Electric co-op conducts business – first time in five years
Big moment: Kit Carson Electric Cooperative had enough members turn out for the annual meeting Saturday (June 8) at the Taos High School gym to make quorum for the first time in five years. applause from the audience.
When a voice vote was called, it was a resounding yes in favor of the change.
By voice vote, the members also approved two bylaw changes that mean the annual meeting will take place on a Saturday in April instead of June and district meetings will be reserved for trustee elections and not KCEC business.
The board also recognized the combined 147 years of experience from four employees: Dennis Gonzales, a line service supervisor, has been with KCEC
44 years; Johnny Valerio, chief financial officer, has been with the utility 42 years: David Santistevan has put in 42 years as an engineer and Richard Jeantete, purchasing agent, has been there
17 years.
“As we celebrate 75 years, some of these men have been there for more than half that,” said KCEC Board President Bobby Ortega. “It’s unheard of today to work with a company 40-plus years.”
Luis Reyes, longtime CEO of the co-op, and Christopher Riley, co-founder of Guzman Energy, talked about the 10-year power contract between the two companies. The contract is entering its fourth year and under it, Guzman is helping finance KCEC’s move toward providing members with 100% of their daytime energy needs from solar by 2023 from local sources.
Reyes recapped the history behind why KCEC left Tri-State Generation and Transmission three years ago to seek a new partnership with Guzman.
In 2013, as one of the rural electric cooperatives that purchased power from Tri-State, KCEC had gone through 11 rate increase cases in 12 years. “Our rates had gone up 110%,” Reyes said. “We were looking at a rate case on the table with a
9% increase and another 9% the next year. Not good news for our members.”
In addition, at the time, TriState largely obtained power from coal for its members. TriState members had agreed to
40-year contracts and to use no more than 5% renewable energy. Reyes said a majority of KCEC members wanted shorter contracts and a lot more renewables.
KCEC managed to get out of the contract with Tri-State, but had to pay a fee to do so – to the tune of $37 million. The board decided in 2016 to pay if off in about six years, Reyes said. That extra fee is reflected on KCEC member bills each month. It will be paid off in 2023.
He said KCEC has accomplished all three things members said they wanted when the divorce from Tri-State was final: stabilized rates, a shorter power purchase contract and more renewables.
Guzman’s Riley said the company is focused on helping rural communities shift from an old energy model to a new one. “Things are changing so rapidly,” Riley said. “Big centralized plants with transmission lines moving power long distances has given way to smaller, cleaner, more decentralized and more renewable opportunities.”
Generating power locally, through solar and wind, helps keep tax dollars in the community. In the KCEC and Guzman partnership, it also lead to about 52 full-time jobs through local installers.
There was a time, Riley said, “you had to choose between wanting cleaner energy and the lowest cost energy. In the last couple of years, things have changed so fundamentally, those two are the same thing.”