by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Alternative energy sources like sun and wind cannot begin to meet the needs of electricity customers – at least not yet, said Steve Shurts, president and CEO of the Braham-based East Central Energy Electric Co-Op.
Shurts recently gave a talk to members of the Rice Area Chamber of Commerce at one of their luncheon-meetings. Shurts gave an overview of the role of non-fossil fuels, the challenges of providing electricity to rural areas and glimpses of what the future might bring to the electricity industry.
ECE is a member-owned electricity service that distributes power to a 14-county area in central and eastern Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin. That service area includes Rice and the surrounding area.
At this point, solar-generated electricity comprises a tiny fraction of ECE’s power, Shurts noted. Some power is also derived from wind and biomass sources via Great River Energy, which sells the co-op electricity, along with other companies. About 17 percent of the total electricity to customers is derived from renewable sources. By 2025, that amount will be required by state law to be 25 percent of electricity.
Shurts said he is entirely in favor of renewable sources and wishes all power could be “green.” However, at this point, that’s virtually impossible for a number of reasons. For example, even the most advanced solar connectors produce little or no electricity on a rainy or overcast day and none at night. For a company to rely solely on solar, wind or hydro sources, the company and its customers would be at the constant mercy of nature – sun or the lack of it, wind or the lack of it – on any given day or week.
Shurts said he believes the future, technological innovations such as advanced photovoltaic batteries will develop ways to store solar or wind power, but at the present time it’s not feasible. In the meantime, ECE and other power companies rely on a mixed portfolio of energy sources: coal, nuclear, gas and a mixture of renewables.
This year, Shurts said, ECE plans to explore the possibility of installing a solar garden, maybe with other co-ops, to increase the amount of solar generation in the customer area. ECE has already been studying solar-energy issues, based partly on a solar-generating facility right next to its headquarters in Braham.
There are about 40 residents living in the ECE service area who produce their own electricity with solar or wind devices at their homes, Shurts noted.
Rock, hard place
In some ways, ECE finds itself at times between a rock and a hard place. That’s because since 2007, a peak year for energy delivery, usage has declined and remained more or less flat. That, Shurts said, is a good thing and a bad thing – good because energy-efficient appliances and conservation are benefits but bad because ECE still must pay retail prices for the energy it delivers, prices which are up, and with less usage it’s more difficult to pay the costs.
Electricity sales this year are expected to be about 3 percent below the peak year of 2007, Shurts noted. Since that peak year, the company had to cut its employees from 180 to 158. In addition, the company implemented many cost-savings programs and reduced discretionary spending. A big help are “data centers,” which use a lot of electricity, so much so that power companies dub a data center as a “pot of gold.” ECE is working to identify ideal sites at which to recommend placing data centers.
Background
Shurts has had a long association with the power industry. Years ago he worked as a nuclear engineer at Monticello and Madison, Wis. Later, he worked for Xcel Energy, for a city-owned utility in Owatonna and for Great River Energy Co-Op until his job as president/CEO of ECE.
ECE
There is a staggering number of miles of power lines in the ECE rural service area – 8,307 to be exact, with an average of 7.08 customers living along one mile of line.
That statistic dramatically shows why ECE is constantly concerned about ways to save costs. Something as common as storm damage to lines can cause all kinds of added costs and disruptions.
ECE is the third-largest utility in Minnesota. Its origins began in 1935, at the peak of the national Great Depression when the Rural Electrication Administration was formed under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Throughout the years, a variety of power companies worked together or merged in what is now the ECE area. In 1940, an energy company named PICK joined the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. In 1946, PICK changed its name to ECE Association. Eight years later, the first capital-credits notices were mailed to its co-op members.
In 1958, the Rural Cooperative Power Association signed a contract with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to build a nuclear reactor in Elk River. Five years later the Rural Electric Administration announced a plan to build a coal-fired power plant and transmission facility at Stanton, N.D. In 1964, the Elk River nuclear reactor finally went ahead with online transmissions. That was the year ECE built its headquarters in Braham.
In 1968, the Elk River reactor was dismantled. In 1974, another coal-fired power plant was built near Underwood, N.D.
In 2004, ECE built the Langola substation to service the Rice and Royalton areas.
In 2015, a system-wide meter upgrade started, which introduced all kinds of data bases, efficiency methods and other technological advantages to monitor and conserve the uses of electricity.
Minnesota Power
Another power company serving some customers in the areas near Rice is Minnesota Power. It delivers electricity to a large part of northeast Minnesota from as far north as International Falls to Grand Rapids and Duluth to as far south as just north of St. Cloud.
Steve Shurts
