Coastal Electric

Source: Energy Digital

Date :5/8/2008 6:18:44 AM

Locally owned and controlled by the same customers who use its services, Coastal Electric is looking at ways of working a little more intelligently to improve service

Written by Ian Armitage and Produced by Jon Ellingwood

There are more than 900 electric cooperatives - or co-ops - in the US today, powering Alaskan fishing villages, dairy farms in Vermont and all the suburbs and exurbs in between.

Odds are, if you live in a rural community, you get your energy from a co-op.

Coastal Electrical Cooperative, a Touchstone Energy Partner, is one such member-owned electric co-op, providing power to the people of Coastal Georgia in the Bryan, Liberty, Long and McIntosh counties.

“We are committed to providing our members with dependable power at competitive rates,” says the Cooperative’s Executive Vice President and CEO, F. Whit Hollowell Jr. “The beauty is we are locally-owned and managed, responsive and customer-focused.”

Founded in 1940, Coastal Electric has total and exclusive responsibility for roughly 573 square miles in one of the fastest growing regions of the South. The physical plant consists of approximately 1,490 miles of line in the Bryan, Liberty, Long and McIntosh counties, with headquarters located in Midway, Georgia. The co-op has assets of $64 million and handles almost 16,000 accounts, according to Hollowell, who serves on the Touchstone Energy board.

Cooperative spirit

Coastal Electric, like other electric cooperatives, is a private, independent electric utility, owned by its members. Democratically governed, Coastal Electric is organized under the Cooperative Principles, anchoring it firmly in the communities it serves. Importantly, it also ensures that Coastal Electric is closely regulated by its consumers.

Electric cooperatives began to spread across rural America after President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in 1935. The Executive Order establishing the REA, and the passage of the Rural Electrification Act a year later, both marked the first steps in a public-private partnership that has, over the last 70 years, bridged the vast expanse of rural America to bring electric power to businesses and communities willing to organize cooperatively and accept responsibility for the provision of safe, affordable and reliable electric power.

“We have a unique consumer-focused approach to business and are close to our members. I think this is the one area where we shine,” Hollowell says. “An electron is an electron, they all look the same. Where we can make a difference is in customer service and we believe in strong customer service here. If you are strong in that and value your members, then success is easy.

“We are locally owned and controlled by the very same customers who use our services,” he continues. “The voice of every person, as a result, makes a difference here. As if that wasn’t enough, our unique nature and the fact we are not-for-profit means the money we make is given back to our members, reinvested in the co-op or used to provide member services.

“We typically deliver energy to members at the cost of service and are also small enough to listen and yet big enough to serve them correctly.” This, says Hollowell, is very rewarding.

Often, cooperatives will even work together to bring even greater benefits to members, who are “my friends and neighbors,” says Hollowell.

GIS, a new frontier

As part of ambitious plans to offer the very best standards of service to members, Coastal Electric hired contract workers to record all the parts and pieces between each overhead pole and underground pedestal along the co-op’s 1,165 miles of line.

The workers, contractors with Southeastern Reprographics, based in Alpharetta, GA, collected a wealth of information, which has formed the foundation for a database that powers the co-op’s Geographical Information System (GIS).

“It isn’t 100 percent finished, but already we are reaping the rewards,” Hollowell says.

Coastal Electric will soon have an electronic map system and database that with a few keystrokes will tell co-op staff which specific items are on each and every pole. It will show a photo of the pole plus protection devices up and down the line, all the way back to the substation. In most cases, crews will also be able to pinpoint the location of the equipment within six inches on the face of the earth.

“GIS is a system that will help us work a little more intelligently and improve our service. It shows us what we own, where we own it and allows us to be more proactive,” says Hollowell, who is excited by the prospect of doing things a “little bit smarter”.

Indeed a powerful tool, GIS will improve meter reading route efficiency, assist staff in planning system improvements and make power restoration more efficient.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)

The GIS will also be tied in with an AMI system, which Coastal Electric is in the process of developing. “That will be our next project,” says Hollowell. “AMI will allow us to collect and analyze energy usage, using that analysis to offer better service to our members. In the future, if they have a query or bill enquiry, we can use information technology to give them a comprehensive and conclusive answer.”

This means Coastal Electric will be able to offer members a better level of service. “If you need any information, we will be able to give it to you. Eventually, customers are able to see their usage and change there patterns, if that’s what they want to do,” he explains.

Coastal Electric’s engineers are currently developing the pilot for AMI, so watch this space.

Supply issues?

Coastal Electric’s biggest challenge is future supply. The generation booms which took place in the 1970s, late 80s and early 90s means, according to Hollowell, that “excess capacity has been used up.”

The challenge now is to build new power plants to meet the ever-increasing demand for energy – a task made harder by the fact that many aging power plants are being taken offline and environmental worries means that there is concern over how best to replace them.

“The public at large has the misconception that renewable energy is going to take care of all of our needs,” says Hollowell. “I don’t think that’s true - we aren’t going to be able to rely on just solar and wind to provide everything we are going to need here in South Georgia. We think we will need a mix of power plants.

“Obviously coal is the backbone of our industry but with the environmental pressures being put on coal we are going to run into some issues there as well. New coal plants aren’t coming online.

“To make matters even worse, coal prices have gone up dramatically too. Cost containment on price and the power supply issues are going to be the big challenge. How do we explain to members and consumers that the price we are charging now is less than what we are going to be paying for the next base load plant that is going to be coming online in the next few years? It’s difficult.”

Despite the challenges, Coastal Electric is well positioned and eager to continue pushing the boundaries, bringing better service to its members.

Click here to view the corporate brochure on Coastal Electric