Open House Celebrated Co-op Surpassing 100,000 Meters in June

Brighton, CO – United Power joined a small group of elite cooperatives in June when it surpassed 100,000 meters served off its lines. It became just the second Colorado co-op, and 31st nationally, to cross the meter milestone. To commemorate the achievement, the co-op hosted an Open House Celebration for members at its Carbon Valley Service Center, located off the I-25 Frontage Road just west of Firestone and Frederick, on August 28.

Several hundred members attended the Open House Celebration, which featured a variety of family-friendly activities, educational opportunities and prize giveaways. It was the first in-person member event the cooperative has hosted since the pandemic began in March 2020. The come-and-go structure of the event enabled members to maintain social distancing by discouraging crowds and allowing attendees to walk through at their own leisure. Breakfast and refreshments were also provided as attendees made their way through the exhibits.

“It is important that we as a cooperative get back to our roots of engaging and interacting with our members,” said Mark A. Gabriel, United Power’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “This was the perfect platform to showcase our newest facility and celebrate our historic meter accomplishment with our members while also accounting for their health and safety.”

United Power packed its garage with interactive exhibits to give members a hands-on experience with everything from electrical safety to electric vehicle ownership. The cooperative’s well-known safety demonstration team kicked things off near the event entrance before a series of large equipment and bucket trucks funneled attendees toward an EV demonstration at the garage’s northeast doors. Northern Colorado Clean Cities provided several EVs available for short test drives with attendees. Outside, attendees were offered a brief informational presentation about the cooperative’s battery storage facility followed by a tour. Originally energized in 2019, the battery storage facility remains the largest in Colorado.

Inside the Carbon Valley Service Center, the community room was transformed into a series of educational booths where attendees could enter to win prizes, learn more about member-exclusive programs and engage with United Power experts on things like energy efficiency. Attendees could also present questions and win prizes from the cooperative’s board of directors.

“We are so excited and thankful to be able to celebrate 100,000 meters with our members in person,” said Ursula Morgan, United Power’s Board Chairman. “After more than a year away, we could not have been happier to see and interact with them again, especially for such a big occasion. Without our members, there is no cooperative. There is no United Power.”

United Power members who attended the event were eligible to win one of ten $100 bill credit prizes, announced following the event’s conclusion. Members also donated canned and packaged food for to the Carbon Valley Help Center, which provides food and clothing to those in need in and around the Carbon Valley area.

Earlier this summer, United Power honored its 100,000 meter family, John and Hailey Takacs and their son Drake, at their new home in Commerce City’s fast-growing Reunion community. Cooperative board members and cooperative leadership, along with Commerce City Mayor Ben Huseman and Tri Pointe homes representative Mariel Schlander, presented the Takacs’ with a prize package containing home essentials, such as a variety of tools and home equipment, including an electric lawn mower.

“We are adding meters at an unprecedented rate,” Gabriel said. “But more importantly, we are adding members. Each new meter represents a new family on our lines or a new business helping shape the economy of the communities we serve. Our members make us stronger, and they make our communities stronger. As your cooperative, it is our privilege to be able to serve each one of our members.”

United Power is a member-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperative, delivering electricity to homes, farms and businesses throughout Colorado’s northern front range. The cooperative is one of the fastest-growing electric cooperatives in the nation, and in June joined the elite ranks of cooperatives serving more than 100,000 meters. The 900 square mile service territory extends from the mountains of Coal Creek and Golden Gate Canyon, along the I-25 corridor and Carbon Valley region, to the farmlands of Brighton, Hudson and Keenesburg. For more information about the cooperative, visit www.unitedpower.com or follow them on social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

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Conference to Feature Loveland-based Lightning eMotors

Brighton, CO – United Power is hosting the cooperative’s first-ever Fleet Electrification Conference at its Carbon Valley Service Center, 9586 E I-25 Frontage Road, on September 29. Featured guest Lightning eMotors specializes in producing sustainable commercial fleet solutions, including electric vehicles. The free conference is open to public and private fleet operators and managers.

Guest speakers from United Power, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and Northern Colorado Clean Cities will present their expertise in the emerging field of electrification at the conference. Topics covered during the conference include the State of Colorado’s new fleet electrification strategy, resources and funding options for fleet services, the growth and availability of charging infrastructure and the future of electrified fleets. During the conference, Lightning eMotors will also feature demonstration fleet electric vehicles.

United Power’s Fleet Electrification Conference convenes from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and fleet vehicle demonstrations begin prior to the conference at 8 a.m. Interested attendees are encouraged to pre-register for the conference at www.unitedpowerfleets2021.rsvpify.com. Lunch will be provided.

What: United Power Fleet Electrification Conference
When: Wednesday, September 29, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Where: United Power’s Carbon Valley Service Center, 9586 E I-25 Frontage Road, Longmont, Colo.

Questions or comments regarding the upcoming conference can be directed to Joel Danforth, United Power’s Energy Programs and New Business Director, at 720-685-5644.

United Power is a member-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperative, delivering electricity to homes, farms and businesses throughout Colorado’s northern front range. The cooperative is one of the fastest-growing electric cooperatives in the nation, and in June joined the elite ranks of cooperatives serving more than 100,000 meters. The 900 square mile service territory extends from the mountains of Coal Creek and Golden Gate Canyon, along the I-25 corridor and Carbon Valley region, to the farmlands of Brighton, Hudson and Keenesburg. For more information about the cooperative, visit www.unitedpower.com or follow them on social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

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Demand Rate Addresses How We Use it Differently

United Power switched to a demand rate in January 2019 as a way to more fairly charge its members for their electric usage and impact on the cooperative’s system. Since its roll out, some members have asked why the switch was made and requested more information about demand and how to understand it.

Electric utilities like United Power often use terms like “distribution system,” “electric infrastructure” and “grid.” These terms refer to the interconnected network of poles, wires, transformers and substations that work to deliver — or distribute — power to members. The system is carefully engineered to meet the needs of more than 100,000 meters and the homes and businesses served off those meters.

Like any other household appliance or electronic device, pieces of our system wear out over time and need to be repaired, replaced or even upgraded to improve reliability. These maintenance costs aren’t based solely on how much power you use, however, but how and when you use it.

When you use more power at once, you’re creating a higher demand on the system. These demand surges have a greater impact on the grid.

For example, a member in a small apartment with a window air conditioning unit doesn’t have the same impact on the grid as a household with two air conditioning units and a hot tub.

Some devices on the system have capacity limitations, for example, meaning they can only maintain a certain amount of power at a given time. The cooperative places these devices strategically to ensure power reliability. When one household served off that device uses a larger share of energy, it causes more wear on it. In some cases, the cooperative may need to replace existing devices with higher capacity ones to accommodate increases in energy usage.

With the traditional blended rate, which bundles demand and energy usage, each United Power member shares an equal cost in the maintenance of the system despite using it in vastly different ways. This means some members have been paying more than they should, while others aren’t paying enough. Whether you use a lot of energy or a little, or even generate your own, a reliable grid is something we all depend on and need available to us.

By separating the demand and energy components on your bill, we are more fairly distributing these costs to members based on how they use power. Each member now pays their fair share of the cooperative distribution system they rely on.

United Power offers a free online resource for members who want to know more about how they use power. Power Portal breaks down your energy usage in 15-minute intervals so you can easily tell what habits are contributing to your demand. Visit Power Portal to learn more about this member resource.

If you have additional questions about the demand rate, you can go to Understanding Demand or reach one of our dedicated energy management specialists at 303-637-1300.

Demand for Electricity is like Demand for Water

You can fill the same 5-gallon bucket with either a garden hose, or a fire hose. A garden hose will not fill as quickly – but the hose costs less to operate, and the impact on the water system is minimal. Fill that same bucket with a fire hose, and it will fill up very quickly, but the surge of water from a fire hose requires larger pipes and a more expensive hose. In the end, both buckets would be full with the same amount of water, but filling a bucket more slowly – smoothing the water use over time – creates less demand on the system and costs less to do. 
 

Message From United Power's President & CEO

There has been much written in recent months about the dynamics between United Power and Tri-State Generation & Transmission. This has resulted in a significant amount of unneeded expense and tension between the two organizations as well as among at least seven other Tri-State members.

It is important to understand United Power’s position in this conversation:

• We need a strong Tri-State G&T, and we need a Tri-State that recognizes the issues faced across our industry and communities.
• We need a powerful transmission organization like Tri-State to assure our place as a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) comes to the West, and as additional resources are added to our fuel mix and the grid becomes more critical and complex.
• We need our G&T to be responsive in driving down costs to help our rural economies and to support the growing membership demand for a cleaner, carbon-reduced future. And we need to make sure the exit from coal is rapidly executed while supporting the communities that will suffer in the short term from job and revenue loss.
• We need Tri-State to realize the dynamics of a changing industry mean more of our members want to generate electricity locally, to be untethered from fossil-based resources and released from the paradigm of centralized generation that is decades old. This will require a dramatic new business model, deep cost cutting and jettisoning of inefficient generation even in the face of financial hurdles.

To achieve this goal means a radical re-envisioning of the G&T model, one in which utility members can purchase as much – or as little – power as they need to support their communities; one in which Tri-State operates its grid on the basis of formalized tariffs, such as an Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT), rather than “Hotel California” rules, where you can get in but never leave; one in which the G&T is the hub for renewable aggregation while not crippling the spokes; and one that is focused on the lowest possible costs and the needs of all its members, big and small.

It is important to be clear that the drive to remove coal from the fuel mix is only tangentially connected to regulation and political whim. It is tied 100% to the low cost of natural gas, coupled with the decreasing costs of renewable energy. This is economics, not politics. This disagreement has resulted in significant legal expenditures, tensions and burdens on staff and has not helped move the needle toward a low-cost, flexible, carbon-reduced environment.

United Power does not necessarily want to terminate its contract with Tri-State, although obtaining a reasonable price for termination would be a starting point for any analysis.

• United Power wants to continue to buy a defined amount of generation (capacity and energy) from Tri-State and has offered to do so.
• United Power wants to be an OATT customer and has offered to make this transition.
• United Power wants to buy additional energy from Tri-State at competitive prices when markets come to the West in the next 24 months.
• United Power wants to be able to buy as much energy generated in its service territory as its members want to provide. Our current Tri-State contract limits us to purchasing no more than 5% of our total power from local renewable resources.

It is illogical in a world that is moving to carbon-free resources that our members are not permitted to build and offer such resources. United Power intends to continue to be a leader in storage technology, which helps Tri-State avoid peaks and high demand, allows Tri-State to reduce its carbon footprint and smooths our transmission congestion.

In sum, United Power wants a strong, responsive and low-cost partner in Tri-State and the freedom to support our members with low-cost, clean and reliable power. Tri-State should be leading the change to a new G&T structure to address the energy needs of the future and help its member cooperatives better serve the individuals and families on their lines.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments.