The Lazy Days of Summer are Not so Lazy

While we rarely rest here at Volunteer Energy Cooperative, summer is an especially busy time for us. Among our activities during the Summer of 2015 are:  Inspectors are travelling throughout our seventeen-county service area to inspect poles and identify those that need to be replaced or repaired. They also check equipment locations so that system maps can be updated.  Right-of-way crews are trimming trees and vegetation from around poles and wires so that power can be kept reliable and affordable for our members. We travel with four students to Washington, D.C. as part of the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association Washington Youth Tour. This is a nationwide trip that brings hundreds of high school juniors to the nation’s capital each year. It’s a great trip for these young people. Plans are being finalized for our annual membership meeting. This year’s meeting will be held on October 3rd at Meigs Middle School. More information will be coming soon about this event. We continue our project to connect our substations and offices via a fiber optic network. Our plans include adding fiber each year until we can effectively communicate with all VEC personnel and equipment via high capacity connections. Summer storms frequently translate into service calls and outage restoration. Our response time has continued to drop as we use more sophisticated technology to report and record outages. Ongoing substation upgrades include a complete revamp of our Goodfield substation in Meigs County. Personnel worked several weeks to complete this extensive project, which has been needed for several years. Extreme temperatures mean a higher volume of calls from customers wanting to better manage their energy costs. Customer service representatives answer many questions this year regarding energy efficiency measures, heat pump loans, eScore energy evaluations and rebates, Levelized Billing, PayMyWay prepaid billing, and other VEC programs. As the temperatures heat up, rest assured that VEC is working each and every day for our member-owners.