Sep 9, 2021 | Latest News
East River Electric Power Cooperative held its 71st annual meeting Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021, at the Best Western Plus Ramkota Hotel in Sioux Falls. The theme of this year’s annual meeting was ‘Cooperatives: The Power of Working Together’. The meeting highlighted the many ways that East River is working alongside its member systems on making crucial decisions that will position the cooperative network for continued success in providing safe, reliable and affordable electricity.
During the morning general session, speakers discussed how extreme cold temperatures in mid-February 2021 led to historic levels of energy demand on the U.S. power grid, resulting in widespread rolling power outages throughout much of the central portion of the country.
“The February energy emergency highlighted the importance of being connected to a cooperative family to share risk and avoid fluctuations in the energy market,” said East River Electric General Manager Tom Boyko. “Unlike consumers in Texas who were stuck with utility bills exceeding $10,000 dollars in some cases following the emergency event, East River’s members paid the same rate during and after the energy emergency as they paid before because we have long term resources to serve our load. That’s the power of being connected to a cooperative power supply.”
The cooperative’s leaders also provided an update on East River’s aggressive Transmission System Upgrade Plan. The plan is designed to accelerate additions and replacements to the cooperative’s transmission infrastructure to improve system reliability and provide for growth.
“East River is currently in the third year of our Transmission System Upgrade Plan. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, our teams made significant progress on the upgrade plan over this past year,” said Boyko. “We completed several key projects that are designed to strengthen our system’s backbone. As always, this critical work was completed with a primary focus on ensuring the safety of our workforce.”
During the annual meeting’s lunch, East River’s leadership presented the cooperative’s Eminent Service Award to retired Western Area Power Administration Senior Vice President and Upper Great Plains Manager Jody Sundsted as well as to Basin Electric Power Cooperative CEO Paul Sukut. The Eminent Service Award is the most prestigious honor given by East River’s Board of Directors.
The afternoon session began with an update from Basin Electric Power Cooperative. A business meeting followed the annual meeting’s general session where the director election was held, and the cooperative’s policy statements were adopted.
Jul 27, 2021 | Latest News
East River Electric welcomed Scott Shewey as the cooperative’s new Chief Financial Officer on July 26. Scott joins East River with 14 years in public utility experience at Colorado Springs Utilities, a 4-service municipal utility. He spent the last seven years in executive leadership with Colorado Springs Utilities, with the last two as CFO overseeing rates, treasury, financial planning and analysis, accounting, risk management and supply chain.
Prior to Colorado Springs Utilities, Scott managed financial operations for 11 years combined at Ford Financial and Miller-Coors. He was born and raised in the Ormond Beach area of Florida and graduated from Florida State University with degrees in accounting and finance. Scott holds a 6-Sigma Black Belt certification from Ford Financial.
Outside of work, Scott enjoys spending time with his family and is involved in a range of outdoor activities including walking, hiking, trail running, bird watching and fishing. He also enjoys all levels of sports and spent many years coaching youth baseball teams. He has run 11 marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2014. Scott and his wife, Jennifer, have three children: Jake (24), Ryne (21) and Anna (19).
Jun 30, 2021 | Latest News
In June, energy and water utility representatives across the U.S. nominated a new slate of officers to lead the Utilities Technology Council (UTC), effective through June 2022. During UTC’s June 21 Board of Directors meeting, UTC board members nominated Paul Lambert of East River Electric Power Cooperative as its new Chairman, Dewey Day of Pacific Gas & Electric as Vice Chair, and Kirt Mayson of NorthWestern Energy as Secretary/Treasurer. If confirmed by UTC’s membership in August, each will serve in these capacities until UTC’s June 2022 Telecom & Technology Annual Conference.
“Telecom and technology play an ever-increasing role in the quantity and quality of services provided to the end consumers of the utility industry,” said Lambert. “UTC is uniquely positioned to help ensure the safe and reliable delivery of critical services. I want to thank East River for their dedicated support of these efforts over the years and especially going forward during my tenure as Chairman of the Board. I am looking forward to continuing the mission of the UTC.”
UTC is the global association at the nexus of the energy, utility and telecommunications industries. Representing energy and water providers of all sizes and ownership structures, UTC advocates for the information and communications technology (ICT) needed for the safe and reliable delivery of these vital services. The new officers have assumed their roles on an acting basis their nominations are subject to confirmation during the Aug. 22-27 UTC Annual Telecom & Technology Meeting.
“Congratulations to Acting Chair Lambert, Acting Vice Chair Day, and Acting Secretary/Treasurer Mayson,” said UTC President and CEO Sheryl Osiene-Riggs. “Once again, the UTC Board of Directors has nominated a slate of leaders who will continue to push us forward. Acting Chair Lambert has been involved with UTC for decades and I am excited about the next year and beyond. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank and salute Immediate Past Chair Angst. I am so thankful for his leadership and support.”
Lambert is a supervisor in the Telecommunications Department at East River Electric Power Cooperative in Madison, S.D., where his direct responsibilities are mobile trunked radio, SCADA, load management, multiple wireless systems and their associated antenna systems, and standby generator backups. He has worked in the utility telecommunications field for more than four decades. He is a graduate of Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, S.D., with a degree in Electronics/Communications. He holds a First Class Federal Communications Commission Operators License and is a certified tower climber. Chairman Lambert previously served on the Advisory Board for the electronics program at LATI and served on the Lake County 911 Communications committee.
Chairman Lambert has been an active participant in UTC’s Region 5 for many years and is a past officer and Chairman. He currently serves on the International Board of Directors for the Knights of Columbus. He and his wife Julie are the parents of four adult children and have five grandchildren.
Jun 30, 2021 | Latest News
East River Electric Power Cooperative, which provides power to 24 electric distribution systems and one municipal electric system in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota, is now supplying the region’s electric cooperative consumers with more than 40 percent carbon-free energy. In 2020, more than 25 percent of East River’s power supply came from wind and more than 17 percent came from hydropower from the dams on the Missouri River. An additional two percent came from carbon-free sources including recovered energy technology and nuclear energy.
As a generation and transmission cooperative, East River receives its power supply from Basin Electric Power Cooperative and the Western Area Power Administration. East River owns and operates over 3,000 miles of transmission lines and 250 substations across South Dakota and Minnesota that safely and reliably deliver low-cost wholesale power to member distribution systems which, in turn, deliver power to homes and businesses in the region.
“Over the past few decades, our cooperative family has been adding renewables to our generation mix using a realistic and fiscally responsible approach,” said East River Electric General Manager Tom Boyko. “If you look back about 10 years ago, just 8 percent of our power supply came from wind. Even more, the percentage of coal in our power supply has dropped 17 percent in the past decade, now making up only about 45 percent. This is a proven, realistic and fiscally-responsible approach of adding renewable energy to our generation mix.”
The trend of increasing renewables is set to continue, with solar energy being added to East River’s generation mix through two new solar projects that were recently announced by Basin Electric. In Feb. 2020, Geronimo Energy, a National Grid company, and Basin Electric announced the execution of a Power Purchase Agreement for the Wild Springs Solar Project, a 128 megawatt (MW) solar energy project that is being constructed near New Underwood, S.D., and is projected to be operational by 2022. Once operational, Wild Springs will be the largest solar project in South Dakota. In June 2020, Basin Electric announced its second solar energy project—the Cabin Creek Solar Project with Clēnera Renewable Energy. When complete, Cabin Creek will consist of two, 75 MW projects in southeastern Montana.
“Our cooperative network is always looking to ensure we have a mix of power resources to meet the needs of our membership and renewable energy is an important part of that strategy,” said Boyko. “These solar projects are important strategic steps as we look to the future in continuing our strong history of providing safe, affordable and reliable power.”
May 14, 2021 | Community
Lake Area Technical Institute (LATI) in Watertown is making good use of an old system operations map board that was donated to the school by East River Electric in 2018. LATI’s Energy Operations program teaches students about electricity, power plants, and processing plant operations to build the next generation of power plant operators and other workers needed in the power industry and beyond. They use the old system operations map to teach students how the entire power system works, from generation, to transmission, distribution and ultimately to the end consumer.
When East River Electric remodeled its System Operations area in Madison, the cooperative replaced the aging tile system map with a large series of video screens. When deciding what to do with the old tile map board, East River staff at the time reached out to LATI to see if they could put the map to use. They jumped at the opportunity.
LATI has set up a workstation area that includes a large airplane turbine in front of the tile map board to show students how turbines work. The map then guides the students through the different types of generation units and how the power they create is transmitted to end consumers. LATI has about 30 students per year go through the program and have a nearly 100 percent placement rate for students that complete the Energy Operations program.
Roger Solum, now an adjunct instructor, was the lead Energy Technology Instructor at the time the map was donated. Brady Brockel has taken over for Roger who retired recently but continues to teach some classes at the school. The two recently gave a tour of the LATI Energy Operations facilities and programming to members of the South Dakota Wind Energy Association board of directors as part of SDWEA’s annual meeting in April.
