Stopping Scams Means Better Service

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By Derrill Holly

Our increasingly connected world is giving scammers more opportunities to connect with unsuspecting consumers, and local authorities, utilities and other businesses are working overtime to keep people informed. To help prevent you, your family or your business from being victimized, they suggest “if you see something, say something” is a vigilant adage to abide by.

It’s likely that during the holidays you spent a good amount of time shopping online for family, friends and co-workers, and not tracking where the money was spent. Now, the wrapping paper, bows and holiday lights might be dwindling, but the bills can start to pile up. During this time it can be difficult to keep track of what’s legitimate and what’s not, and scammers can take advantage of consumers during this time of vulnerability, making demands for payment and prying for personal information. This is why it’s especially important to pay attention to the bills you’re responsible for, including your utility bills.

“The Federal Trade Commission has been hearing about scammers impersonating utility companies in an effort to get your money,” said Lisa Lake, a federal consumer education specialist. “Your reports help us fight these scams.”

Electric cooperatives are among the businesses and consumer organizations supporting Utilities United Against Scams (UUAS). The international consortium of electricity, natural gas, water and sewer providers, and trade and industry associations shares information on payment scams, identity theft and sales and service schemes as one means of fighting them.

Impostor scams are the most common type of fraud reported to the Federal Trade Commission, according to UUAS officials. “Impersonators call homes and small businesses demanding payment for supposedly delinquent bills and threatening to terminate service.”

The frequency of the incidents picks up during peak heating and cooling seasons, in part because consumers are most concerned when temperature extremes increase the urgency of maintaining utility service.

Variations on the scam are also becoming more common. Rather than making an initial claim that a consumer owes an outstanding balance, some scammers are now claiming an overpayment is the reason for a telephone call to a consumer. They will make contact in an attempt to get banking information so they can process a refund.

“Never give banking information over the phone unless you place the call to a number you know is legitimate,” Lake wrote in an FTC blog.

There has also been an uptick in door-to-door scams by people claiming to represent utility providers, like your electric co-op. Representatives knock or ring the doorbell offering to replace or repair a meter or other device, or solicit personal information to sign a consumer up for programs that could reduce their energy bills.

They may try to charge you for the phony service, sell you unnecessary products, collect personal information for use in identity theft or simply gain entry to steal valuables, officials said.

High-pressure demands are a common tactic in many of the schemes. Someone urging immediate decisions or actions, like immediate payment, particularly by a specific option like a gift card, wire transfer, cellphone or third-party computer app, should raise serious concerns. Utility-connected scams are common, because utility services are so frequent. Lighting, heating, water and sewage services are all essential to modern living, so any threat of service disconnections can provoke a lot of anxiety.

Your first defense is personal awareness of your account status, including knowing whether balances are up to date. This is becoming more important as scammers use more automatic dialers or “robocalls” to phish for potential marks.

“Even if the caller insists you have a past due bill, that’s a big red flag,” Lake said, offering additional advice. “Contact the utility company directly using the number on your paper bill or on the company’s website. Don’t call any number the caller gave you.”

Derrill Holly writes on consumer and cooperative affairs for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

SMART DEVICES

They’re definitely smart, but not always secure

For many of us, buying and using technology to make our homes smarter and interconnected is as tempting as walking through a candy store as a kid. (Sour Patch Kids and Pixy Stix anyone?)

Although not found in every household, many U.S. homes have one or two components, such as a smart security system complete with cameras, a smart thermostat or a know-it-all “voice assistant” such as Amazon’s Alexa. The rest of our homes range from doing things the old-fashioned way (no smart devices at all) to having a home decked out in every smart technology one could imagine.

According to Statista, a company specializing in market and consumer data, North Americans are forecast to spend $63 billion in the smart home market in 2022. And that’s nothing to sneeze at. (But if we do, millions of Americans may hear Alexa say, “Bless you.”)

Although convenient — who doesn’t want real-time glimpses of who is ringing our doorbell or to hear Google Assistant recite a recipe — smart devices come with their own set of security concerns.

Canada’s CBC News hired hackers (ethically responsible ones, of course) to hack a family’s smart home and they got in, literally. “All it took was a white van, a team of three hackers and a phishing email to remotely unlock … the front door.”

This eye-opening scenario is not intended to scare people; rather, we encourage you to give your smart devices serious thought before diving in. Security measures for smart devices are similar to the steps we should take in our daily life to protect us against seedy scammers and hackers everywhere.

For example, be leery of emails or calls asking for personal information such as login info or passwords. And although everyone loves to use the same passwords like “abc123” for everything, doing so can make your smart devices vulnerable. (Note: It’s not a good idea to use “abc123.” Be creative and make them hard to crack.) And although it seems obvious, never use the factory-set password; change it immediately.

Many tech companies are considering (and others have already switched) to two-step authentication for the smart devices they sell. Although the extra step can feel like a pain, the two-step process is a good thing; it is a valuable step in keeping you and your family safe and your conversations private.

Without the code provided in the second security step, outsiders can’t access your device or account — even if they guessed your SweetHomeAlabama1973 password (or whatever).

For more in-depth technology advice, consult an information technology professional. For more information about electrical safety, visit SafeElectricity.org. And if your password is actually SweetHomeAlabama1973, we apologize; it was used for illustrative purposes only.

Cooperative Mobile App Gets Update

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Colorado’s electric co-ops utilize important technology to read meters, report outages and help consumer-members keep track of their energy usage. One tool some Colorado co-ops use for these purposes is SmartHub. This mobile app provides features that help consumers manage their accounts, see billing and payment information and detailed usage analysis.

SmartHub recently went through an upgrade, which still allows for the consumer to see analytics and billing details, but it has a new look and several new features, including outage and billing alerts on the home screen. This use of technology and a smartphone app is an innovative way co-ops can connect with their consumer-members.

Highline Electric Association’s Riverview Solar Begins Generation

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Construction of a new solar project in northeastern Colorado was recently completed and the site began generation on November 15. More than 5,000 panels make up Highline Electric Association’s 1.5-megawatt Riverview solar project. The single-axis panels face east in the morning and track the sun across the sky throughout the day. This is the Holyoke-based electric co-op’s second local, renewable generation project and is estimated to be able to power 300-500 homes or about 20 irrigation wells.

When combined with the generation from the Trailblazer waste heat recovery project, Highline will receive up to 4% of its annual energy requirements form local, renewable projects. The co-op is evaluating other renewable project options on its system that make sense for the co-op and its consumer-members.

A Look Back at 2019 Co-op Innovations

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From rebates and EV chargers to solar projects and industry awards, 2019 was an impressive year of innovation at Colorado’s electric cooperatives.

Many co-ops, including San Isabel Electric and Mountain Parks Electric, gave local community businesses tens of thousands of dollars of rebates for everything from lighting upgrades to heat pumps. Mountain View Electric Association, based in Limon, gave away six whole-home LED updates to consumer-member residences across its service territory.

New EV charging stations were installed in White River Electric and Yampa Valley Electric Association’s territories thanks to Charge Ahead Colorado grants. San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative added an EV charger at its headquarters in Monte Vista as part of the services it offers.

KC Electric Association in Hugo announced it has three wind farms coming in its service territory on the eastern plains, expected to be in service by the end of 2020.

Tri-State announced its Spanish Peaks Solar project, to be located in southern Colorado. It is expected to be completed in 2023. Tri-State also announced its responsible energy plan in pursuit of a cleaner and lower-cost resource portfolio.

In 2019, Brighton-based United Power celebrated 10 years of community solar. Sangre de Cristo Electric held its first community solar project ribbon cutting at Trout Creek Solar. This solar site sits on Colorado corrections facility land in Buena Vista. Holy Cross Energy is also repurposing land for the co-op’s new Woody Creek Solar farm, to be built on land owned by the Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District. And San Luis Valley REC took loads of supplies on horseback to build a new solar site atop Turret Peak.

United Power earned a place on a top 10 utility industry list for its battery storage system and White River Electric Association’s Piceance Creek Solar was named the 2019 Utility Scale Project of the Year.

To read more about these innovative projects, stay tuned to this Energy Innovations webpage.

Energy From Waterpower

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By Paul Wesslund and Amy Higgins

Attention to energy and the environment focuses new light on one of the oldest sources of power: falling water. “Hydropower was the first source of electrical energy used in the United States,” states a U.S. Department of Energy report issued in recent years. In fact, hydropower has always been a part of Colorado’s renewable energy mix. Today, about 30% of the power delivered by electric co-op power supplier Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association comes from renewable resources and approximately half of that 30% comes from large hydroelectric resources, which is primarily provided by the Western Area Power Administration, according to Mark Stutz, public relations specialist at Tri-State.

The DOE report concludes, “Increasing hydropower can simultaneously deliver an array of benefits to the nation that address issues of national concern, including climate change, air quality, public health, economic development, energy diversity and water security.”

The 395-page Hydropower Vision — A New Chapter for America’s 1st Renewable Electricity Source reports that, in the next 35 years, the United States could increase hydropower production by half of what it generates today: from 101 gigawatts today to 150 GW by 2050.

While this seems like a perfect energy solution, it should be noted that this projection wouldn’t make a major change in the nation’s fuel mix. Achieving that entire 150-GW goal would only raise the share of electricity produced by hydropower from about 6% today to about 9% 35 years from now. And that forecast is a best-case scenario.

Here’s what would be needed for that to happen:
• Technical innovation to improve the effectiveness of equipment that converts flowing water into electricity
• Construction of new hydroelectric dams and the conversion of existing power-producing structures into electricity generators
• Streamlining a complex web of regulations that affect construction on rivers and streams

But even though hydropower seems to have taken the back burner to solar, wind and battery storage, hydroelectricity is still an important, viable and valuable renewable energy resource.

Long term, cost effective
Tom Lovas understands the promise and the problems of hydropower. He worked on several hydroelectric projects as a technical liaison and consultant with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the trade association for the country’s electric co-ops.

“Hydropower is a good, long-term, cost-effective resource for electric cooperatives,” Lovas says. He adds that, with environmental concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, hydropower is “certainly an avenue that should be explored.”

But Lovas sees cost and regulation as limiting the DOE Vision report’s lofty goals.

“There’s been relatively little new hydroelectric development in the country in a number of years in part because of the consideration of environmental aspects associated with the reservoir development,” he says. “It takes quite a bit of time and effort to get through the licensing phase of extensive feasibility studies and environmental reports, plus there’s the relatively high up-front construction cost.”

For example, Gunnison County Electric Association in Gunnison conducted a study in 2010 that showed that the nearby Taylor Reservoir Dam could support a 3.4 megawatt hydroelectric project, so GCEA decided to take on the project. Fast forward to today — nearly a decade later — and the co-op is finally nearing an agreement with the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users, according to GCEA CEO Mike McBride. “If we can get a memorandum of understanding signed — hopefully by the end of the year — we would turn our attention to permitting and design,” he says.

McBride says GCEA is also still in the permitting process with the Bureau of Reclamation, which will likely take several months. However, he explains, “Our two biggest challenges at Taylor have been in reaching a shared vision with the water users and the fact that electrical infrastructure at the dam is insufficient for a larger project.

“The 2010 (study) concluded that the water resource could support a 3.4 MW project, but there are 18 miles of singlephase distribution line from the dam to the substation that would need to be upgraded to three-phase, which would be a significant additional cost to the project,” McBride says.

GCEA is considering Taylor Reservoir Dam to be a 200- to 500-kilowatt project, which would produce between 1.6 million and 3.7 million kilowatt-hours of energy. “The fact that 6 miles of that line is under the road in a narrow section of the canyon is part of the reason that we are looking at a smaller project initially,” McBride says, adding “the project could be expanded in the future.

With hydropower, small seems to be trending. In 2017, White River Electric Association in Meeker began generating electricity with its first micro hydroelectric project using irrigation ditch water to power the project. And a Fort Collins-based Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association consumer-member has a 25-kW micro hydropower generator that powers his farm’s sprinkler during the growing season, using irrigation ditch water as well.

The DOE Vision report lists several ways to expand the use of technology that turns water into electricity. Lovas says the two most likely prospects for increasing hydropower are to modernize existing facilities and to add generation to dams and waterways that do not currently provide electricity.

“I would expect that upgrades to existing plants and adding power at existing dams and canals probably have the highest potential benefit,” Lovas says, noting that focusing on improving efficiency and effectiveness could avoid some of the problems of expense and regulatory approvals for an entirely new project.

DOE’s Vision reports that there are about 50,000 dams in the country that don’t have hydroelectric equipment. The report states that the potential of those 50,000 dams, as well as upgrades to existing plants, could provide about a fourth of its ambitious projection of 150 GW by 2050.

Storing energy from other renewable sources
Lovas also sees another area of promise for hydropower that would make solar and wind power more useful. It’s called pumped storage.

Forty-two existing pumped storage plants in the United States, including at least two in Colorado, basically allow the utilities that operate them to time-shift electricity use. When people aren’t using much electricity, like in the middle of the night, the utility uses relatively low-cost available generation capacity to pump water from a nearby reservoir to one located at a higher elevation. Then, when the utility needs extra capacity, it draws water from the upper reservoir to run a power turbine.

The DOE Vision report projects pumped storage as potentially providing 36 GW toward its 49 GW goal.

Lovas says more use of pumped storage could “help improve the economics of other renewable resources.” For example, pumped storage could provide electricity when a wind farm can’t, like in calm weather, or for a bank of photovoltaic solar energy cells at night.

“You could optimize the availability of photovoltaics by being able to store the energy,” Lovas says. “Then, the pumped storage effectively serves as an alternative to a battery.”

The problems might outweigh the promise of generating more hydropower, but utilities continue exploring viable options for more renewable energy sources.

Paul Wesslund writes on cooperative issues for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Amy Higgins covers Colorado issues.