I was going to talk to you about “storm season”, but based on the weather this past couple of months, I believe it came early this year, and that we are now approaching the “Dog Days of Summer”. Barring a tropical storm type system, our primary threats going forward are likely to be wildfires, and dust on insulators causing tracking and the associated pole top fires. When things like this happen, we take it on a case-by-case basis. No 2 scenarios are ever alike, and that’s why we depend on our Area Operations Managers to take charge. They know the areas best. They are your local people, and they have the all the resources of Rio Grande’s operations, engineering, and technical services departments at their disposal, should the need arise.
Regarding the weather this summer, this one is forecast to be another very hot one. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, says that there should be adequate power supplies to meet demand, if wind and solar perform as expected. The grid itself has been hardened against damage, and is reported to be reliable. In my article last month, I told you that Rio Grande contracts for sufficient quantities of wholesale power, and that our solar arrays are coming online. In fact, we just commissioned 2 of the sites earlier this week, and another one is scheduled for the middle of next week. We’ll have more on these in next month’s magazine. The item that is beyond our immediate control is transmission. We are a distribution cooperative, and, as such, it is our job to distribute the power which we have purchased for you, and which is transmitted to us. If there is a failure in the transmission of power to us, you will be affected, and we can’t distribute to you what we don’t have. I am not at all pessimistic. Quite the contrary, I just want to clarify for you how the process works.
We know that nobody likes to think about their electric bills – especially during the hot summer months, but we need to rip the band-aid off now, and face the inevitable. We’ve already established that this summer is going to be a scorcher. There’s nothing we can do about the weather, but we can control how we deal with it from an energy-usage standpoint. We’ve included some info-graphics in this magazine, to serve as reminders of simple energy-saving measures which will help you and your family stay comfortable, while managing your electric bills during these summer months. As with most things, timing is everything. Conduct your most energy intensive household activities during the early morning or late evening hours. The Time of Use Peak rate applies to the 3 hours per weekday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. through the end of September, excluding holidays. Speaking of holidays, this 4th of July falls on a Tuesday, and the Off-Peak rate will apply all day.
Wishing you and yours a very happy Independence Day. Remember that, even with its problems, America is still the greatest nation on earth, and the land of the free and home of the brave!