Peak demand season is here

Brace yourself. Summer looks to be a scorcher this year.

Kids will be home running televisions and computers and giving refrigerator doors a workout, air conditioners will run night and day … it all adds up to a big demand.
Demand across the co-op will skyrocket, as it always does during the summer. In fact, it's the time of year when we hit a peak in demand for power, particularly from 4 to 8 p.m. on the hottest days, usually from June 20 through Sept. 9 The peak is significant.
Cotton Electric purchases power from Western Farmers Electric Cooperative, a generation and transmission cooperative owned by CEC and 18 other members – all demanding power.
As the demand grows, WFEC brings more power generators online and the cost of producing energy rises. If the demand is more than WFEC has readily available, power is purchased on the open market at an even higher price.

The price of power throughout any year is based on peak usage during the previous five years. In other words, the price CEC pays for power in 2009 is based on the average of CEC's peak demand for 2004 through 2008.
The lowest demand during those years was in 2004, the year that will drop out of the formula when calculations are made for 2010.
So, the cooperative's demand during the hottest part of the year will have a significant impact on bills during the summer and beyond.
There is an aspect that we all control – demand – and lowering it from 4 to 8 p.m. on peak days will pay off in the long run.
WFEC plans to notify the co-ops by noon on days a peak is predicted. Cotton Electric has developed a variety of ways for members to get that message, too:

Sign up for Beat the Peak notices. Visit our Web site, http://www.cottonelectric.com/, fill out a very short form and select the form of notification you prefer: Text message, e-mail or both.
Give us a call at 580-875-3351. We'll sign you up for Beat the Peak messages to go to your cell phone or land line.

Follow Cotton Electric on Twitter.
Check our Web site or Facebook page.
On peak days, be energy aware. Keep an energy industry saying in mind: The cheapest kilowatt is the one not used. Put off using the clothes dryer or dishwasher until after 8 p.m. Cook dinner on the grill instead of inside – a double savings since the air conditioner doesn't have to cool air heated by the range or oven. And speaking of the air conditioner, set the thermostat a couple of degrees higher. If you must dry clothes and cook inside, don't do it at the same time. In other words, stagger out the demand during those crucial four hours.
Cotton Electric has set a modest goal of a 5 percent reduction in demand over last year. That would mean dropping the demand by 4,635 kW from 4 to 8 p.m. on the peak days.
The more members of the cooperative who participate, the easier this will be to achieve. For example, a clothes dryer's demand is 5 kW and 927 dryers running at once would have a total demand of 4,635 kW.
If these dryers never ran during the entire peak period, the savings of 4,635 kW to the cooperative would be on next year's power bill. Additionally, the environment would be helped and perhaps the need for new generation delayed.
Put another way, in March 2009, CEC served 17, 485 farm and residential meters. If each lowered demand by 0.3 kW during the peak period, about what it takes to power a television or computer monitor, the goal would be achieved with a bit of a cushion.
The cooperative has power in its numbers. Together, we can Beat the Peak.

Manning the phones during an outage

A big thunderstorm rumbled through the Cotton Electric Service area this afternoon. It was one of the wicked ones with high winds, lots of rain, lots of lightning and, of course, lots of power outages.

Not long after it hit the Walters headquarters, an announcement was made that we were all to "log on" and begin taking calls. When there is a large outage, we all pull together to help get things back up and running. For those of us who work "inside," that means helping with the rush of phone calls from members.

It was my first time to answer phones during a weather event. I could remember how to use the new outage software from training in February, but was a little nervous about talking to members. I wasn't sure what to say and didn't really have a script. I got a quick lesson in customer service by listening to Lisa Bowers and Rachel Bowman when they took a few calls. Lisa and Rachel work with me in the Marketing Department at Cotton Electric.

After the first few calls, I realized the members were as familiar with the routine as my colleagues. Members are encouraged to call any time there is any type of problem. There have been many times I've published information about reporting outages.

Many of the first calls were fairly simple notifications that power was out. Most were in the area north and east of Lawton, around Elgin. A substation at Hulen was down for nearly an hour, affecting 1,625 members. The Walters sub, affecting 1,055 was down briefly. We also had broken poles in the Hastings area.

The software lets us know how many calls we have posted in relation to active outages. At one point it said 215 on over 50 outages throughout the service area.

After about 45 minutes, some of the callers were repeats. "Just calling to see if you sent someone out," and "Can you tell me how long the power's going to be out?" The answers were "Yes, someone is working on that," and, "No, but we'll get it back up as quickly as possible."

The software also has a map showing were all the callers are located. The little telephone icons would sprout up from west to east, following the storm.

Talking to the members was interesting. I told one gentleman we would get someone out as soon as possible and he said, "Well, they can't do anything right now. It's raining too hard!"

A woman called and was afraid to go in her house. A tree branch was across a line and pulling wires on the outside of her house.

Another woman reported a line down and crossing the road about a half-mile away. "By the way," she said, "My power is out, too!" Yes, ma'am.

It wasn't too bad, helping out this first time. Good experience for when things might get really bad.

If the power's out, call us. The number is 875-3351 in Walters or 800-522-3520 for the rest of the service area. A dispatcher is on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

-- Karen Kaley