Energy Transition in Rural America (Spring 2022) - Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association
By Aileen Cole and Megan Schmaltz
Wright-Hennepin is celebrating their 85th anniversary as an electric cooperative.
On Tuesday, April 26, 2022, the Energy Transition in Rural America class visited Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association (Wright-Hennepin). Wright-Hennepin is Minnesota’s fourth-largest electric cooperative and is currently celebrating its 85th anniversary as a rural power provider. Wright-Hennepin is also a member of Great River Energy (GRE), Minnesota’s largest electric generation and transmission cooperative. In 2019, Wright-Hennepin renegotiated its power supply contract with GRE to allow for increased flexibility and greater member control.. This was done in part to better manage risk by increasing power supply diversity which includes a greater share of renewable energy resources.
During the visit, President & CEO Tim Sullivan and Vice President of Power Supply and Business Development Bob Sandberg spoke to the class about the co-op’s membership, history, core values, service territory, operations, and key challenges. Later, Vice President of Human Resources Jennifer Severson gave the class a tour of the Wright-Hennepin facility.
President & CEO Sullivan began his presentation by noting the morning’s unusually cold weather as an indication of the need for a nimble, flexible, and reliable grid, especially given that the class had originally intended to visit Wright-Hennepin in February, but the field trip had to be rescheduled due to severe blizzard conditions.
Historic electrical line maintenance vehicle outside of the Wright-Hennepin office
In fact, flexibility is a key to Wright-Hennepin managing the path forward. Through advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) deployment, beneficial electrification, distributed resource generation, and more, Wright-Hennepin is preparing for future grid responsiveness and energy accessibility needs. Wright-Hennepin pursues flexibility not only in system management and power resource diversification, but also in financial management through its for-profit subsidiaries: Wright-Hennepin Holding Company provides businesses ranging from security system installation, an international response center, and commercial & industrial backup power generation. In addition, WH Services offers tree trimming and appliance repair services to its members and customers.
Through one of its for-profit subsidiary branches, Wright-Hennepin offers tree services including invasive pest management to its customers.
Wright-Hennepin identified four core challenges that it is currently facing or preparing to face in the near future. The co-op openly acknowledges that though these challenges will be difficult to overcome, they also present significant opportunities.
The first core challenge that Wright-Hennepin is facing is its rapidly growing system. Population growth across the co-op’s service territory has increased significantly over the last 15 years, having gone from only 675 new service enrollments in 2008 to 1,243 new service enrollments in 2021. To address this, Wright-Hennepin plans to significantly increase its electrical load-bearing capacity and deployment infrastructure. Currently the co-op has 28 substations, but in the next three to four years they plan on building or upgrading an additional five substations. Such upgrades come at a high price (since 2019 Wright Hennepin’s capital costs have increased by 60%), but maintaining reliable service is central to the co-op’s core mission.
Next, Wright-Hennepin identified challenges associated with integrating technology. To meet future needs and serve future demands, Wright-Hennepin has identified the need to significantly invest in their technological infrastructure. To enhance energy data monitoring and support energy efficiency initiatives, Wright-Hennepin is deploying AMI, (a $12 million investment), replacing demand management receivers (a $4 million investment), and implementing a new supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) (a $4 million investment). Wright-Hennepin is also working towards integrating and accommodating electric vehicles. This is a topic of particular importance for Wright-Hennepin as their member base has been identified as likely early adopters of electric vehicles.
A third challenge, but also a necessary step in integrating new technologies into Wright-Hennepin’s rapidly growing system, is building the grid of the future. The grid must be updated to support new technologies, and this need becomes even more urgent given Wright-Hennepin’s growing urban customer base. For example, because households across Wright-Hennepin’s service territory are a likely to be early adopters of electric vehicles, which greatly increase the amount of energy used by a residence, the co-op’s existing distribution network will need to be upgraded to address this transformation. Wright-Hennepin must conduct extensive short- and long-range planning to build a system that can accommodate these needs.
As always, Wright-Hennepin remains driven by its primary vision of delivering safe, reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy, a challenge in and of itself. Wright-Hennepin strives to outperform regional investor-owned utilities and remain a top 10 percent industry performer in safety, reliability, member satisfaction, and financial management. As demonstrated by the inclement weather that delayed our initially scheduled field trip, grid reliability is a rapidly growing concern. By continuing to serve its customers in the face of such challenges, Wright-Hennepin can remain a high-performing provider.
In demonstration of Wright-Hennepin’s vision of an electrified future, employees can use one of the co-op’s own electric vehicles for work trips.
Wright-Hennepin views beneficial electrification as a path to not only meeting these challenges, but also rising above them. Wright-Hennepin has pursued electrical services and programming that support electrification, and also displays to its employees and members alike that beneficial electrification is their path forward. The co-op has its own electric vehicle that employees can use for work trips, and even hosted an electric vehicle car show in its parking lot to display the many vehicle options available to support its path forward.
Wright-Hennepin demonstrates that the energy transition presents challenges, but also offers novel ways to rise to those challenges and provide services that were once impossible. Rather than waiting to address challenges as they come, Wright-Hennepin demonstrates how strategic short- and long-term planning for both service delivery and internal corporate management can guide co-ops through large-scale systemic changes.