Reliable Power for Today — and Tomorrow
Ringing in a new year sparks a sense of renewed hope and optimism about the future. As the CEO of Lane-Scott Electric Cooperative, for me, it’s a time to reflect on where we are and where we’re going. At the heart of this reflection, I think about ways we can better serve you, the members of our cooperative.
Our team at Lane-Scott Electric is always looking ahead, exploring ways to innovate and use new technologies to improve our services. As our nation increasingly relies on electricity to power the economy, keeping the lights on has never been more important. We’re committed to powering — and empowering — our community at a cost local families and businesses can afford.
So how are we working to ensure reliable and affordable power while adapting to a changing energy landscape and our community’s evolving needs?
One critical component of reliable power is the mix of energy resources used to generate the electricity that keeps the lights on across our territory. You may not realize it, but Lane-Scott Electric doesn’t generate electricity. Instead, we purchase it from our energy provider, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, and from there, we distribute it to homes and businesses throughout our community. The energy resource mix we receive from Sunflower is made-up of 56.9% natural gas, 27.37% coal, 13.96% wind, 1.57% solar, and .18% H20.
We’re increasingly using more electricity generated from renewable energy sources, but we still depend on a diverse energy mix to ensure reliable power that’s available to our members whenever they need it.
In addition to managing a reliable energy mix, Lane-Scott Electric is using technology to enhance our local grid, limit service disruptions and improve outage response times.
Advanced metering technology, also known as AMI, enables two-way communication between the co-op and consumer-members. In the event of a power outage, AMI helps pinpoint the exact location of the outage and can even analyze damaged or tampered meters. AMI helps Lane-Scott Electric save money with real-time data, and ultimately improves power reliability for our entire community.
Scheduled pole and equipment inspections, and tree trimming are other ways we limit service disruptions. Lane-Scott is also hardening areas on our line by strategically replacing certain wood poles as they are retired with iron poles that will increase the life of the poles and overall system reliability.
One of the best methods for improving our services to you is monitoring trends and leading practices from other electric co-ops in Kansas and across the country. Learning from other co-ops is one of the many benefits of the cooperative business model because for us, it’s about cooperation, not competition.
As we turn our focus to 2024, Lane-Scott Electric will continue working to provide the reliable, affordable, and safe electricity you expect and deserve — for today and tomorrow.