 10 high-speed charging stations along travel corridors in rural and suburban communities in the next two years. The state’s co-ops already have nearly 60 stations, many in high-traffic tourist destinations such as parks, lakes and beaches. It is one of the largest co-op-owned networks in the nation.

These funds come from the $30 million available through the first phase of the state’s $92 million share of the national Volkswagen settlement. The Environmental Protection Agency charged that Volkswagen, based in Germany, cheated on U.S. emissions tests with vehicles produced from 2009 to 2016. In 2017, the automaker pleaded guilty to fraud, obstruction of justice and falsifying statements as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The money will help the co-ops fill in critical charging gaps throughout rural North Carolina, said Diane Huis, senior vice president of innovation and business development for North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives. The statewide association represents 26 co-ops.

“These projects encourage not only the environmental and cost savings benefits of electric transportation, but also promote education, commerce, tourism, economic development and improved quality of life in our communities,” Huis said.

The co-ops that were awarded the money are: Albemarle EMC in Hertford; Blue Ridge Energy in Lenoir; Edgecombe-Martin County EMC in Tarboro; EnergyUnited in Statesville; Haywood EMC in Waynesville; Piedmont Electric in Hillsborough; Randolph EMC in Asheboro; and Roanoke Electric Cooperative in Aulander. They will each be responsible for funding the electrical infrastructure to support the charging stations. ChargePoint, a California-based company that operates the world’s largest EV charging network, will supply the charging equipment.

North Carolina’s co-ops, and several others throughout the nation, also are pairing with school districts to use VW settlement funds for electric school buses. The co-ops are partnering with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to use $277,000 for an electric bus that will serve a route in southwestern Randolph County. Randolph EMC will provide a DC fast charger and electrical infrastructure for the bus on the campus of Southwestern Randolph Middle School. The project will serve as a case study for all the state’s co-ops.

Statewide, the first phase of funding will replace 111 school buses and 16 transit buses and install 33 zero-emission-vehicle fast-charging stations. The state estimates that the projects will reduce nearly 32 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions each year, equal to the amount produced by more than 51,000 cars.

“These awards not only put hundreds of children in safer school buses, they also reduce air pollution, encourage electric vehicle use, and advance North Carolina’s transition to a cleaner economy,” Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

North Carolina’s 26 electric cooperatives are pledging to cut their carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050 as part of a larger initiative to improve the quality of life for rural residents and communities they serve.

The North Carolina co-op network’s new “Brighter Future” long-term effort brings together the co-ops’ continued support for local communities with sustainability measures and expanding innovation that strengthens the grid, coordinates distributed energy resources, and provides new energy services and a variety of benefits to members.

“Electric cooperatives are leading a wide range of economically sound, innovative energy solutions and advanced technologies that make the electric grid more flexible, efficient and resilient than ever before,” said Nelle Hotchkiss, chief operating officer and senior vice president of association services at North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives, the Raleigh-based statewide association and generation and transmission co-op.

“Integrating and coordinating new energy resources will allow our co-ops to play a greater role in the operation of the distribution system and give the entire cooperative network the opportunity to leverage operational efficiencies and benefits.”

She said the co-ops will meet their CO₂ goals, while preserving reliability and affordability, by using innovative technology and solutions that make the grid more flexible and efficient and enable the integration of more renewable resources. North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives will also continue to rely on carbon-free nuclear energy, which already accounts for about 60% of its portfolio.

Co-op resources will be aggregated and coordinated on a statewide level using the G&T’s distributed energy resource management system (DERMS). This centralized interconnected energy platform “allows us to deploy resources in a way that offsets the need for traditional power generation and provides significant savings and benefits to cooperative consumer-members,” Hotchkiss said.

Keith Dennis, NRECA Business and Technology Strategies vice president, said a growing number of co-ops are using DERMS to expand their energy options and improve efficiency.

“North Carolina’s work in this field is a demonstration of how the industry is changing and how cooperatives are adapting to provide more value to their members,” he said.

Hotchkiss said “Brighter Future” also goes well beyond power generation and includes co-op investments in education, economic development and community enrichment.

Curtis Wynn, CEO of Aulander-based Roanoke Electric Cooperative and NRECA president, spoke at the unveiling of the Brighter Future initiative and focused on how his co-op’s high-speed internet rollout benefits co-op members and communities.

“There is a critical need for broadband connectivity in rural areas, and Roanoke Electric is working to close the digital divide with our Roanoke Connect initiative,” said Wynn. “These broadband efforts are just the latest iteration of our focus on providing economic opportunity and access to new services for our members.”

Paul Spruill, CEO of Pantego-based Tideland EMC, cited co-ops’ work to make rural areas more competitive and attractive, including the development of two microgrids within his service territory.

“We are embedded within the local community and keenly aware of the needs and capabilities of our members,” Spruill said. “This gives us flexibility in pursuing innovative solutions that position our entire region for growth and success.”

Jeff Clark, CEO of Jones-Onslow EMC in Jacksonville, spoke of the importance of engagement with both members and other co-ops, as his co-op recently launched a new smart thermostat demand response program. 

“We’re one of four cooperatives in North Carolina that are implementing this new program, and we’re looking forward to demonstrating the importance of coordinating grid resources in partnership with other co-ops,” Clark said. “We’re able to do this because we have such a strong cooperative network and strong engagement with our members.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Kentucky co-ops and a global distiller are taking the order “Whiskey, neat” to a new level.

Inter-County Energy Cooperative, headquartered in Danville, Kentucky, recently announced arrangements with international beverage-maker Diageo to power the company’s new 72,000-square-foot distillery, dry house and warehousing facilities in Lebanon with 100% renewable energy.

Winchester-based G&T East Kentucky Power Cooperative has also entered power purchase agreements with the company to deliver renewable energy to the $130 million distillery, which will produce up to 10 million proof gallons of American whiskey, including Bulleit bourbon, a year. 

In addition, Diageo will lease panels from Cooperative Solar Farm One, which is owned by Inter-County Energy and 15 other Kentucky electric cooperatives and run by EKPC.

Diageo expects to complete construction of the distillery and begin production in 2021.

“Inter-County Energy is proud to work in partnership with Diageo and East Kentucky Power Cooperative to understand the energy needs of this facility and to develop innovative ways to meet the sustainability goals of one of the largest renewable energy consumers in Kentucky,” said Jerry Carter, president and CEO of Inter-County Energy.

The Diageo Lebanon Distillery is expected to be one of the largest carbon neutral distilleries in North America, according to the company, whose portfolio contains more than 200 brands, including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal and Guinness. Among its innovations will be electrode boilers and an onsite fleet of only electric vehicles, including forklifts, Diageo said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Utility-scale solar power is coming to Montana’s Big Sky Country, and the energy produced will help meet the needs of electric cooperative consumer-members.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Clēnera Renewable Energy have signed a power purchase agreement for the Cabin Creek Solar Project, which will consist of two 75-MW projects in southeastern Montana. According to Clēnera, the project will eliminate 265,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year and power 30,000 homes.

“Adding solar further promotes our all-of-the-above energy solution as we generate energy using a diverse resource portfolio including coal, natural gas, and other renewable resources,” said Paul Sukut, Basin Electric’s CEO and general manager.

The Cabin Creek Solar Project will be Basin Electric’s second contracted utility-scale solar project.

“Cost-competitive energy like the Cabin Creek Solar Project will be part of the energy mix we purchase from Basin Electric for our member systems,” said Claire Vigesaa, general manager of Upper Missouri Power Cooperative. The Sidney, Montana-based generation and transmission cooperative is one of 10 G&T members of Basin Electric.

The two new solar arrays will be built on 1,100 acres five miles west of Baker, Montana, in the service territory of Ekalaka-based Southeast Electric Cooperative.

Under the terms of the 15-year contract, both arrays are expected to be completed by 2023. Developers worked with Basin Electric and the local co-op to coordinate siting and transmission needs.  

“This project is one more example of cooperatives working together to use economies of scale to add affordable generation for all their members—similar to what was done 70 years ago when cooperatives were first built,” said Jack Hamblin, Southeast EC’s general manager.

According to the Department of Energy, Montana is home to about 30% of the United States’ recoverable coal reserves. Bakken Range oil and gas reserves also extend into the state. Wind generation currently meets about 7% of the state’s energy demand.

“This project underscores the efforts by Montana’s electric cooperatives to continue to embrace more carbon-free technology,” said Gary Wiens, CEO of Montana Electric Cooperatives’ Association. “It also demonstrates Basin Electric’s commitment to seek development of renewable energy projects in our state.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Keeping tens of thousands of hogs fat and happy takes a lot of electricity, but Reicks View Farms has found a way to reduce its monthly electric bill while improving the environment.

The Lawler, Iowa, hog farm, which has 50,000 breeding sows and ships 25,000 hogs to market each week, is now earning money from selling solar energy to MiEnergy Cooperative, an electric co-op based jointly in Cresco, Iowa, and Rushford, Minnesota.

The 664-kW Reicks View solar array has reduced the farm’s carbon footprint, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 333 tons. And the renewable power generated by the farm benefits the hogs, according to farm operators.

“We’re constantly changing the environment to keep it comfortable for the pigs,” said Mark Kipp, the farm’s purchasing manager. “As it gets warmer, we’ve got to move a lot of fresh air through our buildings. That helps the pigs stay healthy and, when they’re healthy, they eat better and they gain more weight.”

When farm managers began exploring renewable energy, they considered biowaste generation and wind turbines. But the farm’s maintenance staff and electricians had experience with small solar applications, so utility-scale solar quickly won out.

The array of static solar panels, constructed on pastureland located near MiEnergy’s three-phase distribution feeder line, began producing electricity 10 months ago. Six sheep grazing at the site consume enough vegetation to help minimize upkeep.

“In this situation, it benefits both the member and the cooperative by building one large utility-scale system rather than several small ones,” said Brian Krambeer, MiEnergy’s president and CEO.

He credited the co-op’s power supplier, Dairyland Power Cooperative, with paving the way for the deal by allowing its distribution co-ops to add locally generated renewable energy to their portfolios.

“This arrangement has allowed us to add Reicks View Farms’ system, as well as add four future arrays totaling 9 MW situated in specific areas of our service territory where distribution lines make for efficient delivery of power locally,” Krambeer said.

Farm operators are studying the possibility of adding more renewable energy, including battery storage, to help control energy costs as part of future modernization efforts. Meanwhile, they continue to monitor the performance of the solar components.

“I was surprised to learn how much solar technology has improved in the last five years,” said Kipp. “I didn’t know what to expect going into this, but from what I know now, I think we’ll see even more solar energy as technology evolves.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

A Wisconsin electric cooperative sees a bright future for electric vehicles in its service territory and is partnering with a local builder to make EV owners feel right at home in a new subdivision.

In a joint venture with Eau Claire Energy Cooperative, C&M Home Builders is constructing 44 homes in its new Trilogy community that will be equipped with a Level 2 EV charger as a standard feature. The project is supported with funding from Dairyland Power Cooperative, the region’s La Crosse-based power supplier.

“C&M Home Builders’ homes are certified as being more than 25% more efficient than homes built to Wisconsin Uniform Dwelling Code standards through a program called Focus on Energy,” said Lynn Thompson, CEO of the Eau Claire-based distribution co-op. “They’ve also been a great partner in connecting members to energy-efficiency incentives and load management programs for those homes.”

Thompson said EVs are rare in ECEC’s service territory now, but consumer interest is increasing as more models are introduced. Development of an entire subdivision of homes designed to accommodate the increased energy load, coupled with special electric rates for EV owners, could help stimulate demand.

“We see the transportation sector as a real opportunity for us to grow load in a beneficial way for the environment and increase value for our members,” said Thompson, adding that the co-op worked with Dairyland Power to modify requirements for its EV incentive program.

The G&T has previously offered incentives tied to the members’ purchases of EVs to help offset the costs of charging equipment. The arrangement with ECEC provides subdivision-wide incentives for the co-op-provided charger, encouraging residents of the new community—or future co-op members—to consider an EV purchase. 

“We are fortunate to have a visionary wholesale power provider that aligns with members’ interests and supports load growth opportunities,” said Monica Obrycki, ECEC’s chief administrative officer. “In this case, they are taking the ‘Field of Dreams’ approach of ‘if you build it, they will come,’ and they will give us the incentive for all of those upfront.”

The builder is listing the EV chargers as a marketing amenity comparable to community sewage hookups instead of septic tanks.

The houses in the subdivision are also being prewired to accommodate rooftop solar systems as an option at construction or as a later addition, said Thompson. “We see it as a way to be recognized as that trusted adviser when it comes to electric vehicles and other technologies our members are now considering.”

Read More:

Neighborhood Microgrid Gives Co-op New Case for Understanding Technology

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

The number of electric utilities deploying large battery systems to store power is on the rise, but it’s a technology that’s still very much in its infancy. How are electric cooperatives integrating storage, and how are they using it to serve their members? 

In the latest episode of Along Those Lines, NRECA’s Jan Ahlen explains how this promising technology works and where the trend is headed. We’ll also hear from Kevin Short, general manager of Anza Electric Cooperative, whose co-op is getting ready to deploy its first utility-scale battery storage unit to help battle resiliency challenges due to California’s frequent wildfires. And Barry Brown, executive director of engineering and transmission maintenance at AEPCO, talks about their unique relationship with Anza and how they’ve worked together to get this project off the ground.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Related Content:

What’s In Store? Co-ops Are Laying the Groundwork for a Battery Breakthrough
‘Value Right Out of the Gate’: Energy Storage Pays Off for a Vermont Co-op

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

A resilient neighborhood is under construction in North Carolina, where an electric cooperative will be at the helm of a microgrid to keep residents powered during times of volatility, be it weather or prices.

Wake Electric Membership Corp. is working with a home builder and North Carolina Electric Membership Corp., the statewide generation and transmission cooperative, to provide a microgrid to serve the 31-home subdivision during extreme situations.

“As a residential homeowner in the neighborhood, most of the benefit will be that the resilience of their electric service will be very high,” said Don Bowman, vice president of engineering and operations at the Wake Forest-based distribution co-op.

The microgrid will consist of two 150-kilowatt generators fueled by propane and a 1 megawatt-hour/500 kW Tesla PowerPack battery system. NCEMC will own the battery and will also configure the controller that will tie all of the microgrid components together.

“This new project will continue to move our operational understanding of microgrid capabilities forward,” said Bob Beadle, project manager for NCEMC. “It will provide new use cases for microgrid technology in a residential setting.”

The neighborhood will be able to run for up to 36 hours in times of outages due to hurricanes, other weather events, accidents, equipment failure or even proactive maintenance work on the system, said Bowman. The microgrid will also be connected to the main grid, adding new power resources that support greater reliability.

“We will have the ability to make the neighborhood resilient, and we will have added support for our transmission and distribution system,” said Bowman.

Groundbreaking on the Youngsville subdivision, about 40 miles northeast of Raleigh, is slated for this month. Construction of the homes is expected to be completed by year’s end.

The project began when the developer came to the Franklin County economic development office, located in Wake EMC’s headquarters building, with the idea of a subdivision where each house had its own generator.

“We asked him to think about all the generators coming on at the same time,” which would produce more generation than necessary and could potentially be very noisy, said Bowman. “We came to the conclusion that 300 kilowatts of generation in a remote corner of the subdivision property could serve [the homes] and began to build a microgrid for the neighborhood.”

With the goal of building all-electric homes, the co-op offered a rebate for electric water heaters in each house. It expects to recover the cost of the rebates in a couple of years. Each home’s garage will also be prewired for electric vehicle charging.

“If we work toward making this a so-called ‘resilient neighborhood,’ we’d like to see that our members are confident in building all-electric homes,” said Bowman. “We are excited to have a residential subdivision that has its own microgrid.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association is pursuing new member-driven initiatives to help meet renewable energy demands for its electric cooperatives and public power districts while advancing clean power public policies and supporting electric vehicle technology.

As part of its Responsible Energy Plan, the G&T is committed to meeting half of its electric demand with renewable energy by 2024 and providing member distribution utilities with greater flexibility to independently pursue local or self-supplied renewable energy projects

“Our cooperative and its members are aligned in our transition to clean power,” said Rick Gordon, chairman of Tri-State, which is based in Westminster, Colorado. “With today’s announcement, we’re poised to become a new Tri-State; a Tri-State that will provide reliable, affordable and responsible power to our members and communities for many years to come.”

The plan includes expansion of EV support infrastructure across Tri-State’s 200,000-square-mile footprint, which includes portions of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.

“With a cleaner grid, Tri-State will fund electric vehicle charging stations for each member and will work with members to further promote electric vehicle usage,” said Lee Boughey, Tri-State’s senior manager of communications and public affairs. Boughey said the G&T is expanding its commitment to other opportunities for beneficial electrification.

“Membership in Tri-State will provide the best option for cooperatives seeking a clean, flexible and competitively priced power supply, while still receiving the benefits of being a part of a financially strong, not-for-profit, full-service cooperative,” said Duane Highley, Tri-State’s CEO.

Among the projects highlighted in the Responsible Energy Plan:

• The addition of eight long-term projects to its portfolio, collectively adding nearly 1 gigawatt of renewable energy, including 715 megawatts of solar power at six facilities and 304 MW of wind at two facilities in New Mexico and Colorado.
• Ongoing work by a contract committee made up of representatives of the G&T’s membership to evaluate partial requirements contracts designed to provide members with flexible options to pursue self-supply options.

“Our membership has moved quickly over the past six months to advance recommendations for flexible partial requirements contracts,” said Gordon. The Tri-State board will consider those recommendations in April.

Read More:

Tri-State G&T Announces Plans to Phase Out Coal Generation

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

The power supplier for most of North Carolina’s electric cooperatives has something new to cluck about: a state-of-the-art facility on co-op lines that converts poultry waste into electricity.

North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. expects the recently opened Carolina Poultry Power facility to be a major resource to help it meet the state’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard. In addition to power, NCEMC will purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs) from the CPP to fulfill the standard’s requirements for in-state renewable energy producers.

The Raleigh-based generation and transmission cooperative must procure and retire enough RECs from renewable energy resources to meet 10% of its prior year retail sales, and a portion of the RECs must come from poultry waste facilities.

“The CPP is going to help us reach our compliance requirement,” said Debbie Britt, NCEMC manager of portfolio management. “It also will benefit the area’s poultry farmers, many of whom are our members, who now are able to supply waste and turn it into an asset.”

The $32 million facility is served by Pitt & Greene Electric Membership Corp. in Farmville, where its developer, Power Resource Group, is also based. Pitt & Greene upgraded its substation and distribution system infrastructure to ensure a successful interconnection between CPP and the co-op’s system.

“It’s exciting to see a unique facility like this take shape within a cooperative community,” said Mark Suggs, executive vice president and general manager of Pitt & Greene EMC. “Agriculture is incredibly important to this region, and we’re proud to support this key industry while also encouraging local job creation, economic development and sustainability.”

At full capacity, the facility will process 200 tons of poultry waste a day from local farms that will convert to about 165,000 megawatt-hours of electricity and steam energy per year.

“It was truly a pleasure to work with Pitt & Greene EMC on this innovative project,” said Richard Deming, Power Resource Group CEO and CPP managing partner. “The close working relationship and focus from the team was critical in getting interconnection done in a timely manner, and NCEMC was a fantastic partner in navigating complex issues. Partnering with the electric cooperatives has been an excellent experience.”

“This is a win-win for North Carolina’s energy and agriculture sectors as we work together to achieve a brighter energy future for our state,” said Mike Burnette, NCEMC’s senior vice president of power supply and chief operating officer.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative reached a key renewables milestone recently, delivering periods of 100% fossil-fuel-free generation for several consecutive days in early December.

“We didn’t use a drop of fossil fuel for a cumulative total of more than 32 hours” during 11 days between Nov. 22 and Dec. 10, KIUC President and CEO David Bissell said. “We believe this is a unique accomplishment for a stand-alone electrical grid relying on small-scale renewable generation.”

Bissell said grid operators have routinely been able to meet 90% of demand and more with renewable assets during midday periods on sunny days for nearly two years, but hitting 100% repeatedly during the November-December stretch was a milestone. The co-op also cracked the five-consecutive-hour mark without fossil fuel generation on Dec. 10.

As Kauai’s only source of utility-scale electricity, KIUC serves nearly 40,000 meters. The island’s 100,000-plus residents and visitors receive renewable power from a combination of distributed and utility-scale solar, a biomass plant and several small hydro generation facilities.

KIUC’s board launched its renewable generation strategy in 2008, with a goal of reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, said Bissell. “Our cooperative is proudly leading the way to a 100% renewable future not just on Kauai but around the globe.” 

This fall, KIUC added several renewable assets into its portfolio in 2019, including solar/storage facilities in conjunction with Tesla and an AES Distributed Energy facility. The projects simultaneously feed power to the grid and to the batteries for storage and use after sunset.

All told, the co-op has 64.3 megawatts of owned or contracted solar capacity, 16.3 MW of hydropower and 152 megawatt-hours of battery storage. Member-owned distributed generation totaling 31 MW, primarily from rooftop solar, is also available.

“We have to be mindful that our primary obligation is to provide safe, reliable power to our members at all times,” Bissell said. “Our operations personnel needed ample time to put all the necessary pieces into place before pushing the envelope to 100% renewable. Now we’re doing it routinely.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

An electric cooperative’s renewable energy project carved out of 140 acres of a Department of Defense facility in Hawaii is drawing praise from the Department of Energy as it nears completion.

The U.S. Navy’s Naval Facilities Engineering Command was among the recipients of the 2019 Federal Energy and Water Management Awards for a solar array and battery storage project built at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in partnership with Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative.

The project includes solar panels rated at 19.3 megawatts and 70 megawatt hours of battery storage. While the DOD will have priority to meet sporadic operational demand, the power will flow to the island’s grid under routine conditions.

“Construction of the solar and [battery energy storage system] is completing now, but the substation that is required for full output of the facility will not be complete until the summer of 2020,” said Brad Rockwell, manager of power supply for Lihue-based KIUC.

“Output will be controlled by KIUC and used as needed, typically to help meet morning and evening peak demand, but also to provide firm power throughout the day and spinning reserve,” said Rockwell. “It will provide 7% of KIUC’s annual energy needs and provide microgrid capability for PMRF, improving energy security while taking the facility to 100% renewable power supply.”

DOE officials noted that the project not only aligns with federal goals to pursue renewable energy projects but also supports Hawaii’s renewable energy mandate of 100% by 2045, reducing the need to import diesel fuel from the U.S. mainland.

Derrill Holly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Electric cooperatives in Oklahoma are helping power a viable future for electric vehicles by committing resources and expertise to ensure that EV drivers can find charging power within an hour’s drive, anywhere in the state, by early 2020.

The program is a joint effort among Frances Renewable Energy, Western Farmers Electric Cooperative, distribution cooperatives, investor-owned utilities and other entities across the state, said Mark Faulkenberry, WFEC’s vice president of marketing and member relations.

“It’s our opportunity to bring this technology to the rural areas where we all benefit by creating more jobs and putting money back into consumers’ pockets,” said Gary Roulet, CEO of WFEC.

The Anadarko-based generation and transmission cooperative co-hosted an event detailing plans that officials described as a “game changer for electric vehicles,” establishing the most comprehensive public charging network in the nation. Public vehicle charging points will be deployed within 25 to 50 miles of every roadway in the state. The chargers should ease concerns for motorists traveling long distances, even in sparsely populated areas.

In some cases, the co-ops are working with Francis Renewable Energy agents to help identify viable host sites for the charging stations.  Those facilities include casinos, travel centers, grocery stores, shopping centers, hotels and service stations.

“Our strategy is to look for locations where people wouldn’t mind spending 15 to 20 minutes while their vehicle charges—places where our members conduct commerce,” said Faulkenberry.

WFEC officials say a minimum of 110 Level 3 fast-charging public units will be needed to meet the deployment goal. Most Level 3 chargers are rated to charge EV batteries to 80% capacity within 30 minutes.

While Oklahoma is a leader in gas and oil production, interest in EV technology has utilities working with businesses and public agencies to help make it a viable part of the state’s future. The growing availability of electric passenger cars and the entry of pickups and utility vehicles into dealership offerings are expected to significantly increase the state’s market share for EVs. 

“When this network is complete, I don’t think anyone will surpass us for some time,” said Faulkenberry. “California may have more chargers, but not as many on a per-capita basis and not as geographically spread out.”

Read More:

N.C. Co-ops Invest $1 Million in Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

They don’t look like much. Just a couple of gray, metal, shipping-container-sized cabinets. But locked inside may well be the future of the grid, and a growing number of electric cooperatives hold the key.

Vermont Electric Cooperative is one of them.

The co-op based in Johnson began operating a utility-scale lithium-ion battery in July and has already saved its members $90,000 in peak capacity market costs.

“The first month of operating the battery, we hit the New England peak and got immediate value right out of gate,” said VEC CEO Rebecca Towne. “That value goes directly to the member. It’s all about saving money for customers.”

The 1-megawatt/4 megawatt-hour system allows VEC to discharge 400 MWhs onto the grid when it’s needed most to reduce peak capacity market costs. The co-op’s engineering and operations team forecasts peaks to call on the stored energy.

VEC faces 13 demand peaks a year: one each month in Vermont and a larger, more costly peak charge from the New England ISO in the summer.

“We feel confident we will hit 70% of peaks in 400 hours,” Towne said.

Towne, the business partners in the battery project and co-op members recently gathered to mark the initial six months of service at the battery site in Hinesburg, where VEC has a substation and solar panels.

VEC signed a 10-year lease with Viridity Energy Solutions in 2018 for access to 400 kilowatt-hours of storage. Another company, WEG Electric, did the technical design, permitting and installation.

Towne said working with partners has allowed VEC to avoid the upfront capital costs of buying a battery storage system.

“We’ve proved it is a doable model,” she said. “When other co-ops get comfortable with this model, it will be easy to replicate.”

The project has drawn enthusiasm from co-op members not only for the financial reward but for reducing the co-op’s reliance on the region’s fossil-fuel-based peaking plants.

“It’s been a win-win-win,” said Towne. “Battery storage is going to be an important part of the grid as it continues to evolve to be more distributive and intermittent and focused on carbon reduction. Energy storage, particularly as it drops in cost, will be a critical technology in achieving those goals.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Arlington, Va. –The Department of Energy has selected the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) to research small-scale, community-based wind energy solutions that can be deployed by electric cooperatives.

NRECA is partnering with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Hoss Consulting and Mana Group LLC on research to develop business models and technologies for wind projects that can benefit cooperative consumer-members, communities and their electric distribution cooperatives, and rural generation and transmission cooperatives.

NRECA will team with co-ops around the country to evaluate and deploy diverse types of distributed wind projects. The project aims to increase understanding of the potential benefits of distributed wind and reduce market barriers for the adoption of these technologies in rural areas.

“This collaborative research will help support DOE’s effort to accelerate cost-effective and responsible deployment of distributed wind systems across the United States, raise the quality of distributed wind products, and grow the nation’s domestic energy industry,” said Jim Spiers, senior vice president of Business and Technology Strategies at NRECA. “Small-scale wind is a clean energy resource that can provide unique benefits to rural electric consumers.”

Distributed wind solutions can use various wind technologies, ranging from small off-grid or residential scale turbines to one or more multi-megawatt turbines deployed alone or with other distributed energy technologies. As consumer-owned, not-for-profit utilities, electric cooperatives are well-positioned to develop and evaluate wind as a “distributed energy resource” (DER). NRECA and its co-op partners will examine the potential benefits of added resilience, reduced emissions and lower costs.

Like NRECA’s solar deployment project, a similar DOE-funded program that accelerated utility-scale solar at co-ops across rural America, NRECA expects this project to increase the number of electric cooperatives incorporating wind applications into their resource planning.

DOE has identified high technical potential for “hundreds of thousands of turbines” totaling more than 10 gigawatts of electric capacity on rural distribution grids. However, distributed wind deployment may be limited due to the following factors:

• Cost competition from other distributed and large-scale renewable technologies.
• Incomplete understanding of the spectrum of technology options.
• Lack of documented ROI regarding distributed wind services.
• Lack of in-house technical expertise at some cooperatives.

By standardizing business processes, developing feasible financing models and educating co-op personnel, the project aims to improve the cost-competitiveness of small-scale wind projects. NRECA’s project will focus on three types of distributed wind projects:

• Small <100 kilowatt Wind Solutions: Small-scale projects for remote and end-of-the-line customers, where other traditional solutions may be costly.
• Utility or Community Owned, >100 kilowatt Wind Solutions: Shared wind deployments open to participation by consumer-members.
• Behind the Meter, >100 kilowatt Wind Solutions: Customer/owner owned resources properly integrated into a utility service territory.

The tools and resources developed in the project will be made available to more than 900 electric co-ops nationwide, as well as the broader utility industry.

The project is supported by DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, which seeks to maximize stakeholder confidence in turbine performance and safety and improve project performance while reducing installed cost in order to be competitive with retail electric rates and other forms of distributed generation.

NRECA will build on its track record of DOE-funded research, which includes the Solar Utility Network Deployment Acceleration (SUNDA) project. This project focused on reducing the soft costs, barriers to entry, and risks of implementing co-op utility photovoltaic solar (PV) through educating, raising the awareness of, and scaling within the co-ops through the use of community solar PV.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing more than 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landmass. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

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North Carolina’s electric cooperatives are investing $1 million to expand electric vehicle charging stations throughout the state—a move that will create one of the biggest co-op-owned networks in the country.

The cooperatives’ investment is being provided through North Carolina Electric Membership Corp., the state’s generation and transmission cooperative. The funding will be used to install 21 charging stations by the end of this year, said Diane Huis, senior vice president of innovation and business development for North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives. The co-ops already have an existing network of public charging stations at 30 locations throughout the state, including popular tourist destinations at the beach and in the mountains.

“Our co-ops are willing to be out front, whether it’s on EVs or other innovative efforts like microgrids,” Huis said. “They also have a good understanding of beneficial electrification, so they know that if the EV charging is done in a smart fashion it can really help improve utilization of the grid. And they see this as an opportunity to grow load in a way that is beneficial not only for the co-ops but also for their consumer-members.”

The 21 new charging stations will be made up of 10 DC Fast Chargers and 11 Level 2 chargers. The fast chargers can bring a depleted EV battery to 80% capacity in about 30 minutes. The Level 2 chargers take several hours to do the same, which is why they are located near places where drivers tend to stay awhile—such as restaurants and state parks, Huis said.

ChargePoint, an EV infrastructure company based in Campbell, California, will supply the equipment and manage and install the chargers, which will be owned by the co-ops. ChargePoint’s network will provide the co-ops with data about how many people are coming to the stations and how long they’re staying, Huis said.

The first DC Fast Charger will be installed in the next few weeks near Jordan Lake State Recreation Area, a popular destination for day trips that is served by Sanford-based Central Electric Membership Corp. The next fast charger will be installed in the town of Avon on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. This charger will complement two Level Two chargers previously installed on Hatteras Island by Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative, Huis said.

By expanding the state’s EV charging network, Huis said, North Carolina’s electric co-ops hope to bring more EVs and their benefits—including improved environmental health, economic development and quality of life—to rural communities.

“We see this as a way to encourage EV adoption while strengthening the areas we serve,” she said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

When electric cooperative leaders talk about artificial intelligence, the public may envision robots running power plants.

But, as NRECA President Curtis Wynn recently explained during an energy issues forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, it’s actually about using electronic data to help co-ops discover how to better serve their consumer-members.

“It’s basically just allowing us to utilize the information we collect to help us make better decisions,” Wynn said. “It’s not as complicated as the name would imply.”

For example, Roanoke Electric Cooperative in Ahoskie, North Carolina, where Wynn is president and CEO, plans to work with North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives to use geo-targeting to help find out which of its members have been looking at electric vehicles online.

Then, the co-op can send information about EVs to members that it knows are interested in the subject, Wynn said in an interview after the energy forum. The co-op will soon be offering a special subscription rate for EV users.

Data from the co-op’s new Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) allows Roanoke EC to create an integrated system of smart meters that communicate back and forth between the co-op and its members. The meters allow the co-op to locate and respond to power outages more quickly. They also provide data that the co-op can use to improve its energy efficiency programs, which can help members save money on their monthly bills, Wynn said.

“Data from our AMI system helps us let members know when their electric consumption is about to exceed a certain amount,” he said. “We can tell them that kilowatt usage has exceeded their average and that they might need to check for a leak in the water heater or something like that.”