The past 5 years have been transformational ones. They have been transformational for our members, for our cooperative, and for the electric utility industry in which we operate. Looking back over this time, I’m sure each of you can recount the myriad changes you have personally experienced and navigated. This is certainly the case for Kootenai Electric Cooperative (KEC): COVID, record growth, constraints in the supply chains on which our operations are reliant, rising interest rates, and inflationary pressures are chief among these.
During these past 5 years, the cooperative’s membership has also changed considerably. We have extended service to approximately 6,000 new homes and businesses. We have also had many members move out of the service territory and new ones move in. In fact, 40% of all our members have become a member in the past 5 years!
Regardless of whether you are a new member of the cooperative or have been a member for a couple of decades, there are changes occurring within the utility industry that I’d like for you to be informed about. Our industry is a complicated 1. Understanding where our power comes from, how it gets to your home or business, and what influences the price you pay for it is important to you, and to us. Having a better understanding of these issues provides context for the policies and the actions that utilities in general, and KEC in specific, sometimes make.
Over the course of the next year, I plan to use this space to share information with you that I feel is fundamental to understanding our industry and how we as a member-owned cooperative operate within it. If you’re a long-tenured member, some of this information will be a refresher. For others, it will be new and will provide a foundational understanding of the value hydropower plays within the Pacific Northwest, how our operations as a member-owned utility provide access to some of the lowest-cost carbon-free power produced in the nation, and why, despite this, our power supply costs face considerable cost pressures. In these articles, I’ll also share how KEC is preparing for and confronting these challenges.
We also recognize that many of our members prefer to get information like this through the social media channels they are connected to, or from occasional podcasts. Select content from each of these articles will also be broadcast over those channels soon after they are published here. If you haven’t subscribed to our social media channels yet and would like to receive this information that way, please look us up on your favorite venues.
- Visit Kootenai Electric's Facebook Page
- Visit Kootenai Electric's Instagram
- Visit Kootenai Electric YouTube Channel
Finally, I’d like to invite your engagement and questions. Should you have a question or concern about the topics being discussed here, or a suggestion for another topic I could address, please email me at KEC Email. I’ll do my very best to answer or reply to messages I receive.
Thank you, and I hope you learn something valuable and insightful from these future articles.
Doug Elliott
KEC General Manager/CEO