View the August 2021 Enlightener online!
In this month’s Enlightener:
We know that COVID-19 has created additional financial hardships, placing an even larger burden on families already struggling to pay their bills or bring their accounts current. If you are experiencing difficulty paying your electric bill, the Energy Assistance Program (EAP) helps pay for home heating costs and furnace repairs for income-qualified homeowners and renters.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce has expanded EAP by raising income eligibility and extending the deadline to apply to Sept. 1, 2021. Households with incomes at or below 60% of the state’s median income may be eligible, which is about $65,000 in annual income for a household of four.
To learn more about the EAP program or to apply for assistance:
North Star Electric Cooperative exists because of you, and we are dedicated to the people and communities we serve. If you are having difficulty paying your electric bill and do not qualify for either of these programs, please contact Sue Williams at 218-278-6658 to set up a payment plan.
North Star has a 1965 Clark CY 70 forklift up for bid. It is propane powered, has 7,000 lbs. lifting capacity, and is located at our Littlefork office.
To be considered, bids need to be delivered to North Star’s Baudette office by 4 pm on Friday, July 2, 2021. Contact Kevin Holen with any questions at 218-634-2202.
Would you like to serve as a director on the North Star Electric Cooperative Board for your district? North Star Electric is governed by a seven-member board of directors elected by our membership. There are seven districts located within our service area, and any co-op member is welcome to run for an open board position within the district that the member’s primary residence is located. Directors elected will serve a four-year term. This year we will have a director election in Districts 5 and 6.
Any member meeting the qualifications as specified in the bylaws of the cooperative may become a candidate for election to the board by submitting a written petition for nomination with the signatures of no fewer than 20 members who are residents of the district for which the election is being held.
The election will take place at the annual meeting on October 1, 2021. Please call 218-634-2202 or stop by our office if you have questions about this process or to pick up a petition for nomination. PETITIONS ARE DUE BY 4 P.M. ON FRIDAY, JULY 30, 2021.
American EV startup Rivian performed cold-weather testing for its newest R1T all-electric pickup truck. Situated far north near the Canadian border in Baudette, Minnesota, the R1T is seen here frolicking in the largest cold-weather testing facility in North America across acres of ice, snow, and forest, where temperatures regularly dip below -30 degrees Fahrenheit during the cold season.
The test facility known as Automotive Enviro Testing (AET), is a former radar base of the United States Air Force and offers up to 25 road courses, including autocross ice test tracks, steep grades, a slush pool, and a combination of surfaces to “capture winter weather at its worst,” said Rivian.
Check out this video about the Rivian team’s experience while testing their vehicles at Baudette’s unique cold-weather test facility. (Spoiler alert: The results were great.)
We know that COVID-19 has created additional financial hardships, placing an even larger burden on families already struggling to pay their bills or bring their accounts current. If you are experiencing difficulty paying your electric bill, the Energy Assistance Program (EAP) helps pay for home heating costs and furnace repairs for income-qualified homeowners and renters.
EAP primary heat grants range from $200 to $1,600 depending on family size, income and energy costs. In addition to primary heat grants, crisis-benefit grants are also available. For the second year in a row, the Minnesota Department of Commerce has increased the maximum annual crisis-benefit grants for qualifying households from $600 to $1,200.
Despite the large infusion of dollars into the EAP program, applications for primary heat benefits are down by about 10%, and applications for crisis benefits are down by about 30%. The EAP application deadline is May 31, 2021, but may possibly be extended until July 1, 2021
To learn more about the EAP program or to apply for assistance:
Minnesota’s Cold Weather Rule also helps to protect and reconnect residential heat from Oct. 15 through April 15.
North Star Electric Cooperative exists because of you, and we are dedicated to the people and communities we serve. If you are having difficulty paying your electric bill and do not qualify for either of these programs, please contact Sue at 218-278-6658 to set up a payment plan.
North Star has three vehicles up for bid. To be considered, sealed bids must be delivered to North Star’s Baudette office by 4 pm on Wednesday, April 21, 2021. Contact Marty Mollberg with any questions on these vehicles at 218-634-2202.
2002 Ford F150 with171,000 miles
2009 Chevy Silverado with 188,000 miles
1996 GMC Digger truck – 4950 engine hours, 112,400 miles – 3116 Caterpillar engine
By Kaylee Cusack , Minnkota Communications Specialist on March 4, 2021
Energy marketers combine reliable resources and demand response to avoid a cold-weather crisis
In mid-February, millions of Texans were learning how to get through brutal winter temperatures with no electricity, while many more were researching how to pay for suddenly enormous power bills.
During that same subzero-weather event, a group of Minnkota energy marketers was getting a lesson on how to protect the cooperative’s members from facing similar ice-cold consequences. And they skillfully passed the test.
“We’ve seen some extreme temperatures locally, and we know how that plays into what we do day-to-day,” said energy marketer Mark Fulbright, who has been with Minnkota less than two years. “But during this event we had the opportunity to see extreme temperatures spread across the country, and how that can add a new dimension to how we handle operations here.”
The “we” that Fulbright refers to is a trio of fairly new additions to Minnkota’s power supply and resource planning department. Along with Fulbright, energy marketers Amber Langemo and Isaac Hoffart were all hired within the past two years, all three missing the last polar vortex event in January 2019. They join experienced energy marketer Dan Trebil, an 8-year veteran of powering through climate anomalies.
“They handled a very stressful situation very well,” said Todd Sailer, senior manager of power supply and resource planning. “Trying to incorporate our demand response, managing the wind forecasts and understanding how the markets work – this was one of those experiences that will end up being very valuable for them in the future.”
Energy marketers Mark Fulbright (left) and Dan Trebil talk over the previous day’s load data. (Minnkota/Michael Hoeft)
What happened?
The nearly two-week February cold snap that essentially crippled the Texas power grid started up north. From approximately Feb. 8-14, Minnkota’s service area experienced some of its coldest temperatures of the stretch. As the polar vortex dropped south, both regional demand and weather-related generation issues began to rise.
Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) – the organization that manages the transmission grid and energy markets of a 15-state region that includes Minnkota’s territory – asked its providers to enter conservative operations Feb. 14-20 and declared a Maximum Generation Event on Feb. 16. Over those days, the combination of expanded regional need and less generation availability (from frozen plants, natural gas pipeline constraints and less production from wind farms across the midsection of the country), made the cost of buying energy from the grid skyrocket.
“We saw prices over $100 all hours of the day starting on Feb. 15, and it lasted four to five days,” Sailer recalled. “We might see it that high for a few hours but, typically, in the last couple of years, it’s been averaging less than $20 per megawatt-hour. So when you’re seeing prices of $200, $400, sometimes up to $900, it completely changes what you’re trying to manage.”
A screen capture from Feb. 13, 2021, shows how high energy market prices had risen in the north at the beginning of the polar vortex, hundreds of dollars higher than average. (Courtesy: MISO)
Minnkota had to protect itself from relying on the volatile market. Although the coal-based Young Station continued to provide electricity reliably throughout the event, wind power generation dropped due to low winds and temperatures. Minnkota’s healthy demand response program – through which members volunteer to have certain electric loads like dual-fuel heating and water heaters controlled for a reduced rate – helped Sailer’s energy marketers decrease the demand on the grid.
“Because we’re scheduling our generation resources into the market, we’re making sure we’re scheduling those resources in the right market. If the power plant’s going to be available or the wind’s going to be available, we’re making sure to schedule that properly,” Sailer explained. “With that, you identify where your exposure is in the market, or maybe identify some opportunities in the market related to our demand response program. We’re making sure we’re doing something that is beneficial to our members and maximizing the value of those resources.”
Ultimately, Minnkota came out of the cold snap with few weather-related service interruptions to its members. There were no rolling blackouts as briefly seen in neighboring grid systems, and no days-long outages as experienced in the south. Minnkota used 84 hours of dual-fuel heat control, which helped avoid high energy market costs. The electricity provided by the Young Station covered the remaining demand and added needed power into the national grid.
“Our value of reliability shined through in a moment where others were facing crisis,” said plant engineering and environmental manager Tim Hagerott, adding that the Young Station is specifically designed to operate in North Dakota’s cold-weather climate. “The majority of our equipment is housed indoors in heated buildings. We also have several systems that utilize heat trace that is covered by insulation to prevent piping and equipment from freezing.”
Minnkota’s Milton R. Young Station continued to perform reliably throughout the cold snap, at times even delivering extra power into the regional grid.
A different situation
In Texas’s unique energy landscape, the situation was starkly different. Many generation resource technologies, including natural gas pipelines, coal plants and wind turbines, could not perform in the once-in-a-century low temperatures. For most of the country, this would mean importing energy from a neighboring grid system operator (such as MISO). However, the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is independent of those grid interconnections.
“They’re somewhat of an island when they start having problems on their system, because they’re limited in bringing in other resources from other regions,” Sailer said. “It was obviously a very extreme weather event for them, so some of their units just weren’t prepared for that cold. It wasn’t just one resource – they were nearly all impacted, which resulted in Texas being isolated.”
This graphic from the ISO/RTO Council (IRC) shows where MISO (in which Minnkota is a member) overlaps the Southwest Power Pool. Also shown is ERCOT, which was limited in its ability to import power from neighboring grids.
Additionally, hundreds of Texas power consumers who were enrolled in programs that connect them directly to wholesale power rates were burned by that week’s market volatility, receiving bills that were thousands of dollars higher than normal. Minnkota and its member cooperatives protect their member- consumers from this price fluctuation by using their own generation resources to limit market exposure.
When the polar vortex finally waned in late February, Minnkota’s energy marketers were able to return to some normalcy – regular work hours, stable market prices and infrequent demand response needs. The adrenaline may have faded, but the newcomer knowledge will stick around for the next time it’s their job to help keep power reliable and affordable.
“This is a unique job in the sense that it seems like we learn something new every day,” Fulbright said, surrounded by his fellow marketers. “And that week was tenfold.”
“It was exciting, because we hadn’t seen anything like that before,” Langemo added. “You can talk about these things in theory, but when you’re actually doing them, it’s a lot different. It was a great way to learn, when you have three other people to bounce ideas off of. That’s one thing with our group – we do function well as a team.”
The board of directors at North Star Electric Cooperative has selected Josh Compton to succeed Ann
Ellis as general manager and CEO following Ellis’s recent retirement. Compton brings great management skills and national cooperative experience to his new job, having recently served as manager of regulatory affairs at the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) in Dulles, Va., and prior to that as a regulatory affairs analyst at Pepco Holdings, Inc. in Washington, D.C.
In his role at CFC, Compton had the opportunity to work with a vast number of electric cooperatives across the United States to provide numerous financial and utility ratemaking consulting services. Along with his professional career, Compton has served as a county commissioner in his rural West Virginia county for a number of years and has a strong background in community relations, working with local, state and federal representatives and maintains a track record of creating positive changes.
“I’m extremely honored to have been selected as the next general manager of North Star Electric
Cooperative. I’ll be joining a very forward thinking organization with top-notch employees who are absolutely dedicated to ensuring our member-owners are provided with the best possible service.
We will continue putting our member-owners first and I will look for new opportunities that benefit them as we move North Star Electric Cooperative into the future,” said Compton.
Compton is in the process of relocating to the Baudette area in the coming months with his wife
Michelle, son Zach and dog Yager.
How is Minnkota managing the cold weather event?
Why are there limited resources available?
Does Minnkota anticipate system issues or outages?
How have Minnkota’s generation resources performed?
What is demand response?
How long will Minnkota be controlling loads through the demand response program?
