NOTICE OF MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO AMEND THE BYLAWS OF UNITED POWER, INC.

DATE OF NOTICE: September 6, 2024

NOTICE OF PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE BYLAWS OF UNITED POWER, INC. 
500 COOPERATIVE WAY, BRIGHTON, COLORADO 80603.

The Board of Directors Proposes to amend the Bylaws of United Power, Inc. as follows:

• Establishes eligibility requirements for any director candidate to assure he/she is in good standing with the cooperative.
• Extending the required period of membership for eligible director candidates from two (2) years to three (3) years.
• Extending the required period for a prior cooperative employee, prior employee of a statewide association of electric cooperatives, an electric generation and transmission cooperative, material supply cooperative, financial cooperative, national electric cooperative, or other entity in which the electric cooperative is a member, or has been a member, or a close relative of a prior employee of the cooperative must wait before being eligible to serve as a director from three (3) years to ten (10) years.
• Defines the requirements a person representing a legal entity must meet to be eligible to be a candidate for a director. 

A complete redline of the proposed changes is available on the cooperative’s website at www.unitedpower.com, or members may obtain a hardcopy at any United Power office, or via mail by calling 303-637-1300 and requesting that a copy be mailed to them at the address on file with the cooperative.

Pursuant to Article 11, Section 8 of the Bylaws of United Power Inc., you are hereby notified that the Board of Directors of United Power, Inc. proposes to adopt the following amendment(s) to United Power’s bylaws at a meeting of the Board to be held on October 23, 2024, unless a written petition is filed at United Power’s headquarters before close of business on October 22, 2024, signed by 100 or more Members, protesting the proposed amendments. 

UNITED POWER, INC. By: /s/Stephen Whiteside, Secretary of the Board
 

Fall is rapidly upon us, and we have successfully managed our first summer as an independent electric cooperative. It has been a hot summer and despite naysayers, the amazingly dedicated women and men of United Power have led us through this significant transition.

United Power’s loads continue to grow. Combining new sources of power and innovative technology, we have managed the system in a new and exciting way. As of May 1, we immediately reduced our carbon intensity by 26%, all while setting new peak loads, month over month. Our investment in nearly 80 MW of battery energy storage systems paid for itself just two weeks after the official ribbon cutting in July. On Aug. 2, we hit an all-time historical peak of nearly 650 MW. The true load had we not deployed battery storage — and initiated demand response — would have been 719 MW! This is up from the 2023 peak of 634 MW. The batteries meant we were able to buy lower cost and lower carbon power at night and use it during peak hours from 4–8 p.m. instead of purchasing expensive fossil fuel alternatives.

There is tremendous value in having a diverse portfolio of generation and large-scale storage resources. As United Power members, you do not have to wait until the end of the decade for the energy transition, as other cooperatives are doing. We are living it now with a wide range of power suppliers — 26 at last count — bringing a lower carbon and more flexible energy supply. Hydropower, wind, solar, storage, and gas allow us to have a balanced energy portfolio.

An increasing number of our members are adding solar, storage, and electric vehicles to their lives, and we support these efforts, happily providing critical analytical tools to make sure these decisions are being made with the best and most neutral information possible. United Power fully supports an “all of the above” strategy whether we provide the resource or not. One of United Power’s critical goals, as outlined in Our Cooperative Roadmap, is to continually optimize our electric system enabling all technologies to operate seamlessly.  For help in these and other energy savings opportunities, click here.

In addition to the change in power suppliers, United Power is adding intelligence to how we operate and monitor the grid through advanced systems, including:

• A new outage management system, giving us visibility and insight into our operations,
• Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI),
• Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), the system our operators use to monitor real time performance,
• and a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS).

These tools are all part of our drive to become a Distribution System Operator as we prepare for the evolving energy enterprise. In recognition of our commitment to innovation, knowledge sharing, and moving the industry forward, United Power was just honored with the Survalent Industry Innovation Award.

I am particularly excited about several developments that support our members and critical community resources thanks to the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act and Empower Rural America (New ERA) Program.

• United Power has been awarded $700,000 to place batteries in four fire stations across the service territory to improve reliability.
• We will receive $6.4 million to supply Fort Lupton’s Water Treatment Facility with floating solar and storage.
• Golden Aluminum is receiving $22.5 million to convert some of their equipment from natural gas to electric power.

We are also in the final stages of seeking a large New ERA grant that can help in our transition to lower carbon resources.

All of these exciting changes happen thanks to the dedication of our employees and support from your Board of Directors. As always, I welcome your questions, comments and concerns.
 

Weeks–Long Initiative Brought Power to More Than 150 Families

“It is indescribably upsetting that anyone in this day and age should not have access to electricity.” 

Apprentice Lineworker Isaiah Segoviano is one of two United Power employees who spent a week in July working in the grueling Arizona heat helping build the infrastructure necessary to supply hundreds of Navajo families with the life-changing resource of electricity. The mutual aid initiative, called Light Up Navajo, is aimed at connecting the people of the Navajo Nation to power, and is made possible by the cooperative efforts of more than 250 volunteers from 48 utilities across 16 states. 

The Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized Native American reservation in the United States, occupying an area greater than 27,000 square miles across parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Many of its residents are currently living without electricity because large land parcels, passed through several generations of Navajo tribal families, are in isolated locations that are often difficult and cost-prohibitive to serve.

Electric cooperatives uniquely understand the struggle for electrification. Before the Rural Electrification Act was passed in 1936, larger electric utilities ignored requests from American families living by the light of kerosene lamps in sparsely populated rural areas. Cooperatives were formed to power these rural areas, and while power was flowing to more than 90% of farms by the early 1950s, the Navajo Nation did not reap the same benefits. It would have to wait until 1959 before the Navajo Tribal Utilities Authority (NTUA) was founded. At the time of its creation, the NTUA was only a small water utility operating out of New Mexico. It has grown into the largest multi-utility owned and operated by an American Indian tribe but has had to play catch up to provide electrification for its vast territory. 

The NTUA has conducted an ambitious years–long effort to provide electricity to nearly 7,800 homes within the territory, but more than 13,000 still remain without access. The Light Up Navajo initiative was launched in 2018 in coordination with the American Public Power Association to address the great needs of families living in the Navajo Nation. United Power’s Segoviano and Logan Steele, Troubleshooter, joined the initiative’s fifth project phase. 

“We were working 12-hour shifts in 100-degree weather to set poles and string lights,” said Segoviano. “But at the end of the day, the people were so grateful, and it was heartwarming to witness families receive power for the first time in their lives.”

United Power sent two trucks and additional electrical equipment with Segoviano and Steele who helped set approximately 70 poles and string miles of line over six days in July. During the project’s 13-week window from mid-April to July, crews strung a total of 50 miles of line and provided power to 150 homes despite difficult terrain and extreme temperatures.

Light Up Navajo’s first phase was able to plant more than 3,400 poles and string nearly 60 miles of line to provide power to 233 homes in 2019. Subsequent phases and mutual aid programs have connected nearly 500 additional homes. NTUA has since been able to provide an additional 2,500 homes with electricity.

“The workers with NTUA expressed their gratitude to us for offering our availability to help with this project,” said Segoviano. “They said that we are their forever brothers.”

Electric cooperatives were established more than 85 years ago to bring electricity to unserved communities like those in the Navajo Nation. United Power has a long history of supporting projects designed to deliver power to difficult locations or remote communities, both locally and internationally. The cooperative sent a representative to help power mountain villages in Guatemala in 2018 and 2019. Everyone should have access to electricity and the life-changing opportunities it provides, and these projects demonstrate a tangible commitment to the co-op principles upon which United Power was founded.