New projects, renewables, retirement highlight Highline meeting

    As Highline Electric Association General Manager Mark Farnsworth addressed a large crowd of rural electric cooperative members Tuesday, March 26, he not only looked back on a successful 2018 but also on 16.5 years with the cooperative.
    “As many of you know, I will be retiring in the middle of this year. You have a solid board of directors and great employees whose goals have not changed and will not change as a new general manager takes over,” he said.
    Following a complimentary dinner, Farnsworth opened his portion of the 81st annual meeting with a photo of a line crew in a recent storm projected on large screens at the Phillips County Event Center.
    “The real face of Highline are the guys and gals that were out in these storms and in the office answering your calls, all working to get the lights back on,” he said.
    He thanked the employees for “working hard to work safe,” noting that lineworkers have the 15th most dangerous job in the United States.
    Highline also takes reliability very seriously, he said. Weather caused more outages in 2018 than in prior years. Power was available to customers 99.5 percent of the time, a decrease from Highline’s five-year average of 99.98 percent, or two hours of outages per year. “We were not pleased with that,” said Farnsworth.
    “While we can’t control the weather, we are constantly updating our system to provide better service,” he added. Projects in 2018 included rebuilding the towns of Ovid and Crook and hiring a contractor to inspect over 7,000 distribution and transmission poles, of which 107 were replaced. Highline also rebuilt nine miles of line, and crews have been sectionalizing power lines so that if something goes wrong, only a small section of line would shut down.
    Another big project is converting to an automated metering infrastructure so that Highline has the ability to read meters from the office. Customers are still encouraged to call if they are experiencing an outage, but this new system will aid in knowing where outages are located.
    Highline is pleased that it has not had a rate increase in 2018 or 2019; however, “we see potential upward rate pressures for 2020 because of inflation and potential legislation in the Colorado Legislature,” said Farnsworth.
    He said Highline will be adding an on-bill financing program, which will allow members to make energy efficiency improvements such as windows, HVAC equipment, LED lighting and appliance upgrades.
    
Renewable energy
    Acknowledging that renewable energy doesn’t always get positive press in Colorado, Farnsworth did take time to highlight some things that Highline is doing, as well as Tri-State G & T, which provides electricity to Highline.
    Thirty-two members currently have net metering sites, and Highline also offers green power credits to members who don’t want to build their own renewable energy systems but want to support renewable energy.
    In 2018, the Trailblazer waste heat site netted $149,000 for Highline, totaling $2.4 million over the last decade.

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