Recipients Received $7,500 for Enrollment Costs at a Dedicated Power Line Program

Keeping the lights on is difficult and requires a detailed understanding of how electrical systems work. Without proper training and instruction, however, it can also be incredibly dangerous. Power line programs prepare individuals with the skills and safety awareness necessary for their future careers as lineworkers. As beneficial electrification accelerates across the country, it is also a field that is in high demand. Lineworkers often have access to excellent opportunities including job security, high pay, and exceptional benefits.

United Power awarded four lineworker scholarships to Colorado residents pursuing a career in the profession as part of its Community Benefit Plan through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) Program. 

Parker Horton, Divide, CO
Trinidad State Rocky Mountain Lineman School

Horton became interested in a professional career as a lineworker after a conversation with a close family friend, mentor, and retired lineworker. Horton found the career pathway compelling because of its vital role in providing access to electricity, and is eager to contribute to an essential service. 

Zackery Johnson, Thornton, CO
Trinidad State Rocky Mountain Lineman School

Johnson is pursuing a career as a lineworker because he wants to provide power for the community and provide help after natural disasters. Johnson said enrolling in a power line program interested him because he would like to learn more about the electrical system that powers the country. 

Katie Killinen, Bayfield, CO
Colorado Mesa University Tech, Electrical Lineworker Program

Killinen was an intern for La Plata Electric Association over the summer in 2024. She is pursuing line work as a career because it is challenging and rewarding and also enables her to work outside and problem solve with other people. She finds the concepts and theories in electrical work interesting. 

Griffin Steele, Fort Collins, CO
Trinidad State Rocky Mountain Lineman School

Steele has been working with Fort Collins Water for a year, but has been looking for an opportunity to pursue line work. His favorite part of working in utilities is the sense of purpose it provides. Line work would add a challenge to that sense of purpose and provide a stable long-term career. 

Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” 

This quote from Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is often paraphrased, “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will get you there.” It speaks to the fact that a lack of direction can create challenges instead of opportunities and simply reinforces the status quo.

Having strategic direction, especially in times of significant societal and technological change, is critical. That is why the amazing team at United Power, supported by your Board of Directors, has unveiled the second version of Our Cooperative Roadmap (Roadmap). This document gives the co-op its direction and helps us screen activities in — as well as out.

The Roadmap v1.0 led us to where we are today. We have reduced our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 26% since May 1 and successfully raised $700 million to evolve as an independent utility and meet the needs of our communities and more than 113,000 members. The Roadmap helped us obtain $261 million through the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) Program to support the transition to a cleaner energy supply and hyper-localize our resources. It clarified our technology investments, how we interact with members, and our role in supporting our communities.

Much has changed nearly three years after we unveiled the initial Roadmap. The western United States is edging closer to a power market and new power sources have come online. More members are adding solar panels and purchasing electric vehicles. But much has also remained the same, such as Colorado’s goal of 80% reduction in GHG emissions over 2005 levels by 2030 — a goal we will meet or exceed by helping members such as those in the oil and gas industry achieve their targets simply by electrifying the production facilities.

The Roadmap v2.0 maintains its focus on four critical areas that lie at the heart of what we do as a member-owned electric cooperative:

• Empower and Engage with Members and Communities. This critical element ties directly to United Power’s Community Benefit Plan through New ERA. Our dedicated focus on supporting communities and members made creating the benefit plan a simple task for our team.
• Provide Flexible, Affordable, Responsible Power and Services. United Power’s hyperlocalization strategy has resulted in significant deployment of battery energy storage systems, with more than 110 MWs spread across nine substations. It already proved valuable during last summer’s peak. This industry-leading deployment means we can benefit from times when power prices are low, using the stored energy when demand (and prices) are high.
• Continuously Optimize the Electric Distribution System. As we move toward becoming a distribution system operator (DSO), focusing on local generation and control, our system investments are made with your future needs in mind. We installed a new outage management system in 2024 that, coupled with our advanced metering infrastructure, gives us better real-time operational data.
• Achieve and Maintain Business Agility and Resilience. We will be replacing our distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) in 2025 to better manage system operations, and are rolling out a new asset management tool to improve our response times and better manage material and projects.

Underpinning Our Cooperative Roadmap are the amazing women and men of United Power and the foundational responsibilities they bring to running your cooperative every day.

Lewis Carroll’s words resonate for me when he said, “One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” It sure sounds so to me.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with your questions, comments, and concerns.
 

No one dislikes power outages more than those of us in the electric utility business. In a world of increasing dependence on quality electric power, the task of keeping the lights on is more critical — and challenging — every day.

Coupled with the dramatic increase in electrification across dozens of industries and businesses, our members’ requirements for reliable supply increases with each passing day. More people working from home, spurred by the pandemic, has only exacerbated the need for greater reliability — and its cousin, resiliency. 

The only business I know that measures as many statistical categories as the electric industry is baseball, where every play is broken down into records dating back decades. Balls, strikes, batting percentages, hits with runners in scoring position — even the number of strikes versus balls — are all analyzed and used to change the game. 

Our “batting averages” in the electric industry are things like SAIDI* (the duration of outages), SAIFI* (frequency of outages), and MAIFI* (momentary average interruption frequency). We measure and report on dozens of indices and make investments to continuously improve. We call balls and strikes on ourselves as we get better. It is also why we keep investing in new technologies, such as our outage management system, and have expanded how we use data from our advanced metering infrastructure and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. We mine the alphabet soup of technologies in the never-ending pursuit to keep the lights on. 

However, even with our efforts, any outage or momentary blip can cause headaches. That is why we work so diligently to manage our system to avoid such incidents.

Why do the lights “go out” unexpectedly? United Power’s leading causes of outages are critters and crashes, followed by weather and equipment failure. Sometimes our transmission providers have incidents. There are also certain times we must take outages to upgrade equipment. Much of our system is underground — a tremendous investment, but one that pays dividends over time. But even undergrounding electrical service does not make the system immune from outages. In fact, underground faults can be more difficult to find and take more time to repair.

Digitalization of our lives has also made the quality of power more challenging. Older lights, motors, and machinery had a wide range of electric tolerance. This was as true in the home as it was in industry. Today’s digitalized equipment means the tolerance of even a temporary dip in power can make a difference. Some additional sensitivity comes from things like new refrigerators which try to match the motor size to load for energy efficiency, but also tolerates less voltage fluctuations. Think back to refrigerators that last 20 years or more versus today.

United Power operates at the distribution level, or the wires that bring electricity directly to homes and businesses. We strive to keep the lights on. In the past, 99.99% of ASAI* (average system “up time”) was sufficient. That meant, on average, just eight minutes of outage time per year, which was acceptable in the past but challenging in today’s digital environment. While 99.99% is good for many things, 99.999% is even better, meaning just eight seconds of outage time. Even that, however, is not fault tolerant enough in some situations. There is a very real limitation to what is possible across a large distribution network serving a significant number of varying electric loads. 

It is therefore important to understand that while we do everything possible to keep the electrons flowing, there are limitations across this broad system. It is why even in our cooperative offices every computer has a backup power supply, and our building has a backup generator.

Winter weather is upon us, and we will work to keep the lights on. This is only possible due to the brave women and men of United Power who work diligently though snow, sleet, and freezing rain to restore power. As always, please feel free to reach out to me with your questions, comments, and concerns.

United Power's offices will be closed on Thursday, November 28^th and Friday, November 29^th for Thanksgiving. Our dispatch center and crews remain on-call 24 hours per day for outages and emergencies.

Members can access their account online, or pay by phone by calling 866-999-4485 24 hours per day. 

We hope all of our members enjoy a relaxing and safe Thanksgiving.

United Power's Community Support Demonstrates it is "Here for Good"

United Power has undergone significant change over the past year, including its wholesale energy contract exit, as it moved to become an independent electric utility on May 1. The cooperative has announced new power purchase agreements and innovative energy projects to ensure continued reliability and system resiliency, but it has also maintained a close relationship with the diverse communities it serves across the Colorado Front Range.

As a co-op, United Power regularly demonstrates its commitment to communities — one of its core guiding principles — through supporting local fairs and festivals, service organizations, business expansion, educational partnerships, and student opportunities. Sometimes the co-op’s support even extends beyond its own service territory to enrich the lives of disadvantaged communities in other parts of the country. This was another active year for the cooperative in its communities. 

Giving Life to Fairs and Festivals

Local community events bring value to families living in the communities across United Power’s service territory. The cooperative is proud to be an active participant and supporter at many of these events. It continued its long-standing role as presenting sponsor of the Adams County Fair in August, which annually brings out thousands of local residents and visitors and is recognized as one of the largest county fairs in the country. The co-op also provided support for fairs in Southeast Weld and Gilpin Counties, community heritage celebrations like the Tomato Festival & Market at Trapper Days in Fort Lupton and Miners Day in Frederick, and other events that recognize each city or town’s unique and rich history. 

Now that the holiday season has begun and busy main street roads are shining with bright lights and elaborate decorations, cities are preparing for local holiday celebrations. Look for United Power in your community’s local festivities. The cooperative’s famous Rudolph the Red-Nosed Bucket Truck can frequently be found rolling in parades adorned in thousands of colorful lights and decorations. 

“Here for Good” Employee Service Projects

Another vital component of our communities are the nonprofits that provide critical services to local residents. Dozens of organizations are helping meet a variety of needs for cooperative members, including mental health therapy, housing and food security, outdoor recreation, and more. More than 80 United Power employees volunteered for service projects with eight organizations across the cooperative’s service territory in October. 

Some of the projects that employees completed included staining wooden structures for protection from winter weather at Barr Lake State Park and the Colorado Therapeutic Riding Center; painting and updating community areas at Graceful Oaks Youth Ranch; removing old flooring for renovations at the Carbon Valley Help Center; and mud mitigation at Allegiance Ranch. Employees also sorted and organized food for redistribution at Pastor’s Pantry in Coal Creek Canyon, the Fort Lupton Food and Clothing Bank, and Food For Hope in Thornton. 

United Power presented each organization with a $500 donation in addition to the volunteer hours as a thank you for the contributions they make to our communities.

Powering Families of the Navajo Nation

Lineworkers traveled to New Mexico for a week in July and again in October to build electrical infrastructure and provide power to members of the Navajo Nation. The mutual aid initiative, Light Up Navajo, is aimed at providing access to electricity for families living in remote parts of the Navajo Nation for the very first time.

The ambitious, years-long initiative has provided electricity to nearly 8,000 homes, but thousands more still do not have access. United Power provided trucks, equipment, and experienced lineworkers for both projects. Working long hours, and often in extreme heat, they placed poles and strung line to power local homes. 

Supporting Local Youth

Students in our local schools are also the future leaders of our communities. United Power recognizes the importance of supporting local education, and has annually provided thousands of dollars in scholarship awards and leadership training opportunities to outstanding high school students in its service territory. 

The cooperative is also an active partner in the classroom, such as Mead’s Energy Academy. Will Thomas, Energy Systems Specialist, presented on the future of battery storage technology for Energy Academy students in September. Students also later participated in a high voltage safety demonstration and toured one of the co-op’s battery storage facilities. 

United Power also hosted students from 27J’s Career and Technical Education program for a “Day in the Boots” event in October. Students were able to move through stations and learn the day-to-day responsibilities of the cooperative’s operations team. The cooperative also supports career fairs for students of all ages.

Although much of the service territory is becoming suburban, the co-op still serves large agricultural areas. Each year, United Power supports local youth in agriculture through livestock sales at county fairs. 

United Power supports the local community in all these ways and many more, including charity events that benefit nonprofits or educational foundations. It is why we exist, and it is why we will remain...Here for Good.