Marshall Fire Reveals Urban Fire Threat; March 6 Seminar to Cover Fire Safety & Preparedness

Historic wildfires have devastated large parts of Colorado and its neighboring states over the past few years. However, the Marshall Fire in late December opened our eyes to the reality that wildfires are not simply a threat for our mountain communities. Given the right conditions, wildfires can spring up anywhere and quickly become uncontrollable.

The Marshall Fire erupted in eastern Boulder County before claiming nearly 1,000 homes and businesses in Boulder, Superior and Louisville, just miles from Denver and even closer to United Power members living in Coal Creek Canyon and Carbon Valley.

United Power has made significant investments in system improvements and upgrades to mitigate the potential for fires off its power lines, particularly in its own mountain communities. With multiple strong wind storms in December, including the storm that fueled the Marshall Fire, those system improvements have more than shown their value to members in both reliability and safety. The cooperative has also provided additional resources members can use to help mitigate the threat of wildfires on their own property, such as how to create “defensible space,” referring to the strategic removal of vegetation that could create a bridge for fire to pass over.

In March, the Firestone Free Thinkers 4-H Club, in partnership with United Power, is hosting a free one-hour fire safety and disaster preparedness training, presented by the Frederick-Firestone Fire Protection District and the Carbon Valley Emergency Management Agency. The training will discuss how to pack a “go kit” in case of an emergency, how to create defensible space, the difference between evacuations and shelter-in-place and hazards in Carbon Valley.

Fire Safety & Disaster Preparedness Training

FREE 1-HOUR EVENT. NO RSVP REQUIRED. 

Where:
United Power Carbon Valley Service Center
9586 E I-25 Frontage Rd, Longmont

When:
March 6, 2022 @ 3:00 p.m.

Contact:
CV Emergency Management, 720-526-6594
www.fffd.us/227/emergency-management

As your cooperative, we want to provide you with the most useful information and applicable resources to help you save on bills. To help you make more informed decisions, we tackle some common energy efficiency myths in this column.

Reducing Energy Use is Too Expensive

A common and enduring myth about energy efficiency is cost. The stigma associated with it assumes it’s too expensive and not worth it. While costly energy efficiency upgrades are possible, many immediate steps you can take are simple behavioral and habitual changes. These include turning off lights in unused rooms, unplugging or shutting down unused electronics, closing doors to empty rooms while heating/cooling systems are running, limiting use of vents in the kitchen or bathroom and remembering to close your curtains in the summer – and conversely open them in the winter – to keep sunlight from affecting the temperature inside your home.

Setting Thermostat Higher Heats Home Faster

No matter what temperature you set your thermostat, your furnace will work equally as hard and fast to meet that goal. The only difference achieved by setting the temperature to a higher degree is that the system will work for a longer period of time, therefore using more energy. The same applies to air conditioners when set to a lower temperature than necessary. Although blasting your heater or air conditioning does not heat or cool your home more quickly, adjusting your thermostat up or down a few degrees, depending on the season, can help you save energy.

Closing Vents in Unused Rooms Saves Energy

Shutting vents in empty or unused rooms may seem logical to save energy. Heating or cooling an empty space does appear to waste energy. However, your system cannot detect closed vents and will continue trying to push air to them. When the air cannot escape, it reverses and can cause damage to your system. Instead of closing vents, practice closing doors to rooms that are not in use. When doors are open, it allows the hot or cold air from inside the room to escape and the air from outside the room to enter, which can force your system to work harder to maintain thermostat settings. Closed doors prevent air from entering or exiting so the system can properly heat or cool the room and maintain it more easily.

Using energy more efficiently isn’t as difficult as you may believe. Small behavioral changes make a big difference. To review more ways to save, check out our website at www.unitedpower.com/energy-tips or contact an Energy Management Specialist at 303-637-1300.

How to Monitor Your Energy Usage

United Power members looking for ways to use energy more efficiently this year and save on their energy bills can utilize free resources available exclusively to the cooperative’s members.

View Usage With Power Portal

Power Portal was launched as an ancillary feature of the cooperative’s online account tool for members to view advanced data on their energy use over the course of days, weeks, months and more. The software breaks your energy usage down into 15-minute segments to provide you with a detailed picture of what activities or habits are controlling your energy usage. Members can even use the tool to evaluate on- and off-peak energy usage.

Armed with the ability to diagnose behaviors that lead to excess energy usage, members can begin taking real steps toward using energy more efficiently. Members can even use this tool to gauge the effectiveness of energy efficient updates to their home.

For more information, go to the Power Portal page. 

Demand Calculator

Adding or upgrading an appliance in your home? United Power recently debuted its new demand calculator, which allows members to toggle different appliances on and off to see what demand they could require in your home. To use the calculator or learn more about the demand rate, go to the Understanding Demand page.

United Power Consistently, Significantly Better than National Average

United Power understands the most important thing its members want is consistently reliable power. Being able to deliver uninterrupted power is prominently weighed in how the cooperative defines success each year. Since altering its maintenance practices a few years ago, United Power’s reliability has significantly improved, as have its outage numbers. Already an industry leader in automated field devices and other innovative projects, the cooperative is also trending well below the national average in utility outage times, setting yet another standard for others to emulate.

The national average for outage duration among electric utilities in the United States has consistently hovered around 120 minutes per meter. This means the average electric consumer can expect to experience approximately two hours of outage time at their home over the course of a year. When United Power’s operations team instituted a new data-driven maintenance plan in 2017, its average outage times resembled the national averages. In the four years following the plan’s launch, the cooperative’s outage times per meter have dropped below 70 minutes.

The new maintenance practice focuses on analyzing data collected across thousands of miles of line to isolate the worst performing segments. With these segments identified, targeted maintenance projects can be scheduled to improve their performance.

“When you target maintenance efforts at the worst performing parts of the system it improves reliability for members served off of it,” said Bryant Robbins, United Power’s Chief Operating Officer. “Maintenance is an ongoing process, but as long as we continue analyzing the data, isolating problem sections and targeting our maintenance efforts to improve them, it improves the whole system’s reliability and resilience.”

Devices on the system, such as enhanced technology in substations and advanced metering equipment, collect data and transfer it back to system operators. In the event of an outage, these devices can capture important information, such as time, location and sequence-of-events. Armed with this, lineworkers in the field can use the information to restore power to members more quickly, which also contributes to decreased outage times. Without this information, not only would identifying problematic areas be difficult, or even impossible, it would also create additional delays in power restoration as lineworkers inspect miles of line to find the cause.

Some system improvements have served dual functions. United Power recently published its comprehensive fire mitigation plan, which includes new standards and program initiatives primarily focused on areas of the territory that are particularly at risk of wildfires, such as Coal Creek and Golden Gate Canyons. In December, storms blew through the territory with wind speeds in excess of 115 mph, including the storm that ultimately fueled the Marshall Fire. The cooperative activated its fire mitigation protocols during these windstorms, and due to proactive upgrades only experienced a few small outages.

“Our maintenance and system improvement efforts are already paying off for our members,” said Robbins. “Implementing this new maintenance plan has been effective and is proving its value. It’s hard to estimate how many outages you’ve prevented when you don’t have them, but our proactive efforts have gone a long way in helping prevent and/or quickly resolving outages.”

Regardless of the size or length of outage, United Power is continually investigating what causes them and how it can implement new practices to decrease their impact to members and duration. From system redundancies allowing the cooperative to restore power from a secondary location while repairs are being made to deploying an industry-leading number of automated devices, improving system reliability is one of United Power’s core goals.

UNITED POWER, INC.

OFFICIAL POSTING OF NOMINATIONS
FOR DIRECTOR BY PETITION

The following persons have been nominated by petition to run for Director of United Power, Inc., in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of Members scheduled April 13, 2022. Districts East, South and West are up for three-year terms. 2022 Director Candidates are as follows:

District E (East)

Steven "Steve" Douglas
Naptali A. Lucks
Elizabeth "Beth" A. Martin

District S (South)

Keith Alquist

District W (West)

Ursula J. Morgan

This notice is posted pursuant to Section 4.06 of the Bylaws of United Power, Inc.

Posted: 2-11-2022
Cooperative Website
Brighton Headquarters
Carbon Valley Service Center
Coal Creek Office

Learn more about the 2022 Annual Meeting & Director Election here:

Annual Meeting

Three positions on United Power’s eleven-member board are up for election at the 2022 Hybrid Annual Meeting & Director Election which is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, 2022.

The cooperative plans to host a hybrid event, available for members to attend either in-person or virtually. One seat in the East, West, and South districts will be up for a three-year term.

To be eligible to become or remain a director, a person must be a United Power member and receive electric service from United Power at the member’s primary residence in the district he or she represents. United Power’s bylaws provide in-depth
information on director districts, qualifications, terms, elections, meetings, and officers.

Each member’s district is printed on their United Power statement. Nominations by written petition must state the nominee’s name and district, be signed by 15 or more United Power members, and be filed with the Board no less than 60 days prior to the Annual Meeting. We ask any member interested in nomination to complete a biographical request form, available through the Executive Department.

The deadline for nominations by petition is 4 p.m. on Friday, February 11, 2022.

Petitions are available at United Power’s headquarters office in Brighton at 500 Cooperative Way. Additional information can be obtained by calling United Power’s executive department at 303-659-0551 or on the Annual Meeting page.

Cooperative Committed to Providing Accessible EV Charging Infrastructure

Brighton, CO – United Power announced a partnership with the National Electric Highway Coalition in January. The Coalition is a collaboration among electric utilities committed to providing an accessible electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Expanding the available charging network will allow electric vehicle drivers to travel with confidence along corridors throughout the country. It has set a goal to achieve a sufficient electric vehicle charging infrastructure by the end of 2023.

This past year, United Power energized its second electric vehicle fast charger at the Market Street Mart in Keenesburg, located along Interstate 76 northeast of Denver. The charger filled a gap in available charging options for rural electric vehicle owners between Brighton and Fort Morgan. The cooperative installed its first charging station at its Coal Creek office in 2019. A third is planned for its office location in Carbon Valley along Interstate 25.

“United Power serves more than 100,000 members living in some of the fastest growing communities in the country,” said Mark A. Gabriel, United Power’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We also serve several transportation corridors running through those areas. We have seen a proliferation of electric vehicle owners in our territory and in Colorado in recent years. Joining the National Electric Highway Coalition reinforces the cooperative’s commitment to its members and the changing nature of the electric industry.”

Cooperative leadership continues to look at the electric vehicle landscape and consider what programs provide the most benefit for members, including expanding its existing charging network. As a partner in the National Electric Highway Coalition, United Power will seek to accomplish an efficient and effective deployment of electric vehicle fast charging stations within its service territory that complements existing and planned charging stations along its transportation corridors.

It is estimated that more than 100,000 fast charging ports will be necessary to meet the needs of more than 22 million electric vehicle drivers by 2030. The National Electric Highway Coalition represents the largest group of electric utilities aligned to meet those charging infrastructure needs. More than 50 electric utilities throughout 47 states have joined as partners in the coalition’s mission. United Power joins Xcel Energy as the only other Colorado utility in the Coalition and the second cooperative nationwide.

United Power is a member-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperative, delivering electricity to homes, farms and businesses throughout Colorado’s northern front range. The cooperative is one of the fastest-growing electric cooperatives in the nation, and in June joined the elite ranks of cooperatives serving more than 100,000 meters. The 900 square mile service territory extends from the mountains of Coal Creek and Golden Gate Canyon, along the I-25 corridor and Carbon Valley region, to the farmlands of Brighton, Hudson and Keenesburg. United Power is also a founding member of the NextGen Cooperative Alliance, dedicated to expanding the power supply and procurement options and reforming the traditional Generation and Transmission (G&T) business model. For more information about the cooperative, visit www.unitedpower.com or follow them on social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

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