Safe, Clean, Reliable, and Affordable: I often use these words to describe the electric power supply that Buckeye Power and all of the electric cooperatives around the state strive to provide to our member-consumers. Each of these words is important to us, and each has a different measure of success.
Reliable may be the easiest for you to observe. Do the lights come on every day? Is the supply adequate for your needs? When something occasionally causes a power outage, is power restored quickly?
Affordable is a little harder; your bill, in part, depends on how much electricity you consume, and that’s often driven by the weather. Even as wildly unpredictable as Mother Nature can be, every co-op aims to hold costs as low as possible — and as steady as possible — while still keeping your service reliable, clean, and safe.
Clean is tougher still, because it’s a relative term. While electricity is the cleanest form of energy you can use in your home or business, there are environmental impacts from the fossil fuels used to produce most of that power, and also from the footprint that our facilities require to distribute it to your home. We have, however, worked diligently over the past 20 years to minimize those impacts, and we are proud to operate some of the cleanest power plants of their kind in the world.
Safe is the most important one. It’s also easy to take for granted, even to overlook. But electricity is powerful and must be respected. While the systems that produce and deliver electricity to your home have been designed specifically with safety in mind, maintaining that safety, all the way from the plant to your light switch, requires training, personal commitment, and constant vigilance.
Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives, the statewide association that provides services to each of the co-ops around the state, has made particular efforts to help improve workplace safety — evidenced by our lineworker training program that has become one of the finest in the industry, with a laser focus on safety. Further, last year was the safest year of operations on record for the staff at our power plants. We’ll work hard to make 2018 even better.
Cold winter weather presents plenty of hazards in our daily routine. Please take a moment each day to consider how you stay safe in your own home and workplace, take precautions to prevent unsafe acts, and help make 2018 as safe as possible.
