GVEA Board Meeting, Feb. 22, 2021
Board Responds to MAC On-Bill Financing Report
by Jim Schwarber
The Golden Valley Electric Association held its monthly Board of Directors meeting on Monday, February 22, 2021. The open Board meeting started off with Director Brad Benson from Healy presenting a Safety Moment on the topic of cold temperatures and safety tips for being prepared for extended or multi-day power outages. About 36 people participated in the virtual meeting via Microsoft Teams as the educational presentations began. GVEA Board meetings are open for member-owners to attend. The agenda and Member Book for this meeting may be reviewed at: https://www.gvea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/February-22-2021-Member-Book.pdf
Member Survey Results
GVEA External Affairs Director Meadow Bailey introduced Mike Sassman and Jane Sanstead who presented the results of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) 2020 Member Survey. This survey of 482 GVEA member-owners covered many topics about the relationship between customers and GVEA. The Customer Satisfaction Index or ACSI Score in 2020 dropped one point to 73 from 2019’s score of 74. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said that if they had a choice, they would pick GVEA as their electric utility. The primary key driver for member satisfaction was “electric cost & member service.” Forty percent of member-owners usually read the Ruralite magazine. Email is the preferred way people like to receive information from GVEA; just ten percent liked getting information from Facebook.
Bailey presented and discussed the Board of Directors 2020‐2021 Strategic Directive: “Develop a corporate brand and communications strategy that builds trust and maximizes engagement with GVEA members through education, learning, and communication about GVEA, utilizing a multitude of communication mediums and innovative technology platforms.”
The focus of the communications effort is both internally with employees and externally with member-owners to increase their satisfaction and engagement with GVEA. GVEA is developing a monthly email newsletter for outreach.
2020 Reliability Summary
Josh Davis and Nathan Minnema of GVEA gave the second presentation on the 2020 Reliability Summary. First, they defined the basic indices widely used for assessing electric service reliability.
• SAFI = System Average Interruption Frequency Index
• Number of Times per Year Average Customer is Out of Power
• SAIDI = System Average Interruption Duration Index
• Number of Minutes per Year Average Customer is Out of Power
• CAIDI = Customer Average Interruption Duration Index
• Duration in Minutes of Typical Outage
• ASAI = Average Service Availability Index
• Percent of time power was available to our members
Utilities seek to achieve the standard of “Three 9’s” or 99.9% for the ASAI Index. Heavy snow impacted the ASAI target index to just below 99.9% in 2018; the index rebounded to 99.956% and 99.927% in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Seven pages of tables, etc., are available in this meeting’s Member Book.
Member-Owner Comments to Board
Katherine Hennigan from Healy called in to comment regarding Texas and their electrical grid failures during the extreme cold weather event this past week. She said, “Things don’t stay the same;” changes in weather, rain, electrical usage, and climate change need to be more a part of our utility’s plans in the future. ”Our usage will change, too.”
Lisa Baraff of Ester called in and thanked the Board for the opportunity to comment; not all cooperatives provide for this. She applauded the Member Advisory Committee (MAC) and Board for their work on the On-Bill Financing pilot program. She’s concerned with limiting the proposed OBF technology to just three modest types which may not be useful for the broadest range of member-owners. She suggested expanding the pilot program to better serve lower income members by including more technologies that they would find beneficial.
Member-owner Diane Preston commented via chat; she seconded Lisa’s comments and suggested adding residential LED and appliances such as refrigerators or water heaters to the list of eligible technologies for the OBF pilot program.
Update from Member Advisory Committee (MAC)
MAC member Alison Carter gave a lengthy MAC report. At their MAC meeting roundtable they heard concerns from Delta and Healy asking if those areas were fully represented in the Member Survey. The MAC would like more guidance on the OBF pilot program from the Board. There is interest in expanding participation in the MAC Task Force for OBF with more MAC members. There was a comment that the new Benevolent Fund didn’t accommodate phone or mail applications. There was a desire for broadband internet be made available for each member at a reasonable cost.
New Business
The Board accepted the planning committee recommendation to hold the 2021 Annual Member’s Meeting on Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. Once again, this will be virtual meeting. Online registration will take place from April 22 until May 6 at 7 p.m. This year’s Giveaways, via a drive through during the week prior to the meeting, will include a tree and a LED Dusk to Dawn &/or Motion Sensor bulb. Member-owner comments will be accepted via email beginning on May 6 at 6:30 pm through the start of reading member comments at the Annual Meeting. Comments received will be read during the meeting.
The Board wrote off $698,356 of bad debt for 2020 from uncollectable accounts. Of this total, the COVID-19 Adjustment was $483,000. More details may be found on pages 80-83 of the Member Book.
On-bill financing memo
The final item under New Business was an On-Bill Financing memo brought forth by Chair Tom DeLong for Board review and approval (copy after p. 86 in Member Book). The memo spells out additional Board guidance on the OBF draft pilot program to the MAC Task Force. The memo asked the MAC Task Force to provide additional information and context as to whether the Task Force evaluated residential solar PV and if not, why not? Under the banner of Beneficial Electrification, the directors also requested the Task Force's reasons for not including EV charging stations and heat pumps as eligible residential technology. Further, the board felt the initial three technologies recommended have relatively small costs “and would not justify the administrative costs of a loan.” The Board found the Task Force recommendations for adopting the tariffed on-bill financial option sound.
The board also asked the MAC OBF Task Force to provide a clearer idea of their recommendations regarding the goals and objectives of GVEA’s OBF Program. These goals should shape the pilot program.
Chair Tom Delong mentioned he’d received a couple comments from members about national interest in the OBF pilot program report. He urged those members to reach out to the MAC directly through GVEA or to MAC members directly regarding their comments.
During discussion of the memo, several directors voiced support for adding additional renewable technologies to the OBF pilot program. The Board unanimously approved the memo to the MAC.
Gary Newman gave the NRECA Director Advisory Group report. They have completed a director job description template and shared it with the 900 electric cooperatives.
Closing ‘Good of the Order’ comments from Directors:
Brad Benson supports additional technology items be included in the pilot OBF program. He also urged consideration of the Board meeting together in person again.
Rick Solie mentioned the passage of the Bradley Lake Resolution will benefit members.
Gary Newman thanked all for their patience and making technology work for meetings.
Dave Messier thanked staff for their role in last week’s Board retreat.
John Sloan said GVEA should try to improve audio quality.
Chris Bunch thanked staff. He suggested emailing information to members on how to participate in Board Meetings via Microsoft Teams to increase member engagement.
The Board adjourned at 9:02 PM.
