2023 annual meeting

from Ohio Cooperative Living – August 2023 - Union

RATE ADJUSTMENT NEEDED INCREASE TO

The reliability of electricity and how future power rates will be calculated for URE members were key discussion points at the June 3, 2023, annual meeting in Marysville.

Board Chairman Steve Patton spoke to the group of 175 people representing 125 memberships in attendance about the challenges URE, and most electric cooperatives, are facing across the country. Fossil fuel power generation sources are under attack by the EPA again, and more coal and natural gas power plants are expected to go offline as consumer demand for power grows — a troubling pairing of high demand and low supply.

URE believes in an all-of-the-above approach to power generation that includes renewables, plus coal and gas when intermittent sources such as wind and solar are not available in extreme weather, when demand is at its highest. If unreasonable EPA rules force more coal and gas plants to close, reliability will be at risk.

Patton and URE CEO Anthony Smith both urged members to advocate for electric reliability by joining America’s Electric Cooperatives PAC and supporting candidates who fight for safe, reliable, and affordable electricity.

Smith told URE members, “we’re in a good spot, both economically and geographically.” In the past three years, URE saw growth from $4,596,143 in 2020 to $5,991,726 in 2022. Investment in reliability was made in 2022 with the addition of the Mitchell substation. Members received $2.8 million in credits this year. Electric meters grew more than 3% in the last 10 years — and gas meters grew 2.5% in the last four years. Meanwhile, inflation and interest rates are skyrocketing, and Smith explained to members something is going to have to change. Both electric and gas customers will see minimal rate increases for the first time since 2014 — 5% or less for electricity — and 6% or less for gas — both far less than increases being implemented by publicly owned utility companies this summer.

For the future, Patton explained, URE staff, leadership, and board members are diligently studying a new way to determine fair rates based on the time of day people use electricity.

“Time-of-use pricing is simply setting the price of energy based on its value at different times of the day and different seasons of the year,” Smith explained. “For instance, by simply delaying laundry or other energy-intensive activities until the off-peak period, you could pay less for that energy and avoid paying for higher-cost energy. Time-of-use rates are set up to be ‘revenue neutral,’ meaning we are not trying to increase or decrease total revenue, but just shift costs back to those whose usage pattern causes higher costs for the cooperative,” Smith continued.

A ready-to-roll-out plan is likely two years out, but a more fair model of pricing for members is possible, as more things in our world become electrified, more electric vehicles are on the road, and distributed generation of rooftop solar increases.

The decision to change how rates are calculated is not one co-op leadership takes lightly. In fact, the co-op has a defined process in how it approaches all co-op business: constant monitoring of revenue and expenses, planning of work, forecasting for the future, and developing rates, all with the goal to efficiently operate the not-for-profit cooperative.

Other business at the annual meeting included the announcement of five Youth Scholarship winners: two-year path: Bryson Tillman and Emerson Trapp; four-year path: Cannon Moser, Logan Brunswick, and Elaina Lahmers. Members also received the finance report from URE’s Dave Speicher, CFO/VP finance, and a Buckeye Power Update from Craig Grooms, Buckeye COO. The nominating committee report and election results were presented by Chairman Jon Mangas.

Board of Trustees members Dale Scheiderer and Jeff Reinhard were re-elected to another term and the proposed changes to the Code of Regulations were approved.

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

After the meeting, former URE employee Gary Simpson chatted with recently retired Brian Lewis and newly appointed operations manager Marty Nicol. All three held the same title of operations manager at URE.