Pictured (L-R) above are Hydaker-Wheatlake employees who played a lead role in gathering materials for Michigan’s “Partners for Power” project in Guatemala: Craig Felos, Kevin Hills, Dan Nelson, Steve Hooker, and Rich Langworthy (not pictured). A 40-foot container filled with transformers, fuse cutouts, wire, tooling and other hardware needed to bring electricity to the village of Buena Vista, Guatemala, was shipped on Aug. 20 [...]
Construction of the Ontonagon County REA’s new Boston Substation has started, and the project is on-target to have contract work completed by Oct. 16. Wolverine Power Cooperative is managing the project, which involves design and construction of the substation and related distribution facilities. “This project would never have happened without Wolverine,” says Debbie Miles, Ontonagon’s general manager. “The substation and related upgrades were needed [...]
This year’s U.P. Energy Summit will feature a Michigan Public Service Commission panel discussion, moderated by Don Ryan, and staffed by MPSC chairman John Quackenbush, and commissioners Sally Talberg and Norm Saari. Other speakers include representatives from MISO, the utility industry, and more. The event will be held Sept. 30 at Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, and will also cover perspectives on local, state [...]
The storm last week left more than 40,000 Great Lakes Energy members without power. The co-op sent the video below along with a message to thank members for their patience and understanding. Produced in-house, the compelling video has had nearly 8,300 views. Check it out, it's well worth the four minutes it takes to watch it.
You’ll soon notice a new MECA logo on communications from the Michigan Electric Cooperative association. “Our logo had a tired, dated feel that doesn’t reflect the energy of MECA today,” commented CEO, Craig Borr, about the MECA logo that had been in use since the 1980’s. “MECA has transformed the way it does business in recent years, and we've made significant improvements to the [...]
A tornado touchdown and powerful thunderstorms with high winds damaged the power lines and areas served by nearly all nine electric co-ops and many municipal utilities on Aug. 2. “This storm, much like those from 2012 and 2013, was ‘all-in’, meaning almost every co-op and municipal that the MECA Safety team serves [...]
To help members understand which part of their electric service is their responsibility and which part resides with the co-op, HomeWorks Tri- County has created a short video to show these differences. The co-op says this issue has come up in the past after wind and ice storms, when members waited for co-op crews to repair their service instead of calling a licensed electrician. [...]
Great Lakes Energy (GLE) will again hold two energy seminars this fall to help their members learn about home heating and cooling options with geothermal and air-source heat pumps and the co-op’s Energy Optimization (EO) programs that offer incentives to help save energy. Incentives include rebates for buying furnaces with variable speed blower motors, heat pump water heaters, refrigerators, TVs, lighting, and more. In [...]
Michigan Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) has announced that its 2015 Outstanding Earth Steward Award will go to Art Thayer, energy efficiency director for the Michigan Electric Cooperative Association (MECA). Thayer will receive the award at IPL’s Green & Grow Your Congregation conference on Oct. 9 at The Peoples Church in East Lansing. The awards ceremony, hosted by Valerie Brader, executive director of the new [...]
According to Danny Janway, the world is smaller than most of us give it credit for and it’s all part of the “Quilt of Life” - a patchwork of people and events that blend together to define us all. Janway grew up in the utility industry - his dad worked 28 years for Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OGE) - and remained in the field [...]
