Dear Energy Coach: I bought an EV and have been making do with Level 1 charging. According to the load sheet, I need a transformer upgrade, but my EV has a 7.2 kw onboard charger, which isn’t close to the 12 kw load of the Level 2 charger that would overload my transformer. What gives? Why can’t you give me …
Roger Fox Flips the Switch
Retiring after 32 years, Board Vice President wins Aiken Award Longtime Washington Electric Co-op Vice President Roger Fox, of Walden, will step down from the Board of Directors this fall. For his service, Fox has been awarded the George Aiken Award, presented annually by the Northeast Association of Electric Cooperatives. Fox has served on the Board for 32 years, but …
A Tour of Coventry: Landfill Processes and Gas-to-Electricity Generation
Every September, WEC and Casella host an open house at Coventry Landfill, welcoming Co-op members and the public to learn about how the landfill operates and how landfill gas is captured to power WEC members’ homes.A few weeks before the September 16 open house, WEC Board member Betsy Allen toured the landfill and gas-to-electricity plant and took pictures. Here she …
Co-op Month: Cooperatives Are All Around
Avram Patt grew up with the cooperative model. The former general manager of WEC, current member, and state representative spent his youth in the Bronx, in a home surrounded by the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative: a nearly hundred year old housing co-op funded by a union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, to be affordable housing for workers. Patt’s father, a …
Safety Minute: Vehicle Accidents
Electrical safety tips from Safety and Environmental Compliance Specialist David Young Mistakes can happen to anyone. On September 12, just after noon, a vehicle accident created a widespread outage. A longtime grain delivery driver, making a regular delivery to a farm and who had done this routine countless times, became distracted. He moved the grain delivery truck without lowering the …
Place-based Education for Everybody
WEC’s Community Fund supports a gazillion years of Naturalist Journeys at North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier For as long as anyone at North Branch Nature Center can remember, Washington Electric Co-op has sponsored the popular Naturalist Journeys program through regular donations from the member-supported Community Fund. “Thank you for the gazillion years of support. I think that’s the accurate …
President’s & GM’s Message: WEC infrastructure tolerates catastrophic flooding; excess solar threatens substation
Regulators’ order requiring a income-qualified reduction system calls into question Co-op’s ability to self-govern WEC’s flood response, outages Louis: Our poles and wires were not too badly affected by the initial storm on July 10 that caused catastrophic statewide flooding. We had about 1,100 members out. We did, however, have a pretty major outage the following Thursday and Friday, July …
Co-op Seeks Former Members for Capital Credit RefundsÂ
WEC has returned almost $10 million to members since 1998 When your electric cooperative takes in more money than it costs to run the utility, where does that money go? Have you ever noticed a credit on your November electric bill? As a member of an electric cooperative, excess revenue is returned to you and your fellow member-owners. That is …
Incumbents re-elected, storm resilience focus of Annual Meeting
Storms and an equitable energy future discussed at first in-person Annual Meeting since 2019 The Annual Meeting took place in WEC’s Operations Center, where a few dozen transformers were ready for deployment. Most were ordered in 2020, and only just delivered after three years tied up in the supply chain. Members, staff, and guests mingled and enjoyed farm-to-table dining from …
President’s & GM’s Message: WEC Accesses Contracted Hydro-Québec Power
Longstanding contract provides 2 MW of baseload power as Co-op members’ winter needs and WEC’s electric peaks rise. Also: member education around EV charging, adding load, and safety Background to Hydro-Québec Contract Steve: In 2012, WEC negotiated a new 25-year contract with Hydro-Québec [HQ], and the Board at that time approved it. At the time, WEC did not have a …