Buckeye Power has been the generation and transmission supplier to Ohio’s electric cooperatives since 1968, producing electricity from power plants and delivering it across the high-voltage transmission network (or “grid”) to each of those 24 electric cooperatives. Throughout this long history, American Electric Power (AEP) has been a partner to Buckeye Power in the generation of electricity — first only at Cardinal Power Plant, but adding more facilities as time went on.
Lineworkers operate under dangerous conditions even on the best of days, so when Mother Nature issues a challenge, they’re more than prepared to answer the call.
More than 40 Ohio lineworkers spent a good chunk of January in Virginia, helping to restore power to more than 80,000 co-op members after a storm there. Then in early February, 63 lineworkers from 20 cooperatives around the state jumped into action to help restore power to more than 30,000 Ohio co-op members when winter storm Landon put a coating of ice over some of the most difficult-to-reach areas of the southern part of the state.
Judy Mercer was just sitting down with her family — all 16 of them — for Thanksgiving dinner in 2014 when the lights in their house near Wingett Run suddenly went dark.
“I’ve lived in the country my whole life, so honestly, I’m used to it,” Judy says. “We were actually thankful because we knew that there were linemen already out working on the problem even by the time we called it in, but that was when we got our generator.”
As it does every year, the flip of the calendar brings both opportunities and challenges, and while our challenges for the coming year are significant, the prospects for 2022 seem exciting. The importance of Ohio’s electric cooperatives getting it right — meeting our challenges and seizing those opportunities — is as important as it’s ever been.
The reliable delivery of electricity to our homes and businesses is always important. We understand that even the slightest interruption of power supply is inconvenient — possibly worse. Over the years, Ohio’s electric cooperatives have built a strong foundation of reliable delivery of service. We pride ourselves on being responsive when a problem arises, despite the fact that because our power system is such a complex network, the cause of power outages isn’t always obvious.
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?
I love this time of year. January, for me, is a time of optimism, when I see all the possibilities ahead of us, which both invite us into the unknown and challenge us to improve.
At the same time, the new year affords us the opportunity to look back at the year that was. Before going into our 2018 priorities, let’s celebrate 2017 — which, looking back, turned out to be a historic year for Ohio electric cooperatives. It was a year in which we:
For Tony Ahern, volunteer service work truly was a leap of faith. It has led him around the world, where he has helped bring water, electricity, and transportation options to those in need.
“When I first started doing these trips, it wasn’t as if I had a grand vision,” he says. “I just wanted to do something, so that’s what I did. I decided I would just go on faith that I would find the right projects. I didn’t need a whole game plan.”
Chuck Chafin has worked on electric lines with the South Central Power Company for 18 years, during which time he’s seen his share of power outages and general destruction both in Ohio, and beyond, caused by extremes in weather.
So while he wasn’t particularly surprised at the damage that he and 72 other lineworkers and supervisors from Ohio’s electric cooperative network found in Georgia in the wake of Hurricane Irma in early September, it still presented a big job.
The electric power “grid” that serves our country is a complex and highly technical system that depends on hundreds of organizations working together, each responsible for specific roles, to make it work. Its reliability and stability also depend on common-sense rules from federal regulators and power system operators that direct the actions of electricity providers, both large and small. I have voiced my concerns, on occasion, about ill-conceived or over-reaching regulations that add costs or undermine reliability with little or no benefit to consumers.
