Manager Connection: Addressing Annual Meeting Questions
General Manager Syd Briggs
It is always great to have our annual meeting and hear from our members. This year we had over 1,000 attend the meeting (representing almost 500 memberships), served pork chops, reported on our activities for the past year, and on upcoming changes to the industry.
Our finances are strong, we have plans to continue to retire significant amounts of capital credits to our members who are contributing to our cost of service and margins, and we are looking forward to some opportunities for growth and expanded rebates.
Briggs addressed attendees at Steele-Waseca’s
89th annual meeting, June 3, at its headquarters in Owatonna.
One of the questions that we heard from our members was about transmission line extensions and upgrades in our service area.
Our power supplier, Great River Energy (GRE), is very involved in the transmission infrastructure that serves us, and provided the following information for next year and the near future. In 2026, Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric is planning a new distribution substation in the city of Medford which requires a new transmission tap, switch, and metering package. This is a small, but very beneficial transmission project that will be a boost to reliability for the Medford area.
In 2027, there will be 11 miles of transmission rebuild from St. Olaf Lake to Matawan. This is a major improvement to a transmission line that will increase the conductor size and therefore the capacity of service.
In addition, in about the next five to six years, there are plans to replace about 14 miles of transmission line in the Owatonna and Faribault area that will greatly improve and increase the capacity size of the conductor. These efforts are significant in cost and coordination, and obviously require calculated studies and long-term planning, and are a significant reason Steele-Waseca members have great experiences in daily reliability.
Another question involved an update on electric vehicles on the Steele-Waseca system. We continue to see more electric vehicles in our area, and estimate there are about 50 on our system, although we continue to have several charging stations in which many people in addition to our members charge their vehicles as they pass through our area. The growth is good for the members of Steele-Waseca; it is steady growth that usually occurs at night when we have the most abundant availability of power; and it is well within our capacity.
In addition, we had a question on data center activity in our area. Steele-Waseca has been involved with a proposed data center for the past year. It would also be good for the members to have growth of this type to help spread cost of infrastructure and provide added rate stability. It is not an overwhelming load for us or for GRE, which gives us hope for SWCE and the economic development in our service territory. Again, it is an honor to serve our membership every day, and I enjoyed being at the annual meeting to provide information and reports on yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Growth
#swceGROWTH
