Twenty years ago the most obvious change was new innovations in the equipment used on power lines. Bucket trucks came out with equipment handling capabilities; underground plowing machines had 4-wheel drive available!

In more recent years change came in automation of how we do business; the addition of AMR (automatic meter reading) has really changed things. Bigger faster computers, automatic bill paying and the list goes on.

Well, change continues; this year new programmable controls were installed on all of the regulators on our system. Regulators control the line voltage which insures the voltage to our homes is correct. Existing controls are of the vintage with tubes, diodes and zeners, and information had to be manually read. New controls are solid state with programmable software that will insure proper voltage levels and can be monitored by computer.

The next change already planned will be end of line monitors; sometimes I wonder how the lights stayed on without this technology.

Line crews follow the route of the Right Of Way contractor each winter checking the conditions of lines, revamping old services and removing old idle services.

The removal of idle services has become an issue in some cases. Rural Utility Service requires as part of our loan agreement that less then 10% of our electric services be idle services. We serve around 5200 services so no more then 520 services can be non-consuming at one time. The services removed are the ones that have been idle for a long time and need to be revamped to be reenergized. If you have an idle service and require that it not be removed, the service would have to be reconnected and pay a monthly fee.

If there are any questions please call our office.