Shedding light on reliability

This past Memorial Day weekend, more than 100,000 people across Louisiana had an “unexpected outage.” To the regional electrical grid operator, it was a “load shed” event. Some folks called it a “black out.” Whatever label is used, people lost their power. As Wabash Valley Power Alliance’s CEO, this is what keeps me up at night.

Wabash Valley Power Alliance is your generation partner. Our role is to get large amounts of electricity to your community. Your local co-op then delivers it to homes, businesses, farms, and schools. When you ask where your electricity comes from and how it gets to your community, the proverbial “buck stops here.” Reliable and affordable power is what we hang our hats on and plan for all day, every day. My team and I take this responsibility seriously — that may be the reason for those sleepless nights. The work is essential because electric co-ops were founded on serving rural areas that others would not.

The Louisiana event was triggered when a nuclear plant went offline while another power plant was down for regular maintenance. To say there is one reason why this happened would oversimplify a complex and critical issue our industry is facing. We live in an era of unprecedented electricity demand when, simultaneously, many power supply “work horses,” like coal plants, are forced or need to close. We also have aging and inadequate infrastructure, such as large transmission (power lines) sending electricity to our communities. There is a lot to unpack here.

In the coming months, we will use Indiana Connection to update you on issues we face while “keeping the lights on.” Feel free to send Vicki Gardner, ideas on what you want to know. She can be reached at
v_gardner@wvpa.com.

Jeff Conrad
President and CEO
Wabash Valley Power Alliance