Light Reading April 2016

LIGHT READING INLAND POWER AND LIGHT inlandpower.com

APRIL 2016

Get to Know Your Co-Op Network The Power Behind Your Power Every day, Inland Power is hard at work to make sure all of our members have the electric power they need at the lowest possible price. And behind the scenes, we are working with a network of cooperatives to make that happen.

Inland Power is part of National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). This organization represents 905 co-ops serving electricity to an estimated 42 million people in 47 states.

NRECA represents more than 12% of the nation’s meters across the country.

We also are very active in Washington Rural Electric Cooperative Association (WRECA), which focuses on bringing Washington cooperatives together to focus on key issues impacting all cooperatives across the state.

It takes a lot of money to run an electric co-op, so when we need to borrow capital, we turn to the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC). Inland Power is 100% borrower of CFC. This organization is also a cooperative and is owned by electric co-ops throughout the country.

as general liability, auto and fire insurance. So once again, along with other electric cooperatives across the country, we are members of Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange. This allows us to maintain reliable coverage at an affordable price through a co-op.

Inland Power is also part of the Cooperative Response Center (CRC), which allows us to answer dispatch calls for any outage in our service territory 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Did you know as a co-op

member, you’re

So, while you are a member of one electric co-op, you are actually connected to many other co-ops.

And being connected to this cooperative network ensures your needs are met in the most efficient and cooperative way possible and at the lowest cost.

connected to an

As you know, every month we run an electric bill that we send to you either electronically or through regular mail. We use National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) to ensure we can apply the latest technology, help lower your energy costs and send timely, accurate bills to you.

entire network

of cooperatives?

No business can operate without several different types of insurance, such

Thank you for being a valued member of Inland Power.

i n l a n d p ower i s m y c oope rat ive

ENERGY SAFETY Notify Inland Power Before Having Any Electrical Work Done to Your Meter Base From time-to-time you may hire an electrician to do work around your meter. Please be aware that they are not authorized to pull the meter from its base. By pulling the meter, Inland Power is notified that your home is experiencing an outage. We then send a crew to your home to investigate and restore your power. If they arrive to find that the meter has been tampered with, by you or an electrician, you will receive a $250 meter tampering fee.

To avoid this fee, please have your electrician schedule a disconnect and reconnect of service with our office at (509) 789-4277. Inland Power is happy to provide this service on regular business days, free of charge, to ensure the safety of your electrician and to avoid the cost of dispatching a crew that is not needed.

WE ARE A MEMBER-OWNED ENERGY COOPERATIVE COMMITTED TO SAFE, RELIABLE SERVICE AT COMPETITIVE RATES.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY TIPS & TRICKS

- i n l a n d p o w e r m i s s i o n stat e m e n t

Be Aware of Energy Scams And Free Dinners If you’re old enough to pay bills, you’re old enough to know that there is no “free” lunch or dinner.

Inland Power has been alerted by several members of a couple of high pressure sales pitches that they have been contacted directly about.

The first comes from an organization that will contact you and offer you a free dinner to learn more about how you can be more energy efficient. At dinner, they give you a lengthy sales pitch to demonstrate different ways you can save energy. In the end, they try to sell you a foil-faced bubble wrap to lay in your attic that does nothing to save energy.

Second, we have also had members receive a letter from a third party wind power company.

This letter targets those members that want to ensure that their power is 100% clean energy.

To enroll, they ask for your login and password to Inland Power’s bill payment system. They then take your monthly energy bill and add a hefty fee to invest in wind energy.

You then pay them and they will pay Inland Power and keep the fee to invest in clean power.

Please be aware of these and other scams that come your way. If you are interested in purchasing clean power or in energy efficiency, please contact your Inland Power experts at (509) 789-4277. We have experts who can help you purchase clean energy through our Green Power Plus program or you can speak to our energy efficiency experts to save money on your power bill all year long.

RIGHT-OF-WAY CLEARING Inland Tree Clearing Crews Gear Up for Another Busy Season Inland Power Crews Focusing on Problematic Lodgepole Pine Trees This Spring and Summer As we learned during last year’s wind storm, trees and branches falling onto power lines are one of the leading causes of power outages. Because of this, rightof-way clearing is an important part of our goal of delivering safe, reliable, cost-effective electric service.

Inland Power’s tree clearing crews are returning to many parts of our service area as part of our regular rotation schedule. This schedule is partly determined by vegetation growth patterns and service area terrain. This year our crews will be focusing in the Nine Mile, Newman Lake, Deer Park, Clayton, Mica, Pomeroy, Colfax, West Plains, Hangman and Lincoln County areas of our service territory. They will be clearing the right-of-way and will be focusing on lodgepole pines.

heavy snow falling in December, we had hundreds of these pine tree fall onto our lines and cause power outages.

This spring and summer we will be working hard on the reliability of our system. Our operations department will make every attempt to notify you when crews will be working in your area. They may contact you directly to ask for permission to remove any leaning lodgepole pines that are outside of our right-of-way that look like they may impact our power lines. We are confident the efforts of our crews will help with reduce outages in 2016.

The lodgepole pines were problematic danger trees for Inland during 2015. This form of pine tree has the bulk of its weight at the top of the tree, which causes them to lean as seen in this photo. With the November wind storm weakening trees throughout the Inland Northwest and then

VISIT INLANDPOWER.COM FOR MORE ENERGY EFFICIENCY TIPS

WHAT DOES MY SERVICE AVAILABILITY CHARGE COVER? Ever wondered what your monthly service availability charge supports? A “fixed” or basic charge (called the service availability charge) is a flat fee designed to recover a portion of the cost of delivering electric energy to all members. The service availability charge is reflective of the investment in poles, wires, transformers and equipment that it takes to provide you with electric service. It also supports fleet, facility and member service functions, such as maintenance, rightof-way clearing and general administrative responsibilities.

If one member uses only kilowatt-hour of electricity and another member uses 100 kWh, Inland Power still incurs about the same cost to build the line, maintain the distribution system and deliver electricity to both members. A service charge helps ensure these costs are fairly shared by all members.

Cooperatively - we all achieve more!

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