CEO’s Message

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Wildfires Pose Serious Threat

We hate it when the power is out.

As a member-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperative, keeping the lights on—or, more specifically, providing safe, reliable, affordable, carbon-free electricity—is Wells Rural Electric Company’s core business function.

Yet, power outages are inevitable. This summer, we’ve had a lengthy planned outage as well as a nearly 24-hour wildfire-related outage following extensive damage.

Next month, I’ll talk about the nature of scheduled outages and mandatory maintenance. This month, I want to focus on the wildfire-related outage that took power down for members in Wells and the surrounding area starting Saturday, August 17, and lasting until just before 7 p.m. on August 18.

Unplanned power outages happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes equipment malfunctions or fails, or somebody backs into a power pole and knocks it down. Unplanned outages are frequently caused by weather-related issues such as high winds, lightning strikes, wildfires, and extreme temperatures. Unfortunately, the kind of weather that causes most of these unplanned outages also makes them the least convenient times to be without power.

Wildfires, in particular, have become a massive issue in the Western United States. Wildfires are unpredictable, cause billions of dollars in financial loss each year and, unfortunately, lead to loss of life. Wildfires have the ability to bankrupt utilities and cause widespread outages.

Wildfire mitigation keeps CEOs from utilities all over the country awake at night. At WREC, we go to great lengths to protect our members, our equipment, and our utility from wildfire damage. We conduct extensive tree trimming and right-of-way clearing every year to try to remove fuel sources from around our equipment. A couple of years ago, we were lucky when a wildfire in Ruby Valley burned under our lines without causing any damage.

The cooperative owns firefighting equipment, and our employees undergo wildfire training and coordinate with other agencies to plan for wildfires. WREC is not alone in these efforts. Every utility in our region has a wildfire mitigation plan to guide their operation during the summer months. Unfortunately, those issues hit close to home this August when a fire burned in the Buhl-Castleford area, taking down 7 structures on Idaho Power Company’s transmission system that delivers power to our service territory.

Initially, Idaho Power received a Bureau of Land Management request to de-energize power to the section so they could drop retardant from airplanes. The time between this request and the power shutting off was likely minutes, and WREC only received the information shortly after the power went out.

In the last decade, only a tree/freeze-related outage in Carlin comes to mind as a comparison. Restoring power would have taken longer if not for a herculean effort by Idaho Power line crews to rebuild the burned structures. It took 3 transmission crews and a rock crew to get power back on by Sunday evening.

We appreciate the efforts of the lineworkers who left their families and worked through the night and into the heat of the day to get our power back on. Most of all, we appreciate your patience and flexibility in communicating with WREC, and with your fellow members, to keep informed and help each other as the situation evolved.

Best wishes,
Thad S. Ballard
CEO

Community Engagement

Electricity powers our daily lives. In today’s world, it’s a necessity. Providing that necessity to members also happens to be Wells Rural Electric Company’s (WREC) core business function, and we have an oft-used phrase to go with it: Wells Rural Electric Company provides members with safe, reliable, affordable, environmentally responsible electricity.

It’s a good phrase. While that duty represents our core function—and for as much as we take pride in delivering on it—it is not our mission.

At WREC, we view our purpose as something bigger.

WREC exists to improve the quality of life in the communities we serve. 60-plus years ago, a group of ranchers came together to secure the power they so badly needed to earn their livelihood and drive our local economies further. In the decades since WREC has grown into so much more.

We believe in our communities. We love our communities. We live in our communities.

Our employees are your friends, neighbors, and family. They coach local youth sports teams, volunteer at community events and serve on boards and committees.

Commitment to community is in WREC’s DNA. While that commitment is something we try to live up to every single day, it’s especially evident in the fall.

In the coming months, we have several events planned to show the love and enthusiasm we have for our communities and for you, our members. First and foremost, we’ll kick off the upcoming school year with our annual community rallies. We’re almost a decade into our current format, and these events continue to grow each year. It’s incredible to witness, and we look forward to seeing you every year.

We are planning on the following dates:

• Wells: Monday, September 16
• Wendover, Utah: Wednesday, September 18
• West Wendover: Monday, September 23
• Carlin: TBA

We’ll share the date of Carlin’s rally as soon as we know in early August. Stay tuned to social media and your local school for more details as we get closer.

As much as we love community rallies, that’s not all we have in store. October is National Cooperative Month, which we celebrate with Member Appreciation Month. We’re excited about the plans we have this year, which we’ll share soon.

Finally, we’re gearing up for the WREC Classic Basketball Tournament with teams from each of our communities. From December 5 through 7, we’ll welcome to our service territory hundreds of student-athletes, coaches, parents, and fans from across Nevada as we celebrate our local schools and students.

It’s going to be a busy and rewarding fall. I hope we connect with you at 1 of these events.

In the meantime, we’ll strive to fulfill that core function of providing safe, reliable, affordable, environmentally responsible electricity.

Our mission always remains close to our hearts. As a member-owned electric cooperative, what makes us different will always be what makes us great.

Best wishes,
Thad S. Ballard
CEO

Upholding the Ideals of Your Cooperative

I’m overwhelmed by the congratulations and good wishes that have been pouring in since the announcement of my new role as CEO. I’m humbled by the responsibilities the board of directors has entrusted to me and the support of my colleagues. It’s an incredibly exciting time to lead our team in serving you, our members.

For the past 39 years, it has been my privilege to serve you in various roles. Early in my career, I focused on designing power lines to serve new accounts. Next, I turned my attention to increasing efficiency and controlling costs through purchasing and materials management. I then had the privilege of working in member services, where I planned events and participated in community activities that engaged our members, solved problems, and provided information.

Working in government affairs aligned my passion for politics with my desire to protect your interests. Most recently, I have focused on securing your continued access to safe, reliable, affordable, and carbon-free wholesale electricity and building a culture of service with my fellow employees. I sometimes joke that I’ve had every job in the company except climbing poles and fixing trucks.

In every role, my priority has always been providing the best possible service to you. My experience has given me intimate knowledge of our service territory and electric grid, familiarity with our membership and its needs, and an understanding of our business model. My experience helps me understand the importance of teamwork and collaboration in achieving our goals and overcoming obstacles.

As we face challenges such as aging infrastructure, wildfire prevention, restrictive regulation, and securing affordable wholesale energy, I am confident we have everything we need to serve our communities. Our dedicated team of employees is committed to providing safe, reliable, and efficient service, and our board of directors is committed to ensuring we meet our mission. We focus on continual improvement and making decisions based on the best interests of our entire membership.

I want to thank the courageous souls who had the vision to bring electricity to this area 66 years ago. I also want to thank my predecessor, Clay Fitch, for his mentorship and tireless service to you for the past 37 years.

We are the stewards of what they built and endeavor to ensure it continues to serve our communities. I look forward to serving you in this new capacity and pledge to always uphold the ideals of your cooperative.

Best wishes,
Thad S. Ballard
CEO

Don’t Overlook Electrical Safety

At Wells Rural Electric Company, we frequently refer to our core business function as providing members with safe, reliable, affordable, and carbon-free electricity. 3 of those phrases are heavily talked about because, for several reasons, they are top of mind for us and our members.

When it comes to affordability, we get questions about bills each month. Cost is something most of us are conscious of on a day-to-day basis. When it comes to reliability, there is no mistaking when the power goes out. The recent political landscape has also placed a spotlight on the carbon-free part of that statement that is inescapable in the media.

Safe is sometimes too easy to overlook until a problem presents itself, but there is a reason it is first on the list.

In our industry, safety is life. When you make a mistake in the high-voltage environments our lineworkers work in daily, the outcome can be fatal. For that reason, our lineworkers are highly trained, and they discuss safety on a daily basis. They have meetings, known as tailboards before they start on every project to discuss how the work needs to be done and the potential hazards so everyone is on the same page.

During my career, I’ve sat in too many conferences listening to other CEOs talk about the tragedies they have experienced at their utilities when something goes wrong. I don’t even want to imagine 1 of our employees not coming home to their families. The same goes for our members. We want you to be safe as well.

May is National Electrical Safety Month. I hope you will see some of our communications— including in this issue of Ruralite—or somebody else’s, and give them a few moments of your attention that could come in handy when an electrical hazard or problem is suddenly staring you in the face.

For example, do you know what to do if your car strikes a power pole and comes in contact with a power line? First off, if you ever come across a downed line or equipment, treat it as if it is energized. Electricity has no sound or smell and it is always better to stay a safe distance away and call 911.

Similarly, if you are in a vehicle that strikes a power pole and causes lines to come down, do not get out of your vehicle. Electricity is always looking for a path to ground and, if lines are in contact with your vehicle, that path may be your foot when you step out. If your vehicle is smoking or on fire and you must escape, you want to hop out and away from the vehicle and land on both feet, then shuffle or hop to safety.

That is 1 of many situations most of us don’t think about, yet knowing what to do can save lives.

Electricity is a wonderful necessity that powers our lives. It is also something that needs to be respected. Do not allow safety to be something you overlook. I hope you will spend some time this month, and every month, reading and learning habits that could save a life.

Best wishes,

Clay R. Fitch
Chief Executive Officer

Sometimes the greatest ability is availability. Or, in this industry, reliability.

For all the talk about keeping rates affordable, cost is not the No. 1 priority in most industry surveys. That distinction goes to reliability.

If you think about it, it makes sense. Cost matters. At Wells Rural Electric Company (WREC), we work hard to keep rates as affordable as we can in our cost-based model. But availability matters more. Electricity fuels our lives, connects us with loved ones, and powers most of our entertainment, not to mention keeping us warm or cool. In today’s world, electricity is a near-necessity.

While we are always looking for ways to improve, I am proud of WREC’s reliability record. We’ve upgraded our technology in recent years to better monitor and track our reliability. I’m happy to say WREC’s reliability, in terms of average outage minutes per member, exceeds both state and national averages.

But notice I didn’t say it was perfect.

As much as I wish I could say we’re working toward zero outages, that’s not realistic. Some outages are inevitable, especially in our area where maintaining reliability is a challenge. For starters, WREC exists at the edge of the Columbia River Basin and, as a result, at the end of the transmission lines that deliver power to our service territory. Whether there’s a problem between point A and point B (or, more accurately, point Z) or necessary maintenance, transmission outages are often out of our control.

Once electricity gets to us, we face a new set of challenges. Most cooperatives exist because their members were too spread out to be profitable for investor-owned utilities to serve. In WREC’s case, we maintain more than 1,000 miles of energized line spread through more than 10,000 square miles of service territory. That’s a lot of ground to cover, and, because of the terrain and sparse population, most of our members are radially fed. That means the more rural and farther from the substation you live, the more likely you are to experience an outage if there is a problem. In a radially fed system, any fault between the substation and your home could affect your service. If you live 100 miles away from the substation, any issue along the way affects your power.

Our rural members need to be prepared for occasional outages. When you live in a rural area, some outages are inevitable no matter how advanced monitoring technology or extensive preventive maintenance may be.

Thankfully, we have great crews who go to great lengths to avoid as many outages as possible. You may have noticed tree trimming trucks moving through your area the last several weeks to clear rights-of-way and remove problem foliage. We are constantly patrolling power lines looking for potential problem spots. Each year, we budget for projects to remove, replace, or repair damaged and aging equipment.

Finally, the power is most likely to go out during times of extreme weather when it’s the most inconvenient to be without. In this area, that typically means wildfire season or winter when high winds, moisture, and freezing temperatures create all kinds of problems. When your power goes out in the midst of a storm, rest assured that WREC’s team of excellent lineworkers is prepared to leave the warmth of their own homes to go out in those extreme conditions and work at all hours to make sure your access to electricity is restored as quickly as possible.

Best wishes,
Clay R. Fitch
Chief Executive Officer

Details Matter

Often, it is hard to make informed or good decisions without understanding the nuance and complexities—the details—surrounding a topic. This is true for many things, but it is particularly true in the utility world.

From power supply to transmission and distribution to the cooperative difference, our industry is incredibly nuanced. Fortunately, we have developed employees and strategic partners who specialize in understanding those nuances to best serve you, our members.

However, details are often lost. We live in a society where communication is limited to 280 characters or the expectation that a picture really can say a thousand words. I certainly recognize the benefits of sharing our lives and staying connected with people regardless of our physical distance, but our collective attention spans are shrinking. We are losing our appetite for crucial details.

Details were at the forefront when it came to the Biden administration’s agreement over the operation of the lower Snake River dams during a hearing of the House’s Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security on January 30. I would not expect anybody to crave watching 4 hours of a Congressional hearing, but I thought there were some key details worth sharing:

• Supporters of the agreement believe all voices were included during the process and that is technically correct. There were listening sessions and comment periods at the front end where all parties, including WREC, were allowed to participate. Those opportunities, however, had little to do with the final agreement. When it came time for actual negotiations, our interests, as well as those of the ports and shipping industries and the agricultural industry, were cut out. 6 of the 8 states served by Bonneville Power Administration’s dam system were also not included when it mattered.
• The dams impact fish survival. But so do warming ocean conditions, predation from non-native species, and pollution. Many of the salmon runs considered in crisis do not pass through dams. We have willingly participated in 1 of the most comprehensive wildlife mitigation plans in the country. We want to do what’s best for fish and the rivers but we want those plans to be based on good science. We don’t think this qualifies.
• The agreement does not include the removal of the dams. Only Congress has that authority. However, there are stipulations for their operation that would remove their economic viability, forcing Congress’ hand. Many of the agreement participants have celebrated it as a pathway to breaching the dams.
• 1 heartening observation was the acknowledgment from all sides of the committee that the hydro dams are a vital resource to the region. While other forms of renewable energy are part of the solution, also acknowledged by the entire subcommittee, they are not replacements for the dispatchable generation—generation that can be ramped up or down at a moment’s notice to meet demand around the clock—offered by hydropower dams.

Fortunately, the public utility world had a representative on the panel. I have to say, National Rural Electric Association Executive Director Jim Matheson did a fantastic job representing all the above points and many more. I’m glad the members of the subcommittee had a well-informed advocate for public power to provide some of the proper context for a potentially harmful agreement.

Sometimes, the devil really is in the details.

Best wishes,

Clay R. Fitch
Chief Executive Officer

Technology Tools of the Trade

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Generally, speaking in cliches, such as the one above, doesn’t provide much insight. Yet, as I reflect on my career at Wells Rural Electric Company, I continue to come back to how true that particular cliche actually rings. I’m astonished at the ways, for better and worse, technology has changed and shaped modern society and our everyday lives. We carry supercomputers in our pockets, and there seem to be screens everywhere. Data and information have never been more readily available. I find technology to be most fulfilling when it helps me strengthen those traditional relationships with family and loved ones or be more efficient so I have more time for the people and activities I’ve always loved.

The same is true for your electric cooperative.

Securing access to an affordable, reliable power supply and making sure we can get it delivered to our service territory remains the largest challenge of our day-to-day job. The arguments may have changed, but we remain ever-vigilant of legislative and regulatory issues that could wreak havoc on our business. On the member side, for all the discussion about keeping electricity affordable, making sure the lights turn on when you flip the switch remains the priority for most members. That’s where we hope the advances in technology can help us address those time-honored challenges.

We, too, have access to more data, feedback, and information than we’ve ever had before, particularly when it comes to system performance. Your employees have done an excellent job putting that information to use to shape our yearly planning and preventive maintenance projects. We still adhere to the philosophy that the best kind of outage is the one you avoid. We effectively use technology to identify potential problem areas and replace equipment or improve our distribution system before issues become critical and create outages. I’m proud of the way our crews have used data to reduce the number of distribution outages—those that occur within our system—across the service territory. This fall, we launched new outage management technology that is going to provide us with even better data to continue improving our efficiency.

Most of our power interruptions are transmission outages that occur between the generation source before the power reaches our distribution lines. Time cannot change geography, and we still remain at the end of the Pacific Northwest’s transmission system. That means occasional outages are just part of doing business in a rural area.

To that end, we hope we can use technology to help you better prepare and manage those times when the power does go down. The same outage management tool I mentioned above also notifies you when your power goes out and provides updates on whether you are home or not. I believe it’s a great resource that provides practical benefits for both employees and members.

There are other new tools and capabilities on the horizon that will continue to give you more power to control your energy use. As WREC has always done, we’re excited to continue maximizing new technology and provide you with new tools and resources that improve the quality of your service and lives.

Best wishes,

Clay R. Fitch
Chief Executive Officer

The Power of Your Voice

Last month, Wells Rural Electric Company (WREC) celebrated its 65th birthday. Contrary to popular belief, I have not worked at WREC for quite that long, but I have been here long enough to say with confidence that we have always proven the slogan “More Powerful Together” to be true.

In the beginning, a group of farmers and ranchers came together to secure funding to form a cooperative to build the power lines for electricity they desperately needed. More recently, we’ve asked you, our members, to act on legislative and regulatory issues with potentially dire consequences. For several months, we’ve asked you to send letters to our federal representatives. Hundreds of members have responded to that call. Here’s an update on the effectiveness of your efforts.

We rarely ask for such participation but, in this case, we think it’s warranted. After an exhaustive, comprehensive Congressional process involving all major stakeholders determined that removing the Lower Snake River dams was not feasible at this time, we were hopeful the matter was settled for the foreseeable future after 2-plus decades of litigation over fish populations. It was not.

The Biden Administration has started a process of its own that has focused solely and completely on the plaintiffs on this issue and has refused to sit down with port authorities, agricultural interests and, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, utilities and rate payers. While still in its beginning stages, not having a significant voice in the process has left us concerned about the future of the dams and our ability to provide affordable and reliable electricity. So we are acting before it’s too late.

As the decision to remove the dams would require an act of Congress, your letters have targeted Senator Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen and Representative Mark Amodei. Because the Federal Columbia River Power System is thought of as a resource of the Pacific Northwest and not northern Nevada’s high desert, we want our representatives to know the dams are vital to regional reliability and our local economies. Our hope is they’ll be prepared to advocate and fight for our best interests when the time comes.

All 3 representatives have responded. I visited Washington, D.C., in July with a group of public power representatives. Representative Amodei was quick to offer his support to our cause if and when needed. He has a long history of advocating on our behalf.

We hosted Senator Cortez Masto in Wells in August as she traveled through northern Nevada on her way back to Washington, D.C. She was adamant that she would not support dam removal without a viable replacement for the lost electricity. There isn’t a replacement now nor is there 1 on the horizon. The following week, she met with then-Deputy Interior Security Tommy Beaudreau and discussed the issue. She was told the process was still in the early phases and that any action on the dams would require a plan to address the lost electricity. Just as the senator was a driving force in passing the most recent mining bill, our hope is that she’ll be equally active on this issue if needed. Senator Rosen also responded, sending an aid to Wells to meet with employees and board members to discuss the issue.

It remains too early to know about the ultimate outcome of our efforts. At the very least, they were enough to earn positive responses from all 3 federal representatives. If you haven’t done so already, you can still submit a letter. Moving forward, it will be important for all of us to monitor the situation and continue to build positive relationships with our representatives.

Best wishes,

Clay R. Fitch
Chief Executive Officer

Rallying Our Community

I am not sure anyone could have envisioned how our uses for electricity would grow and change when 14 homes in Clover Valley were energized for the first time on December 7, 1960. Who could have guessed there would eventually be so many homes and such a wide variety of businesses in this area?

As I notice more electric vehicles on the road, it challenges me to imagine how many more uses for electricity there will be in the future. Developing the infrastructure to meet future energy demand is a priority for Wells Rural Electric Company, and the electric utility industry nationwide.

Providing our members with safe, reliable, affordable and clean electricity is the reason Wells Rural Electric Company exists. However, doing that job requires a lot more than building and maintaining power lines throughout our service territory. It requires political engagement. Your employees and directors meet with elected officials often to discuss critical issues. That may seem far removed from our core mission, but it is absolutely essential to serving you.

In addition to celebrating our students and schools with our friends and neighbors during our recent community rallies, we asked members to join in the discussion of another critical issue: Protecting the lower Snake River dams. As Thanksgiving approaches, one of the things I am especially grateful for is the opportunity your board of directors and employees had to meet face-to-face with you on this important issue. The strong, positive political response we received from our members was as amazing as the crowds at the community rallies! Thank you for joining us.

Nationally, wind and solar generation are being installed to provide intermittent power, yet using that power absolutely relies on hydroelectric dams to ensure reliability. We face many challenges. However, the Pacific Northwest does have one of the greatest carbon-free renewable generating systems in the country with the Columbia River hydro system. If you haven’t already, please join your fellow members, employees and directors in safeguarding reliable, affordable electricity by sharing your opinion on the lower Snake River dams with Congress by scanning the black QR code. Be ready for the next challenge by joining Voices for Cooperative Power using the green QR code.

Best wishes,

Clay R. Fitch
Chief Executive Officer