The Power of Connections

Through this upgrade, CREC also replaced its inefficient monthly practice of manual meter reading with an automated system that accurately collects meter readings continually. The integrated system also reports accurate, real-time outage data to operations staff, enabling engineers and linemen to diagnose problems more quickly. “Rather than reacting to an unexpected outage, we’re able to analyze voltage patterns and be more proactive to minimize future outages,” says AMI Coordinator Neal Harrell, who was actively involved in the system-wide meter replacement program. “We’re now able to see things that we can correct during normal business hours and minimize the chance that there’s a sudden loss of power at 2 a.m.” Other maintenance benefits include power line and transformer load analysis to help plan line capacity upgrades, improve system reliability, resolve blinks and outages, and improve underground fault detection. “When we had manual meter readers, if we were able to read 97 percent of the meters in a month, that was considered a big month,” says Harrell. “Now we’re reading 99.97 percent of our meters on a consistent daily basis.” New Troy Headquarters Positions CREC for the Future In the summer of 2020, Cuivre River Electric opened the doors to a new home base in Troy. Adjacent to its previous headquarters, the $20 million building replaced an aging structure that could no longer meet the needs of employees and members. “Part of the former building was 60 years old, and maintenance issues were growing,” mentions Tracy. “Since our last addition in 2000, we’d almost doubled the number of meters we serve, so space was tight, especially back in the operations area where there wasn’t enough space for our trucks and equipment.”

Troy employees gathered outside of the old building for a photo on its last day before demolition to make way for the new building’s parking area.

28 Cuivre River Electric Cooperative