The annual Mountain View Electric Association Lamplighter dinner took place Oct. 19 at the Wedgewood Wedding & Banquet Center in Black Forest. Upon arrival, the guests were given a gift bag with a MVEA lantern. Members also received 2023 calendars with photos submitted by members from across the utilityís territory.Members, current and past directors, employees and other guests, including Doug Lamborn, fifth Congressional District representative, filled the room.Jim Riggins, an MVEA District 7 director, welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced other members of the board. He announced that the directors approved the issuance of $3.1 million in capital credits that will go back to the membership starting in December. After the guests finished dinner, Riggins introduced Mountain View Electric Association Chief Executive Officer Ruth Marks, who was the featured speaker of the evening.Marks welcomed a few special guests and said she hoped guests enjoyed their dessert, a slice of cherry pie, served to represent the membersí personal investment in MVEA. ìYour slice of the pie,î Marks said. She then delved into the summary of MVEAís mission, operations and plans. ìMVEA is safe. It is our highest and most important priority,î she said. ìWhat we do is dangerous, hard work; there is a lot of opportunity for error, and error in the electric utility business can have very significant consequences. We take safety very seriously. Among other metrics we look at when measuring safety is workersí compensation claims, and our ratio of .81 makes us 19% better than the average utility company.îAnother achievement that Marks highlighted was Mountain Viewís reliability. The system average interruption duration index, referred to as SAIDI, is a measurement of how long an average member is out of power for a year ó MVEAís SAIDI during the year is 15 minutes in a year; the U.S. average is 207 minutes and the Colorado average is 150 minutes. ìWe are very proud of that,î Marks said.ìWe are affordable. It might not always feel like it when you get your power bill, but when compared to Colorado Springs Utilities, which is much bigger and denser with many more customers per square mile; MVEAís average customer bill is only about a dollar higher.îMarks also reminded everyone that it is election season and encouraged people to visit the MVEAís website to look at relevant issues affecting cooperatives: http://www.mvea-coop/community/legislative-advocacy.îWe plan to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is injecting more money into the economy for distributive energy resources, energy efficiency, beneficial electrification than we have ever seen before,î Marks said.One of the guests enjoying the dinner meeting was Allen Gresham, a retired MVEA director, who served as a director for 45 years from May 1968 to July 2013. ìI enjoyed being a director,î Gresham said. ìIt was a great time, good people. And I kept getting reelected every three years.î He shared a table with Joe Martin, the president of MVEAís Board of Directors and Rep. Lamborn. ìCongressman Lamborn is a great supporter of cooperatives, and we appreciate that,î Martin said.After the presentation, Marks and Riggins read and answered questions from the members. One of the comments came from Tri Lakes Cares, thanking MVEA members for supporting its mission by rounding up their electric bills. ìThe most it will cost you by rounding up every single bill will be $11.88 in a year,î Marks said.Other questions addressed renewable energy. ìTri-State Generation and Transmission Association, our power supplier, plans on retiring all of their coal powered generation by year 2030, and they are looking for alternative energy resources to replace that ó solar, wind, hydro power as well,î Marks said. ìThe thing they are struggling with and talk a lot about, with all of the legislation pushing us away from the fossil fuels, are the renewable resources there to support reliable energy.î Riggins said there is improvement in the solar panel market conditions after the suspension of all tariffs on solar panels and incentives on domestic production. ìWe think that introduction of self-generation solar will actually save the entire membership money,î he said.Another question was about MVEA incentives for individual members. Riggins said, ìThere are already increased incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act. Credits that were supposed to expire were extended for 10 years, increased to 30%. There are new credits for battery banks.î In response to a question about the disposal of batteries and their environmental impact, Riggins answered that question, too, ìThere have been multimillion-dollar investments made in the battery recycling industry as a result of the automotive industry. A former cofounder of Tesla started up Redwood Materials, a battery recycling company that plans on recycling up to 92% of the battery materials.îìYou guys have been a great crew,î Marks said to the audience after wrapping up the Q&A session. ìYou can grab any one of us individually after the meeting if you have any other questions or comments.î She then thanked everyone for coming to the meeting and commented on how great it was to see so many engaged members.
