By Amy Higgins Electricity is responsible for our hot morning coffee and daily meals. It keeps us cool under the sizzling sunshine and warm in wintry weather. And in the 21st century, the advancements go several steps further: Electricity delivers news and messages to the palms of our hands, quickly charges our vehicles and tools […]
By Katherine Loving Last year saw a record increase in electric vehicle sales, and experts are predicting that many major vehicle manufacturers will only produce electric models by 2035. But what does electric vehicles’ impact on the grid look like? A 2021 study by the Department of Energy showed that increased electrification, or replacement of […]
A new type of home is on the horizon that emphasizes energy efficiency and cost savings for both energy consumers and electric utilities. GCEA, with offices in Gunnison and Crested Butte, recently announced that it will be exhibiting one of these homes from VISION House Transcend to demonstrate to consumer-members the efficiency and technology capabilities […]
Leaders at San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative in Monte Vista and at Alamosa County began talks with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to share its eagerness to convert retired agricultural land to a renewable solar generation and transmission site. Decades of drought and overpumping of groundwater have created swaths of vacant acreage, leaving the […]
By Mona Neeley Photography by Studio 1441 There will be lights this Christmas in the small, remote village of La Montanita de la Virgen, thanks to electric cooperatives in Colorado and Oklahoma who were tasked with bringing light to Guatemala. And, 16 lineworkers here in the United States will celebrate the holidays with a special […]
By Kylee Coleman Supply and demand. It’s not a new concept. It’s our collective way as a society of finding balance for goods and services, such as that piping hot cup of joe from your favorite java drive-thru on a subzero Colorado morning. They supply the steaming paper cup full of roasted, ground, filtered and […]
An innovative partnership between Gunnison-based electric co-op GCEA, the National Park Service and Rivian broadened the electric vehicle charging infrastructure network in the Gunnison area in central Colorado. In early October, a dual-port 11.5-kilowatt Rivian Waypoints Level 2 EV charger and a single port 62.5 kW ChargePoint DC fast-charger became operational at the Lake Fork […]
Grand Junction-based electric co-op Grand Valley Power utilizes an outage management system to track and log power outages on its distribution system. In 2021, the co-op’s System Average Interruption Duration Index was under 45 minutes. SAIDI measures the total number of minutes a consumer experienced a power outage over the course of a year. GVP […]
Working together ensures phones are always answered By Sarah Smith Your local electric cooperative may be a relatively small utility, but its services are those you would expect from a much larger company. That is only possible because your co-op works with other small cooperatives to provide much more than it could by itself. We […]
Co-ops ready for utility drones to expand their reach By Reed Karaim and Mona Neeley Imagine a drone flight at an electric cooperative in the not-too-distant future. Cool technologies, including utility drones at electric co-ops, are legitimately part of the conversation. No longer limited to staying within the line of sight of its on-the-ground operator, […]