Last year, HCREMC members participated in a comprehensive survey covering many aspects of our operations and their satisfaction with them. Along with the survey responses, some members shared specific comments about their overall experience with HCREMC. We are grateful that many of these comments were positive, and we also value the constructive feedback that highlighted areas where we can do better.

Because your input is important to us, and because we are committed not only to meeting but also to exceeding your expectations, Chief Operating Officer Adam Warwas has volunteered to address a few operations-related comments. In the coming weeks, leaders from other departments will also respond to feedback related to their areas of work, ensuring that we address member comments across all parts of the cooperative. Our goal is to keep you informed, show how your feedback guides our efforts, and share the steps we’re taking to continually improve the service we provide to our members.

MEMBER COMMENT: “Bury more lines.”

Warwas:

Absolutely! Our construction work plan includes a very aggressive approach to converting power lines, where it makes sense, to underground. Additionally, our estimating policies for new construction are extremely friendly and offer very fair incentives for new line to be installed underground from Day One. This year, 93% of our new extensions were installed underground.

There are many factors, however, that lead to decisions, and they don’t always boil down to just cost. Right-of-way widths, developed and concrete land-use plans, land rights, waterways, roadways, other utilities, and many other factors influence these decisions. Underground construction in rural areas with low density makes it very likely that all-day outages to large numbers of services would need to be planned just to add a new meter, which would be very irritating for many people. And while the frequency of outages is lower with underground construction, locating and troubleshooting outages when they do occur can be a very lengthy process.

With that being said, we are actively converting over 5 miles of our existing line to underground per year when conditions are favorable, and we plan to continue at this pace well into the future.

MEMBER COMMENT: “Curious about why the power goes on and off often.”

Warwas:

Blinks! We dislike them just as much as you do, I promise!

All the same things that cause sustained power outages (such as trees, animals, equipment failure, vehicle wrecks, and weather) can cause momentary outages, too. The difference is that the condition that caused the outage, referred to as a “fault,” was a temporary condition. Maybe the branch fell off the line, or the lines stopped slapping together after that vehicle wreck… whatever the case, the condition cleared itself in a way, and devices we install called “reclosers” turned power back on automatically instead of waiting for a lineman to drive to the site and manually restore power. It is a form of self-healing technology.

But that doesn’t make them any less annoying, right? It used to be that if someone’s lights blinked during the day, they only knew it because they came home from work and had to reset the microwave clock. Now, many people have devices in their pockets that are connected to their security systems, thermostats, Wi-Fi routers, smart devices, refrigerators, and so on. And they all notify us when the lights blink. In addition to increased awareness, there is also increased sensitivity (or decreased tolerance) due to the rapid increase in the number of people working from home and attending school virtually. We have seen the expectations of our members rise exponentially over the past decade, and we recognize that.

Power is a finicky thing. It is easily disrupted by many things, especially when exposed to the elements of rural Indiana, but we are working every day to harden our system and maintain it in a way that minimizes all types of interruptions. Our aggressive vegetation program, our construction work plan aimed at upgrading our infrastructure, and utilizing and implementing technology that can help us locate the source of the issue more quickly are all ways we are addressing these issues to prevent them from occurring and diagnose them quickly when they do occur.

Lastly, if you experience excessive power quality issues, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are quick to respond to these issues and start investigating the source.